From left foreground: Tim Rogers, NAHC President Val J. Halamandaris, and Kim, Randy, Nicole, and Kyle Hebert


And the Curtain Rises:
A Salute to the Family of Randy and Kim Hebert, Who Was Named 2006 Clara Barton National Caregiver of the Year (From National Association for Home Care & Hospice's Daily News Source for the Home Care Industry)
Baltimore, October 19, 2006

Family Caregiver Kim Hebert and Family, Friends Helped Nation's Veterans Get Care They Need, and Preserve Dignity and Family Life for Her Husband -- Whom Nerve Gas and Ensuing Illness Have Rendered Only Able to Communicate by Moving His Eyes

Neither politician nor celebrity, but a marching band actually started things off at the National Association for Home Care & Hospice's 25th Annual Meeting in Baltimore, providing some key notes and also closing things on a high one at an emotional opening general session Sunday afternoon. After the band, NAHC Annual Meeting Committee Chairman and session speaker Ellen Bolch, MSN, MHA welcomed attendees, and Kim Hebert, who was joined by her husband Randy, children Nicole and Kyle, and friends at the meeting, was presented the Clara Barton National Caregiver of the Year Award.

Named after the Civil War battlefield nurse, teacher, and civil rights advocate who founded the American Red Cross, the recipient of this award must exemplify the work of this extraordinary person, and to have brought about significant change for the good of many. Mrs. Hebert was nominated for the award by the nurses and staff of nonprofit home care agency and Goldsboro, N.C.-based NAHC member 3HC/Home Health & Hospice Care, Inc.

A sobering moment occurred, bringing another reminder of the importance of family and loved ones came as NAHC Chief Operating Officer Mitch Opalski had to interrupt the proceedings for an emergency announcement of the news from Hawaii of the 6.7 magnitude earthquake that hit Sunday and caused some damage, so NAHC members who have come from that state could verify the safety of loved ones.

Tim Rogers, CEO of the Association for Home and Hospice Care of North Carolina and the South Carolina Home Care Association and an active part of the Forum of State Associations, presented the award. Rogers noted that hospice and home care agencies work in partnership with and help instruct family caregivers, who studies have shown provide care often under such significant physical, mental, and financial stress that their own health suffers; many do not outlive the loved one they are caring for. The uncompensated care they provide would cost billions, and there is no way to account for helping a loved one hold onto dignity when faced with life-threatening and debilitating illnesses and conditions.

"We all know in home care and hospice that family caregivers are very special individuals, logging far too numerous hours to count, providing care at a tremendous financial savings to our federal and state programs -- and they are still always able to teach health care providers a thing or two," Rogers said. "This year's National Caregiver of the Year describes her husband as being in perfect condition before coming back from the first Gulf War. In 1995, our award recipient's husband was diagnosed with ALS [amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a.k.a. Lou Gehrig's disease] as a result of nerve agent exposure during Operation Desert Storm.

"As the disease weakened her husband's body from a run to a walk -- to a wheelchair -- our award recipient's strength, strengthened him and those around her. Even though her husband is on a ventilator and can only communicate with his eyes, she says, quote, 'It is important to be allowed to be a man, to be the head of the household, to continue to be a father and a husband.'

"She states, 'Nothing has changed; we still go out to dinner as a family, we go on vacation, we attend our son's karate lessons, our daughter's soccer games, our children's PTA meetings, and we go to the movies.'" Rogers recognized Mrs. Hebert as a leader.

"When it comes to highly-skilled care, our award winner is a care leader, not just a caregiver. Whether it's advanced skin care techniques, administering medications via g-tube, setting up the ventilator or suctioning the trach, or identifying some of the stress and how to intervene -- our nominee has worked to achieve expert status from instruction and hands-on review."

"To ensure that she knows the newest caregiving techniques, our nominee travels to the North Carolina Veterans Administration Hospital and to Duke's Hospital to their ALS clinics at least quarterly, where she brings back information and shares with other ALS caregivers," Rogers said. He added that the skills she'd learned had also helped in an emergency response situation.

"Her ability to master the aspects of her husband's care and intervene was highlighted recently during Hurricane Ophelia. She found herself cut off from emergency care with no phone service and no power, yet she was able to implement the emergency protocols, calm her husband, get the generator running and reset the ventilator without an incident," said Rogers. "While others may say that she has lost a career or that her dreams have been 'put on hold,' she says this: 'My husband is my job. And although I have given up many possessions to keep him home, I have found through my faith I have gained much more than I've ever lost.'"

Dignity, Equality, and Justice

Rogers noted that Mrs. Hebert has been an "imminent figure in the field of ALS advocacy." Recounting Mrs. Hebert's efforts to help her husband testify before the U.S. Congress, Rogers said, "In 1996 -- on our behalf -- she sat side by side with her husband as he testified before the United States House Government and Oversight Committee regarding his exposure to nerve gas during Operation Desert Storm.

