Whenever the Home Health nurses from Palo Alto County Health System paid Paul Osterman (center) a visit, all he would talk about was having a big, juicy hamburger.
“I had been on a feeding tube for about a year after I had surgery for colon cancer,” explains Paul, who was also recovering from a ruptured spleen and another intestinal surgery. “I kept telling the nurses that as soon as I could eat real food, my first meal had to be a hamburger!”
A Home Health nurse and a Physical Therapist had been visiting Paul in his home twice a week, starting in January 2018. “Everybody was terrific,” says Paul, a retired aerospace engineer who worked on the Apollo space program. “I became good friends with all of the nurses. You can tell they really enjoy their work, and they went out of their way to help me and to always explain what they were doing. And for six months, they listened to me talk about that hamburger.”
So naturally, when Paul was finally ready to chew real food, his nurses surprised him with the hot, juicy hamburger Paul had been dreaming of. “It tasted every bit as good as I thought it would,” Paul says. “Since July, I’ve been free and clear of any medical problems. And I owe it all to my team from Palo Alto Home Health Services.”
