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EMILY PATRICK
PAULA M. ELLIOTT. HOSPICE NURSE
Paula Elliott is a nurse at St. Mary's Hospice, and it is easy
to tell that she is good at her job. She has a calming demeanor
and mesmerizing, bright green eyes. She is the type of person
whose age is impossible to guess, and she seems as if she
would be good at making plants grow. She wears intricate wire
jewelry that she made herself, and she tells a story about find
ing a sapphire almost as big as her palm while rock hunting
with her eight-year-old son, Aiden.
Paula truly believes in hospice. She eagerly expresses her
fondness for her work with the conviction of one who knows
she is doing the right thing.
In addition to being a nurse, Paula is an artist, gardener,
outdoor enthusiast, soccer lover and a former resident of
Washington, D.C.
Flagpole: How did you decide to work at hospice?
Paula M. Elliott: I was working in general surgery and
nephrology in Athens, and I had started participating in a pal
liative care team, and that's when I first realized, "Oh, I really
love this." And then I just made a decision that I wanted to
work for hospice.
When I was still in nursing school, my grandmother was
very ill, and we had chosen hospice. And I was scared to
death. I didn't know anything. They did such a wonderful job
and helped my grandmother and my family to get through
that, and that was the other thing that had always sparked—I
wanted to be able to do for other people what someone had
done for us.
FP: Did seeing so much death bother you at first?
PME: I wouldn't call it bothered, exactly, but affected, yes.
But there's a couple of different ways you have to look at
that. One is, I have to put things in a way that I can deal with
them. I do feel very deeply when someone passes away, when
they die. And I guess it does bother me, but at the same time,
I can't change what's going to happen, and so many people
are afraid to face and deal with that, the end of a person's
life. And the end of a person's life is just as important as their
birth. The way that I cope with it is that I know that our team
helped them to control their pain and their suffering and their
discomforts when they needed it the most, when they're most
afraid.
There's a lot of different hospices out there, and one of the
things I love about St. Mary's is the community outreach that
we get to be involved with, too. Like there's Camp Nokose...
it's a camp that the kids can come to when someone that they
love has died, and the kids go through a grief workshop with
out even realizing it. It's a wonderful experience.
FP: What kind of things do you like to do when you're not
working?
PME: Well, when I'm not working, I love wire art. I'm a wire
artist... I make wire angels, and they're really, really beautiful,
and people love them. It makes them feel good because the
angels are so delicate and pretty. And I love to go do garden
ing and go camping, bike riding. My most favorite thing to do
is just enjoy my son and play with him and watch him grow.
He's just the love of my life. He's amazing. I didn't even know
you could love something as much as you love your child, and
once I had him, I was like, "Wow!"
FP: You said earlier that you're from Washington, D.C. How
did you wind up in Athens?
PME: Well, my father and my mom did some research on the
Internet, and they decided that they wanted to move in their
retirement, and they chose Athens, Georgia. I love
them, so it was very hard to be away, so I followed.
It was a wonderful move. I miss the city, but the
people in Georgia and this area are so polite. It's
not as stressful; there's not as much traffic.
FP: Before you moved to Athens, had you spent
your whole life in Washington, D.C.?
PME: Mm-hmm. Not right in Washington, D.C.—
Fairfax... Arlington. Just 15 or 20 miles out of D.C.
FP: Were you in D.C. on September 11th?
PME: Oh, yeah. I lived right up the 395 cor
ridor. When the plane hit the Pentagon, that was
really scary—that's one of the other reasons why
I decided to move. When the plane blew up, when
the explosions happened, [they] echoed throughout
the city, and [they] actually—several miles down
in Alexandria, Virginia where I was living at that
time—shook our high-rise. And I just remember
feeling the building shake, and I was watching what
had happened in New York at that time and seeing
some fighter jets going overhead, and people started
running out of our building because we thought, at
that time, that the whole area was getting blown up
because the explosions were just echoing and shak
ing. It was really, really, really scary. And we actually
drove down to the Pentagon that night—I hadn't
thought about the jet fuel and how that would be
when you smell that and all—but we drove down
there that night, and it was very eerie. There was no
traffic. There was just tights shining on the building.
FP: So, your son has lived in Athens his whole
life?
PME: Yes, I moved here in 2002 and he was born in 2003.
He's a Georgia boy.
FP: Is there anything you would change about Athens if you
could?
PME: Probably more coffee shops and more outdoor types
of restaurants where you can sit out on the patios and stuff, a
little closer towards Oconee.
FP: Is that something you miss about D.C.?
PME: Yeah. The city and the tall buildings and the muse
ums. Like the Smithsonian Museum was right there, and I
miss that. But, on the other hand, it's forced me to find other
[places]. For instance, I went to the natural history museum at
UGA where they have the bug collection, and I never have seen
anything like [it]... We've done different things that I wouldn't
have done if I was in D.C., like the train ride—the short line
ride—where you go see Jimmy Carter's farm... I don't know if
I would really change it because Athens is beautiful like it is,
too... There's one other thing I would change about Athens: I
would have a women's soccer team.
Emily Patrick
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