KAREN: Can you remember back to the first times as a -- starting as a health aide, like your first emergency and what that was like and how you handled that?

STELLA: Oh. My first? Oh, goodness. Those were my -- my first -- when I first started, I think I suffered when I opened it because seems like every -- you know, I -- we didn't have telephones, but when somebody knocked on my door, that's when I knew there was something, you know.

Especially at nighttime. Yeah. Those were kind of heart racing kind of things like, oh, what's going -- what am I going to get into right now or what is -- what's the situation going to be like.

KAREN: Uh-hum. Have you ever helped deliver a baby?

STELLA: Uh-hum. I delivered a couple of them by myself because of the weather. You know. As you can see, it's like today. You know. We couldn't get any planes in or the Coast Guard wouldn't even fly. So...

KAREN: Uh-hum.

STELLA: Ended up delivering. Luckily, it was a normal kind of delivery; otherwise, oh, it was -- for me, it was scary because I never -- I didn't know how the baby would be born or what would happen to mom.

But luckily, we had a telephone right there and, you know, talking through -- the doctor talked me through things, what to do and all that. I was working through the telephone.

KAREN: Okay. So do you remember what year that was?

STELLA: Yeah. 19 -- probably '84.

KAREN: Oh. Can you think of something that -- you know, that -- a great medical success that you had, that you could talk about that you're proud of having done and been a part of?

STELLA: Yes. I -- oh, there's a few. One I can remember is a young boy who had had an appendix, and, you know, and a young man that had a -- I can't remember what he was. But anyway, I can remember the boy that had symptoms of -- you know, he had some pains in the right side of his -- of his abdomen.

KAREN: Uh-hum.

STELLA: And just describing them and doing the medical examination and reporting it to the doctor, and, you know, he would ask me -- you know, sometimes the doctors will ask you, what do you think it is. Well, I think it sounds like it's -- he's got appendix.

And so -- and when we -- when I sent him in and got -- you know, the doctor called back, he said, yep, he had appendix, and I was kind of feeling like, oh, I did something that -- it was...

KAREN: You did something good.

STELLA: Uh-hum. And I guess there was lots of others, things that I did. I was kind of a -- felt good about.

KAREN: Uh-hum. Do you have another --

STELLA: Like -- oh, and like for a little baby, you know, those are the -- those are the ones that are really worrisome, I think, for health aides are little babies because they don't tell you what's bothering them or what -- you know. Because I can remember one time when I had just probably a two, three-month baby that I had to send into town for -- ended up with meningitis.

KAREN: Oh.

STELLA: And those -- and I'm glad that, you know, give them the right information, and the doctor wanted him in right away.

KAREN: And so the baby was okay?

STELLA: Uh-hum. The baby was okay. Yeah.

KAREN: That's good.

Well, I'm sure it must work the other way, also, that --

STELLA: Yeah. When things don't happen right, yeah, when things are not -- yeah. Those are the hardest ones, the hardest ones that you can -- for -- for me, and I suppose for other health aides, too, because you don't forget about it for a while. I mean, to this day, you know, when I think about it, I can see it right there, right in front of me, you know, I can see what -- what it looked like and what --

KAREN: Uh-hum.

STELLA: Like earlier I was telling you about this little boy that had gotten run over, and -- and, you know, it was not a good -- not a good sight.

KAREN: Yeah.

STELLA: And I had suicides that I had to take care of that were not -- you know, not a good sight to see.

KAREN: Right. And well, and that little boy that you were talking about before, he was run over by a truck, and he -- he came to the clinic already beyond --

STELLA: Yeah. He was already -- he was beyond -- he got -- I guess this dump -- not a dump truck, but our big truck, I mean, the city truck had backed up and he didn't know that the little boy was behind him and he ran over him and hit him and he had ran over him right on the head. So the head was kind of, you know, smushed in, in the back.

KAREN: You know, I don't know if you're comfortable talking about this, but, you know, one -- in that case, there was nothing --

STELLA: There was nothing.

KAREN: -- you could do.

STELLA: No.

KAREN: But are there times when, you know, you try and try, and --

STELLA: You try, yes. To try.

KAREN: Uh-hum.

STELLA: The one incident I can remember is a four-wheeler accident when this young -- when this woman was in an accident, and then down, tried, you know, to do CPR. And they -- I had -- I had some help then, and so we -- we tried and tried until the doctor said there's nothing much you can do.

And we also had an incident where a young boy had -- was sniffing gas, and that was 12 years old, and we couldn't get him back. Those kinds of things that are really -- you know, it just makes you really sad.

And I -- I suppose there are enough times I always told myself, I'm quitting, I'm not going to be a health aide anymore, I don't want to go through this again.

KAREN: But you stuck with it?

STELLA: Yep, I stuck with it. Uh-hum. And I've always, you know, prayed about my job and things and just --

KAREN: I was going to say, on those hard days, what brought you back?

STELLA: Yeah. Oh, what brought me back was, I guess, you know, being a health aide and people really rely on you and trust you is what it is. People -- you know, people respect you.

KAREN: Uh-hum.