"It's a Decision to Live Well"

“It’s a Decision to Live Well”

Johnson County LIVING WELL Magazine

Penny Shaffer is a “rehabber,” a self-described term that relates to every area of her life; a life that got its foundations from grandparents and their friends in and around Liberty, Missouri.

“My main life lessons came from my grandmothers. One of them taught me to value old furniture, family treasures, and all aspects of art and nature, while the other taught me to be a strong, businesswoman.”

Shaffer talks about her growing up years with emotion. “My grandmother showed me how much energy and history come from old things. They give us our roots. I loved her attic with the secret entrance. That’s where everything sentimental was kept. She gave me a little black notebook and had me create a ledger with who would get what. She knew I’d understand.”

Today, Shaffer has an antique booth, “The Bucket List,” at Lone Elm Antiques in Olathe. It’s full of some things from family and others she’s gathered through the years. This booth represents her love of treasured objects and art, a trait she also brings to health care.

“I always loved both art and science, and was taking a lot of classes in both, here at Johnson County Community College (JCCC), when a friend of mine suggested I combine them and join the nursing program. So I did, and immediately felt at home.”

As program director for health and human services at JCCC, she practices what she learned from her other grandmother. “ My mom’s mother was an extremely extraverted, politically-active woman, who was also a great cook; so in addition to learning some great recipes, I learned to be a business person. She encouraged me to be strong and follow my passions.”

Her passions include communicating with those who have a problem getting their messages across. Whether it’s children, animals or people with Alzheimer’s or other types of dementia, she likes to find her way through to them. She traces that back to Liberty too. When she lived in town on Franklin Street, she and an older neighbor helped the woman’s husband, who had a stroke, learn to walk again, by each taking an arm as he walked down the street.

When her family built a home on land next to both of her grandparents, she would run back and forth from farm to farm and visit. Her dad’s mom had a parakeet who would perch on her shoulder and eat toast. She also had a calf on the back porch, and got her first horse.

This led to her love of animals. She was working for a veterinarian while she was still in high school. College had to wait a while, because she married as a teenager and had a little girl, Lisa Marie. In 1973 she entered JCCC, and her career began. After graduation as a nurse, she began work at Kansas University in the Maternal Care Unit.

Throughout the years, she has held a variety of jobs and titles; all dealing in one way or another with her passion of helping those without a voice get excellent care. She was head nurse in a NICU, where she developed an educational program on infant stimulation, program director for geropsychiatric units and then director of education for the Geriatric Education Resource and Training Institute at the Johnson County Nursing Center. She designed, developed and implemented a 30-hour certificate program for staff working in long-term care units that covered issues of regulations, resident care, dementia care and culture change.

Today, she not only directs the department at JCCC, but also teaches classes related to topics of aging and mental health. She developed the 30-hour Dementia Care Certificate to educate interested persons in all areas of dementia from neurological progression, behavior management, treatment, prevention and preserving quality of life. This program is one of a kind in the country and was developed by the Council for Continuing Education & Training (NCCET), where she was awarded a Dementia Care Certificate. She won both the National and Exemplary Program Award in 2010 and presented the program at the national conference in Miami that year. The program was developed through a grant she wrote with the International Longevity Society and was funded through MetLife. So far, over 350 people have taken the course designed for families and health care professionals. She won both the National and Regional Program Award in 2010 for this program presented at the national NCCET in Miami that year.

Reflecting all she has achieved, she comments, “At around 35, I went through a rough patch, where I suffered a lot of loss, and had to learn how to pull myself together and move forward. I learned then, that it is a decision to live well. As you age, you have to take responsibility for your care, take ownership of your life and future, and take medicine when it’s needed.” She laughs as she confesses the comment was made by her physician after diet and exercise did not control her cholesterol and admits is was a “tough pill to swallow.”

And for Shaffer, there is much more to come. If and when she retires, she is looking forward to visiting with her mom, who lives nearby and at 86 is learning to play chess online, painting more, fostering abused animals and taking classes to become a master gardener. Oh yes, and rehabbing furniture.

“I also learned some of these things from a childhood friend’s grandfather who had an antique shop in his basement. He taught me how to refinish and repair antique furniture. And, that became a love of rehabbing. Whether it’s people or furniture, I just like to help bring out the best.”

“All the things I have a passion for now I learned to love by the time I was 6 and was introduced to them by the older people I knew as a child. I learned how to age well, endure hardships, change what you can and always look for the positive. One of the most important things on my bucket list is to grow older with grace and dignity and be remembered by my daughter, grandchildren, and younger colleagues, the way I remember the older people who mentored me as a child.”

Shaffer turns 60 years old this summer and says she feels younger at heart now than she ever has. She states, “I don’t fear aging, I embrace it. I do have to restore a few things like knees and thumbs, but I would not trade the worn out joints for the person inside that I am today. I had great role models and mentors for aging well, but it was a decision I made long ago to follow their examples and teachings and that choice has made all the difference.”