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Considered working as a Home Health Care Professional? This interview will take you through the ups and downs you can expect in the position, what it takes to land the job, what you can expect to earn and more. This is a true career story as told to JobsInHealthcare.com and is one of many interviews with health care professionals which among others include a Cardiologist and a Pathologist.

I have been working as a home health care professional for the past thirteen years.

I consider giving hope to people my primary job responsibility. I succeed in doing this by helping people do their physical therapy exercises, readying and sometimes administering their medicine, preparing their favorite meals and straightening up their living environments. All of these things are not in my formal job description, but I do them because I care about my patients. Making sure they are comfortable in their own environments does not mean I’m a housekeeper, it means I'm good at my job.

I absolutely, positively love my job. The only way I could be happier with my career is if every single patient enjoyed a full recovery, both mentally and physically, without pain or struggle.

Being a home health care professional is unquestionably my true calling. It warms my heart to see family members rally around a frail loved one. Seeing a patient’s proverbial pilot light go on again after being blown out by life’s circumstances is more rewarding than my pay check. And knowing that the love of family, more so than the patient’s progress in recovery, is the reason for the patient’s renewed enthusiasm for life is indescribable.

My situation is unique in countless ways, the most obvious one being my relationship with my boyfriend. Already employed as a home health care professional when I met my boyfriend of five years, I quickly learned about how he recovered from losing his right hand after a near-fatal accident. Hearing him, his parents and his sister discuss their emotions before, during and after the accident has helped me be more sensitive to the needs of my patients and their family members. It has helped me realize that sometimes the patient I’m employed to visit is not the one most seriously impacted by the patient’s illness or injury.

I began my career as home health care professional after my mother had her first stroke. There are two things I would go back and do differently: I would have entered this field earlier and I would have been there when my mom had her first, second and third strokes. It’s difficult to accept that my father was alone with her when my mom had her first and third ones, but unbearable to know that my grandmother, my mom’s mother, could only watch while my mother suffered her second stroke while waiting for the ambulance.

I was enjoying my last visit with a patient who had made a full recovery from a devastating heart attack when he died at the lunch table. I learned the hard way that when it’s a person’s time, it’s a person’s time.

The most important thing I have learned outside the classroom is that not every story has a happy ending, not everyone rides off into the sunset or lives happily-ever-after. A close second is that someone is not worthy of being a trusted confidante just because he or she is related to you.

The strangest thing that ever happened to me in this job occurred when a 97 year old patient proposed to me. It was sweet, endearing and, considering his grandchildren are about my age, a little creepy.

I can’t wait to get up and go to work each day. I love seeing the progress my patients make between and during my visits. One of the experiences I’ve had that makes me most proud is when I witnessed one of my patients take her first step after three months of rehab. It was amazing and gratifying.

The biggest challenge I face is inspiring people who are filled with self-pity because of their illness or injury to do their exercises and, above all, to want to live in their current states. It can be challenging because they don’t always believe that their health will ever improve and, as a result, don’t want to try anything. The most frustrating thing I deal with is what I refer to as the outees, people who have removed themselves from a patient’s life even when they are still physically present. Outees are relatives who don’t take the time to know their ailing relative. They don’t realize there might not be another chance to visit, to say “I love you.” They may drop off food and go through the motions, but the presence of outees often makes my job more difficult and heart-wrenching. Just because a person is sick doesn’t mean he doesn’t realize his son, daughter or grandchild would rather be anywhere other than in his company.

My job is as stressful as I choose to make it. I have learned not to obsess over my patients’ well-being, but it’s hard. Sometimes I take my job home with me, especially when I’m worried about a patient giving up on life. I’ve never had a patient end his own life, but I’ve been concerned about certain ones doing something like that. I’ve pretended to have forgotten something at a patient’s house a time or two, just to stop by and check in. I have never regretted losing an hour or two of my personal time under such circumstances, not once.

I earn approximated $30 per hour or $60,000 per year. This job provides me with substantial tax deductions, including mileage, which help maximize my retained earnings. I live comfortably, but not lavishly. I would be hard pressed to do anything else for two, three or four times my pay.

I take four weeks of vacation annually. When I started, I only had one week of vacation for the first five years. After two more years of service, I will max out my vacation at six weeks per year. I enjoy my time off, but can never wait to get back to work. I am confident in the abilities of my coworkers, but always wonder if they know so-and-so likes his hamburger well-done and toilet paper roll under instead of over, etc. I worry about the little comforts when I’m not around to address them.

I hold an MBA which did not prepare me for my current profession. I started nursing school, but didn’t finish because of family concerns. With the skills I learned through my limited time in nursing school and as an apprentice of sorts, I secured my job. I think passion, attention to detail, and a willingness to always listen to and learn from your peers and patients are necessary to succeed as a home health care professional.

If I had to give advice to someone considering entering this line of work, I would quote a once-popular commercial and say, “just do it!”

No matter what resources I accumulate, I see myself doing this same job five, ten, even fifteen years from now. Fortunately and unfortunately, there will always be someone in need of my professional services and I will always be happy to serve. I love my job!