GREENFIELD — A local nursing home employee has been named the Certified Nursing Assistant of the Year at the Indiana Health Care Convention and Expo.
Brenda Foster, a CNA at Golden Living Brandywine for 31 years, cares for about 15 patients a day, seeing to their basic needs like eating and bathing, as well as things that make them feel like themselves, including putting on lipstick just right or spending time outdoors, she said.
“I started here when I was 19 and I never looked back,” she said. “It’s been great. I’ve always had a passion for the elderly.”
Golden Living Brandywine executive director Dana Milner said Foster’s positive attitude makes her a great asset to the team at the 128-bed facility, which is owned by Hendricks County Hospital in Danville, according to state records.
Foster, who lives in Wilkinson, was completely surprised by the honor, she said. Golden Living Brandywine’s former executive director, Mel Mitchell, nominated her for the award, and Foster didn’t learn about it until administrators pulled her and her fellow staffers aside to make the announcement that she’d been nominated.
Shortly after, a camera crew from the Indiana Health Care Association arrived at the assisted living facility, she said. The crew filmed Foster’s patients talking about their regard for her and how she makes them feel, which was emotional to watch, Foster said.
When they showed the video during the expo earlier this month, Foster couldn’t hold back her tears, she said. Those residents become a part of her family, and she a part of theirs, she said.
“A resident’s family member said she was so thankful I was here taking care of her dying mother,” Foster recalled.
Knowing her care puts residents’ families at ease makes all the hard days worthwhile, she said.
And it can be difficult, connecting with residents, coming to love them, and then having to say goodbye, she said. That aspect of the job hasn’t gotten any easier during the last 31 years, she said; but somehow, she’s gotten used to that particular pain.
It’s just part of a job that can be physically, mentally and emotionally demanding from day to day, but which has proven to be rewarding enough for Foster to stay and thrive for more than 30 years, she said.
Part of managing her career throughout the years has been making sure to get away with her family when she can, Foster said. She and her husband, Rick, and their two children, often travel to state parks and visit in their camper, she said.
Her son and daughter, both teenagers, have known her as a CNA their whole lives, she said. While some things have changed in her day-to-day work life — medical charts are all electronic, and beds are motorized instead of operating by hand crank — the essentials have remained the same.
And Foster is grateful her dedication to her calling is being recognized.
“It was just wonderful,” she said.