"Our nominee not only provided physical support for her husband during the hearing, but also took questions for him from members of Congress and then translated the answers back. She's appeared on the PBS news show FRONTLINE and she chaired North Carolina's Walk to Defeat ALS in Emerald Isle, North Carolina, which raised a state record $156,000.

"What sets this recipient apart is her unbridled commitment to ensure that all the veterans in this country afflicted with ALS, not just her husband, are cared for and they're not forgotten.

"As a result of her efforts, in 2001 the Department of Defense admitted that there was a link between ALS and wartime service, and moreover that all those afflicted with this disease were to from now on be awarded lifetime health care benefits," Rogers said. "The rarest of rare, our award winner was able to reach beyond the bounds of her own plight to capture the imagination of a cause and to ensure dignity, equality, and justice."

When her husband was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease and she became aware of what it would do to him, Mrs. Hebert said she prayed that she could get the disease instead. "I remember going to bed that night and praying to God and asking him to give me this illness instead of my husband, because I just thought he'd be a better provider than I could be for him.

"In my dream when I went to bed I just kept praying, 'Lord, give me this illness, don't let my husband be sick. And I fell fast asleep just praying, and in my dream I dreamt that God gave me a Bible verse and the next morning I woke up and I looked up that Bible verse. And I -- in that Bible verse, it was 1 Kings Chapter 3 -- and I'm not going to read it to you, but I encourage you to go home and look this verse up, because within that dream God promised me many things. He promised me a long life for my husband, He promised me many blessings because I asked this of Him.

[In keeping with Mrs. Hebert's words, NAHC Report will not include that chapter she refers to here. But if you would like to read it, here are links to:]

WebBible.net provided by ChristianAnswers.net (King James Version)

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (New American Version)

"One of those blessings was that He kept my husband alive for twelve years with this illness. He's not only kept him alive, but He's kept him with a good spirit and a good attitude which made it easy for me and my children to be able to handle this disease.

"Another blessing is He surrounded us with many rich friendships that help us through every day; and one more, also, blessing is that He provided us with a home care agency that has compassion." She asked an audience member to stand up and be recognized: Bobby Shoemake, who 3HC says believed Mrs. Hebert should be recognized for her remarkable efforts as a caregiver. "I had been to her home and had seen her interact with Randy and I witnessed, firsthand, the great care she provided for him," he said

Mrs. Hebert said home care and hospice providers had helped her in unique ways -- in particular because of how home health and hospice work when done right, learning about families' needs face-to-face and in their own homes, coordinating care and helping educate caregivers while taking in the more complete structure, situation, and combined needs of all those involved.

"I'm sure that all of the agencies represented in this auditorium are the same as 3HC in Goldsboro, but I only know 3HC in Goldsboro," she said. "And what sets you apart from anything else I know is that you have personally come to my home and met my family. You understand our needs, you put a face to my family so we know who you are -- but you also know who we are, and what our needs are."

As golden good as so many home care and hospice professionals are, no one can provide care or such spirit-buoying vital to beating illnesses like a spouse or other dearly loved one can provide. Yet Mrs. Hebert noted the compassion of these health care providers, different and better because of who they were, what they are doing, and how they did it and do it still.

"You sent women to our house that have faith as we do and that have compassion. You can have all the technical skills, but if you don't have the compassion with the technical skills, then you're lacking something. And families like ours really need everything; we need the technical skills with the compassion," she said.

She thanked home care and hospice, the people who "go into families' hands like ours and take the time to really not only do the job but go beyond your job, and take care of our husbands and our sick ones, so that our loved ones aren't confined to a hospital." She added that if a home care agency forms this kind of comprehensive personal relationship with families like hers, it "makes all the difference in the world, and I thank every one of you for taking the time to take care of sick and elderly and the people that need you the most, because you do make a difference in our lives."

We try to keep things on the level in NAHC Report so we would not usually say this, but it must be said: To be in the presence of people of this quality can simply overwhelm you.

Fighting some emotion back himself as he described his own recent battle with cancer, former Chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.) also was featured in the session. Tauzin is now CEO of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, an acronym many know well and also a way to spell/say what you could lop off as the group's nickname, "Pharma."

Many also know that this organization's members offer programs for those who cannot afford medications and develop drugs that can save or prolong people's lives from aggressive, debilitative illnesses like ALS. Tauzin received the NAHC Lifetime Achievement Award, named after one of the few it is hard to find someone to disagree was a saint living among us but recently, Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
http://www.catfishchapter.org/news/Hebert.html