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YANKTON, S.D. (AP) — Though Mary Pistulka has worked at Avera as a hospice nurse for 26 years, she believes she is still a student.
"The patients always teach me more than I teach them," she said. "What I learned the most from them is to appreciate my life and my health and to recognize that family, faith and friends are what matter."
Pistulka, a registered nurse for Yankton's Avera@Home, has been named one of the top 10 finalists in the running for the National Association for Home Care (NAHC) and Hospice Nurse of the Year for 2014.
"I feel honored. Hospice care is so dear to my heart," Pistulka said. "To be recognized among other home care and hospice people means a lot."
She is the only South Dakota nominee this year, the Yankton Press and Dakotan (http://bit.ly/1ryjWui ) reported.
At Avera, Pistulka has been a lead nurse for the hospice program developed in Yankton. Pistulka continues to expand this program by meeting with physicians and people in nursing homes so they really understand what hospice is about.
"There are plenty of people that could benefit from hospice but don't know about or don't want to talk about it," Pistulka said. "The doctors don't always think of it as soon as they should."
Every year, NAHC encourages members to nominate a nurse for the award. The group then selects one nurse out of each state and recognizes them in its CARING magazine.
Pistulka was nominated and pushed by Avera Regional Patient Director Jean Hunhoff to apply for the award. Hunhoff hired Pistulka 26 years ago, and they have worked together ever since.
"Mary lives the Avera mission, and that's serving the patient and family as if they were Christ," Hunhoff said. "Mary exemplifies that mission in the care she delivers."
Hunhoff said that Pistulka is calm, patient and reassuring.
"With people facing death, she takes these qualities and helps that patient on that journey," Hunhoff said.
NAHC selected its 10 finalists based on an evaluation of their credentials and essays the nominees wrote.
Though Pistulka said she had many wonderful stories she could have shared about people that she has taken care of, one stood out. She decided to write about a challenging, unforgettable hospice patient.
"This gentleman pushed back a lot. He was a retired trucker who smoked a ton," she said. "He was on oxygen continually and wanted to smoke while he was on oxygen."
She said the two argued about the risk he was putting not only on himself, but his significant other and home when he smoked on oxygen.
"We found ways to compromise. I told him that he can smoke on the porch without his oxygen. But sometimes he would forget," she said. "I started getting pushback from the hospice team."
She said they told her that they shouldn't be facilitating something that wasn't safe and that the patient should probably be put in the nursing home.
"In a nursing home, he wouldn't be able to smoke at all. He wouldn't be able to do things in his daily routine that he was so used to doing at home," Pistulka said. "He was pushing back this way and the team was pushing back the other way. I knew I had to advocate for him. I thought as long as the team knew the risks they were taking with him, we could meet him halfway."
So Pistulka said she set up many "family meetings" with the patient, his girlfriend and the staff to make some compromises so he could stay at home.
"The most important thing for him was to live at home and die at home. We were able to do that," Pistulka said, "It's not about how we want things. It's about the last part of their living going the way they want it to end."
Pistulka said that through her work, she has had the privilege to meet and learn from some amazing people.
"I have met a lot of people in this community and in surrounding communities in ways that they probably rather would have not have met me. It's at a time when a loved one is dying," she said. "But I have had the opportunity to meet a lot of incredible people that way. I have seen family caregivers step up and grow themselves, and do things they never would have done because of the hospice team coming in and teaching them and supporting them. I am inspired and touched by their care."
Pistulka said that she has taken care of many people in the last 26 years, and every single one of them was somebody special. To be allowed into that sacred circle in a family's home during that important moment in someone's life is truly an honor.
"The secret of success is to find the gift that God gave you and find a place to use it successfully," Pistulka said. "I think hospice has done that for me."
Pistulka hopes to attend the NAHC Annual Meeting and Exposition Oct. 19-22 in Phoenix, where the winner will be announced.
The public is invited to visit NAHC's website to vote for this year's winner on its website.
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Information from: Yankton Press and Dakotan, http://www.yankton.net/
This is an AP Member Exchange shared by the Yankton Press and Dakotan
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