Halloween is Diveley’s favorite time of year

DeeDee Diveley’s Favorite
Time of the Year …
… is now! She has always loved dressing up for Halloween, and recalls that some of her favorite memories of nursing at Fayette County Long Term Care occurred at this time of the year.

Now retired, after many years in a fulfilling career that actually began when she was a teenager, she is still active in helping friends and past co-workers. She is a member of  the Golden Years Club and Fayette County Home & Community Education in the Sefton HCE unit, is a friend to neighborhood kids, and is a member of Northside Christian Church.
She attends luncheons of the Fayette County Hospital retired nurses, and also does nail clipping  for the Brookstone Estate residents. She walks and exercises daily, along with puttering around with such things as a compost pile, and growing huge pumpkins, using her own formula and method … just to watch them grow.
‘It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
… is the name of a children’s favorite “Peanuts” Halloween cartoon, and the same can be said of  DeeDee’s gardening result when she dug a hole, filled it with compost mixture, dropped in a pumpkin seed and then  “drip-watered”  it (as in an IV?) and raised a very large pumpkin.
But the Most Fun …
… has been dressing up for the Long Term Care residents,” she said, laughing.
“It actually began with Dr. Mark Greer,” she said. She learned the story when she got out of nursing school and started working in LTC.
 “It was at Easter time, and one of the rules was that you had to wear an Easter bonnet. They were made out of all kinds of things, such as little kids’ Little League helmets, bedecked with flowers, bunny ears, etc. I asked how that got started.”
“It started in the hospital. Dr. Greer was called over to the emergency room one evening, and on his way back home, someone knocked him down and tried to rob him. He came back in and was so hurt, he said, ‘I can’t believe someone would do that to me.’
“The nurses decided he should be happy when he came back in the next morning.
“So they went through the place and found anything they could use to make Easter bonnets. When he came back to work the next morning, everyone had on an Easter bonnet to cheer him up.
“Dr. Mark wanted all the patients to see them, to cheer them up, so he marched the nurses in their bonnets up and down the halls to all of the patients’ rooms.
So it became a tradition to wear an Easter bonnet on Easter Sunday morning.”
Recalling Some Fun Costumes
The tradition carried on to Long Term Care, which DeeDee enjoyed immensely, and recalled some of her homemade apparel.
“One year, I had on my white uniform, so I put on a big white bunny tail, covered a hat with cotton balls, cut ears out of a cereal box and put “Happy Easter” on a coat hanger. I walked down the hall and a little kid said, ‘Mom, Mom, the Easter Bunny is out here.’
“She didn’t come out into the hall, so he repeated it. His sister came out and said, ‘Mom, the Easter Bunny is out here.’ The mother walked out, and I said to her, ‘See, that will teach you to believe your kids.’”
The Tradition Carried Over to Halloween…
… and DeeDee was in her element.
She answered what might be her second true calling – bringing smiles and laughter to others, especially to those who might need encouragement and give them a moment away from their problems, whatever they may be.
She found the perfect avenue for her love of dressing up and making people laugh by going to work and entertaining the LTC residents while still caring for their physical and medicinal needs.
One of her characters was a pregnant woman. “I put on my mother’s wig. She still had a hatching dress (maternity dress), and I put a petticoat under it for my belly.
“I wore it into report and the girls (nurses) didn’t know who I was until I started giving my report,” she said.
 Another year, she dressed like a little old man with a cane and again fooled everyone.  She confessed she had a lot of fun with that one, aggravating the nurses who really thought she was an old man.
She has many more humorous memories, to help with the sadder, poignant ones.
The Memories …
… that live on are fun to hear about and, if the old adage, “Laughter is the best medicine,” is true,.
Then, surely, Nurse DeeDee has brought many moments of emotional and, perhaps mental, healing and happiness through her unpredictable antics, while at the same time ministering to their physical needs, all with her tender, loving and concerned care.  
She continues to have the same youthful spirit, so watch out – she may fool you on Halloween.