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On duty: Hollidaysburg Veterans Home marks National Skilled Nursing Care Week with visit by Nurse Honor Guard

Following a ceremony Wednesday at the Hollidaysburg Veterans Home to mark "National Skilled Nursing Care Week," retired licensed practical nurse Gretchen Eardley was sitting next to resident Phyllis Woodring, a widow who has had a stroke and who was sitting in a wheelchair.

Eardley had never met Woodring before, but it wasn't long before Eardley was holding the hand of the older woman, who, when asked how she felt about that, said, "Oh, it's wonderful."

Being able to make that kind of connection -- "to be there for them" -- was what drew her to nursing, particularly gerontology, said Eardley, who was at the home with 10 other members of the Central Pennsylvania Nurse Honor Guard, an organization whose primary mission is to ensure that nurses get a proper final sendoff.

At Wednesday's event, Honor Guard members took turns reciting a series of statements designed to express what being a nurse means: "You will never be bored. You will always be frustrated. You will be surrounded by challenges. (You have) so much to do and so little time. ... You will step into people's lives and you will make a difference. ...You will see people at their worst -- and at their best."

Afterward, the nurses mingled with 20 or so residents who'd come to watch, and the interaction was cheerful, but the typical activities of the Honor Guard have a more solemn cast: the group attends services in churches, funeral homes and gravesides for nurses who have died -- or in some cases, for nurses in hospice or who are otherwise near death.

The protocols for such events are similar those for first responder honor guards, including a "last call."

In the case of nurses, there is a eulogy, then a statement that echoes the familiar call over the loudspeaker system in a hospital for a nurse to report to a patient's room.

The call goes out three times.

When there is no answer, the deceased nurse is told that she has been released from duty, and that her colleagues "will take it from here," said Donna Cunningham, a retired registered nurse and Honor Guard member.

There's a prayer and presentation to survivors of a Nightingale lamp, a replica of the kind of lamp used by Florence Nightingale, founder of modern nursing, who tended to wounded soldiers in the Crimean War.

There's a lit candle in the lamp, and one of the members blows it out.

Unlike military and police honor guards, there are no rifle shots as part of the protocol.

"We shot them before," Eardley said, referring to needles, while exemplifying one of the other statements in Wednesday's litany -- that being a nurse means "You will laugh a lot."

"We have different weapons," said Donna Detwiler, Honor Guard member and retired RN.

Honor Guard members watch the obituaries, and when they spot one for a nurse, the organization reaches out to the funeral home handling the arrangements and offers its services, members said.

Nursing is not just a job, but rather a calling, according to Eardley.

It provides practitioners the opportunity to be there for people at birth, at death and in between, during the critical times, she said.

It's rewarding, but it's also demanding, sometimes requiring 12- or even 14-hour shifts, she said.

The profession engages the "head, the hands and the heart," and likewise involves caring for the whole person of the patient, Cunningham said.

Eardley became a nurse because it was a tradition in her family, she said.

Cunningham wanted to become a nurse from the time she was 4 years old, she said.

Detwiler became a nurse after developing the caring habit from tending to the needs of her disabled sister.

"It became a part of who I was," she said.

That part reached its apotheosis in taking care of her husband Ronald, who had leukemia, in his final illness, Detwiler said.

He died 10 years ago.

"I was glad to be able to do that," she said.

The Central Pennsylvania Nurse Honor Guard, a chapter of the National Nurse Honor Guard, is welcoming new members.

LPNs, RNs, both current and former, can call Cindy Bowman at 814-207-3310.

Nurses who would like to join a newly formed Cambria County chapter can call Natalie Barlick-Reed at 814-931-6966.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.