Oklahoma Nurse Finds Next Level Helping Others

Ask Leola Wright about her latest read, and her life story seems to be reflected in its title: "Take It to the Next Level: What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There” by Marshall Goldsmith.
 
Wright recently downloaded the manuscript onto her new hand-held Kindle on which she reads mostly self-help books and USA Today.

"The last time I read a book for fun, it was ‘How Stella Got Her Groove Back,’” she mused.

Wright clearly has used a little groove, a little self help and a little takin’ it to the next level to build a successful nursing and home health career.

Against all odds, she moved from teen pregnancy and scarcity in southeastern Oklahoma to a thriving Edmond agency of 20 and had $900,000 in revenues last year.

Wright credits her mom — "such a strong woman” — before leaving her office in search of a tissue. "If it hadn’t been for her, I wouldn’t have been able to go on,” she said.
 
Wright, 48, sat down recently with The Oklahoman to talk about her personal and professional life. The following is an edited transcript.

Q: Tell us about your roots.
A: I grew up outside Idabel in the country. I was the youngest of 12 and my father died when I was 12. To make it, all of us did odds-and-ends jobs, including picking weeds from soybean plants and gathering eggs from chicken houses. My mom, Ola Mae Hooks— who’s 86 and still lives in Idabel — taught me to sacrifice for family and work hard for what I want. We didn’t have a car and after we rode the bus home from school, had
chores, like gathering kindling for the stove or taking clothes off the line. Saturday was always cleaning day, and Sunday we were in church. It was mandatory.

Q: Did you always want to be a nurse?
A: Yes. I loved people and wanted to help people, and had an older sister who was a nurse and older brother who’s a doctor. But it took me a while to get there. I was a teen mom at 15. Though I had a big family, I was a lonely, clueless child and welcomed any sort of attention. By high school graduation, I was a single mom to two. But with the help of my mother, I refused to give in. I started working as a unit nurse at McCurtain Memorial Hospital, where I entered the LPN program. Eight years later in the ER one
day, I decided to go back to school to become a registered nurse. I realized I already was doing everything an RN was doing. For a year and half, I drove from Idabel to Paris, Texas, to go to school every day, and worked 12-hour shifts on the weekends.

Q: You mentioned you’ve been single since 1988, which is the same year you became an RN. Was your education what gave you the confidence to strike out on your own?
A: Somewhat. I’d married and had three more children. I thought I had to stay married forever, until one day I read in the Bible that if your husband cheated on you, you could be released from your vows. I left the house and everything else, and the kids and I moved into a rental house near my mom. It was the best thing I ever did. As an RN, I advanced rapidly. I worked on the hospital’s medical-surgical floor, taught in-service education, wrote policies and procedures, and eventually was named house
supervisor. I loved the diverse work and challenges, knowing I may be called to any place in the hospital, from the ICU to the pharmacy to obstetrics.

Q: What made you move to home health care?
A: I dislocated a knee during a code-blue emergency in the ER and was pretty sure I wouldn’t return to hospital nursing. I found I loved going out and visiting the elderly in their homes. Many didn’t have anyone so I was everything to them. It was rewarding to assess their resources, plan individualized care and be their advocate to the doctor.Soon, I was director of nursing and found myself poring over Medicare regulations. I’d
fall asleep with them and wake up with them.

It was then I started thinking about starting my own agency. I wanted the freedom to give the care that I envisioned, and to which I believed the Lord was calling me.

My sister, brother and I opened Quality Touch Home Health Inc. 45 miles from Idabel in Hugo. I applied for $50,000 in government funding, figuring all they could say is "No.”

But they said "Yes.” At first, it was mostly me doing everything. But within four years, we had 15 employees. Then the 1997 Balanced Budget Act sent us under.

For Medicare reimbursements, you had to have so many new admissions and small companies such as ours couldn’t survive.

Q: When did you move to Edmond?
A: In 1999. I figured I’d done everything I could do in Idabel, and I wasn’t going backwards. I’d always thought Edmond was a wide-open market for home health care and went to work for Classic Home Health Care Inc., a company for which I’d consulted.

A few months after it sold in 2003, I opened Trinity, which I’d incorporated the previous year. The Lord told me I was going to start my own home health business, but I fought it tooth and nail. It took me a long time to get through my head that when my first company closed, it didn’t mean I’d failed.

Q: Any thoughts on the health care debate?
A: I believe we should empower LPNs more and relieve RNs more.

The nursing shortage is worsening, but the regulations for home health are the same. Every 14 days, an RN is required to visit a home health patient to ask how it’s going. I hear there are proposed cuts to home health, which I don’t understand because it costs less to keep someone at home than in the hospital.

Q: What’s been your deepest heartache?
A: When my older sister, the nurse, died suddenly and unexpectedly of an aneurysm at age 52. I’d only just spoken with her the night before. And the next day, her husband called to tell me she’d passed. Her daughter, my niece — Chantay Hooks — is my right arm here at Trinity. Whenever I get down, she keeps me going.

Q: What’s left to do?
A: I recently earned my certification to help attorneys in medical malpractice cases understand the medical records and different medical disciplines, among other things. I’d like to develop training presentations for home health nurses, so they’re more aware of legal issues.

Meanwhile, I promised my kids that I’d take them all to Disney World in Florida one day.

They don’t care how grown up they are.

So we’re all going to Disney World sometime, somehow.