Client Success Stories

In-home Care Changes Lives - Pat Gould
Four years ago, Pat Gould’s doctor said she would live only six months. The 83-year-old mother of two has congestive heart failure and emphysema. But with around-the-clock care, she continues to live in an independent care facility and enjoy the visits of her three grandchildren and a great-grandchild.

Gould has a place in Omaha history. She was beside her brother, James M. Paxson, as he directed the building of the Gerald Ford Birthsite and Gardens on the former president’s birth site in east Omaha.

Paxson, former president of the Standard Chemical Co., came up with the idea for the memorial, funded it and then donated it to the City of Omaha. He later became friends with President Ford and funded the Gerald Ford Conservation Center in Omaha.

“And when Ford came for the dedication of the Conservation Center, my mother was there in a wheelchair,” said her daughter, Carol Adams. “She went with my uncle to functions and donated a lot of things to the Ford Memorial.”

Dining room chairs with needlepoint seats that Gould’s mother created are part of a set donated to the memorial. Memorabilia from various presidents also was donated.

The brother and sister grew up together in the Fremont Masonic Home. Their widowed mother could not care for them. “They lived side by side on Pacific Street until he died,” Adams said. “She still really misses him.”

When he passed away five years ago, Paxson left a trust fund for his sister’s continuing care.

Gould and her husband divorced in 1958, and she moved back to Omaha from California. Gould was always there for her two daughters as they grew up. Her other daughter lives in Boulder, Colorado.

“I can never remember coming home to an empty house,” Adams said. “She’s not going to have an empty house either.”

Gould has three grandchildren and a great grandchild.

“We see each other all the time,” Adams said. “Every Sunday she comes to my house, and every holiday or birthday, we take her out in her wheelchair. If she’s feeling good and the weather is nice, and I don’t think anyone is running around with the flu, I take her to the mall.”

Living in independent care at Risen Sun Christian Village in Council Bluffs, Gould has had in-home care 24-hours a day for three years. Adams recently retired from Lucent Technology, so she could spend more time with her mother.

The mainstays from Right At Home are caregivers Marlene Allmon and Marva Pierson. They help Pat Gould shower and dress in the morning and prepare breakfast. They ensure that she takes her medicine and breathing treatments for her emphysema.

They help her select her lunch, and someone spends the night.

“They tell me if they see any changes,” Adams said. “I think what happens to a lot of people as they get older is things start to go wrong and, before anyone notices, it’s too late to fix it.”

She said the quality of people from Right At Home is what makes it work for her mother. Without the in-home care, Gould would be in a nursing home, her daughter says. “Nursing homes have three nurses for 40 people and do things on their schedule, not hers,” she said. “Now she can eat when she wants to, watch TV and be independent.”

“It’s real important to her to be independent.”

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