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COA nurse retires for second time after 19 years of service

Carolyn Brennan and Kay Thompson
By Debbie Gardner

PRIME Editor



EAST LONGMEADOW After 19 years of taking blood pressures and cholesterol readings, administering flu shots and leading exercise classes, longtime Council on Aging (COA) nurse Kay Thompson is finally hanging up her stethoscope.

Well, sort of.

"With the flu clinic this year, I'll still help out. I don't want to leave them high and dry," Thompson told Reminder Publications on the first official day of her retirement.

On Aug. 27, family and friends gathered at the newly renovated Pleasantview Senior Center to thank Thompson for her years of dedication and wish her well in her retirement.

Senior Center Director Carolyn Brennan said Thompson talked about coming in to participate in the exercise classes instead of leading them in her farewell speech.

"I kidded that I'm going to come in and sit in the back," Thompson said.

Brennan said Thompson has also indicated to her that she'd be willing to come back as a volunteer if the need arises.

"I debated about retiring," Thompson admitted. "A lot of people dread going to work in the morning, but I never did."

Thompson said she had just left a position at the former Wesson Women's Hospital in Springfield when she saw the ad for a part-time nurse at the East Longmeadw COA in 1989.

"They hired me for 15 hours a week," she said. "Then the tobacco grant came along and they upped it to 20 hours."

She's worked a 20-hour schedule for most of her 19 years.

"I was fortunate. I worked three days a week and had Tuesdays and Thursdays off," she said.

"East Longmeadow has been really fortunate to have her," Brennan said. "She's just loved by the seniors. She was just a really good support for them, very patient, if they had [health-related] questions she just always took the time to give them information that was going to be helpful."

"It's really a very friendly group, there's lots of socializing," Thompson said of her "patients" at the COA. "More people have told me that the Senior Center is their godsend."

Thompson plans to do more socializing herself now, attend more Art a la Carte lectures at the Quadrangle, keep up with her garden club activities and travel to see her children and grandchildren in New Jersey and California. And then there are those pesky weeds in her garden.

"My grandson does my lawn but outside, the weeds have been just terrible this year," she said.

"People have said to me 'What are you going to do?'" Thompson said. "I'm very busy, and fortunately, I'm healthy. But I still plan to keep in touch with the Senior Center and programs."

Brennan said the COA is advertising for a new nurse and that "Kay has promised to stay on [in] a very part-time [capacity] to help with the transition."