Home Instead® Care Professional of the Month Frida Ngu was scheduled for a 10 a.m. shift with a hospice client. But Frida decided to arrive earlier, partly responding to a tug on her heart strings and partly because of an update from the client’s brother-in-law. On a night when Frida was not slated to work, she nevertheless was stirring and finally called to see how things were going. The client’s brother-in-law said he believed “the time was near.”
Next morning, when Frida walked in the door, she knew she’d arrived at a critical time. “My client was struggling to pass on. I was able to help my client and also guide his brother-in-law on how to calm him down, and we both were there for him until the end. It was amazing how my client was able to settle down and go in peace while I was singing hymns to him and his brother-in-law was holding his hand,” Frida recalled. “It has been my most memorable Home Instead client story. From the beginning, it was not easy to watch him go through the pain. But he is no longer suffering.”
Frida praised the client’s brother-in-law for his family caregiving efforts, and Frida felt fulfilled to provide as much assistance as possible. “To me, the client’s family member was an angel. He was doing such a compassionate job, and I wanted dearly to help him as much as possible,” said Frida, who remembered when she was in a similar family caregiving situation.
“I took care of my brother-in-law who suffered from prostate cancer for a year and a half before he died. It was not easy to watch him go through the stages of the cancer, but I think that is the best thing I ever did for my family.”
In February 2022, Frida joined the award-winning Home Instead franchise that serves West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle from its Martinsburg office. Three months later, Allyson Starling, who works in the human resources department and in recruitment and retention for the Martinsburg and Winchester franchises, announced Frida had been honored as Care Pro of the Month.
Among the considerations for achieving Care Pro of the Month status, a Home Instead employee must show he or she has gone above and beyond the call of duty. Empathy and compassion are taken into account for the award, as well as skill and wisdom for dealing with challenging situations. Frida embodies Home Instead’s guiding principles of “Build Trust, Take the Lead and Share Your Heart.” She is not new to professional senior care; in fact the Martinsburg franchise is the third Home Instead office for whom she has served.
“I had just started working for a Home Instead franchise in Ellicott City, Maryland, in January 2022, before my husband and I moved from Clarksville, Maryland, to Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Since I knew no one in West Virginia, I decided to focus on helping people who could use my help. Before that, I also had worked with a Home Instead franchise in Dayton Ohio,” explained Frida, who has had a wide range of work experiences.
“Before Home Instead I was a provider for the State of Ohio, for a home-health agency. Then I decided to own a restaurant in Reynoldsburg, Ohio, but it was the worst decision of my life because I lost both the health-care agency job and the restaurant. Then I decided to just start from scratch with what I love doing, which is taking care of seniors. So, I became an independent provider for the State of Ohio,” Frida said.
She added: “My husband got a federal government job, and we moved from Ohio to Maryland. The move to Shepherdstown brought me to Home Instead in Martinsburg. I’d have to say much of my family caregiving experience is intertwined with being a mother of four grown children. There is never a more impactful family caregiving experience than being a parent. One of my most recent joys was watching as my daughter graduated from Radford University and celebrating that weekend with my whole family, who came from all over the country.”
For Frida and her fellow Care Pros, touching lives impacts their souls, whether they are providing physical help such as light housekeeping, meal preparation, medication reminders or personal care or if they are offering emotional support in a companionship role.
