Ann Garcia: Continuing Com for Care's Tradition of Quality Assisted Living Services
My Calling
I am living my dream. Before I acquired Com For Care Assisted Living in September of 2018, I had worked in it as a registered nurse for about four years. There was never a day when it felt like work to me. Taking care of my patients was a source of joy and satisfaction. I tell myself, this has got to be my calling. I could not imagine doing anything else.
At the time, the owner of Com For Care then, Peggy McCall, took notice of my enthusiasm and dedication to senior care. She offered me the business when she was about to retire, confident that I could carry on her life’s work. She said I represented what Com For Care was all about and that she saw a striking potential in me.
My Drive
As a little girl, I saw how graciously my mother looked after my 2 ailing grandmothers while raising me (and my siblings). We lived in a small town called Tacloban, in the Philippines. We didn’t have a lot of medical supplies, and yet she faithfully poured herself into providing the best care she could, looking after everyone’s needs. (She wasn’t a nurse by profession but I’ve always looked up to her, even when I became a registered nurse.)
It was she who inspired me to pursue nursing and really seek better ways to help like she would. Although it meant being away from home to study at a different city, I wasn’t leaving her. I was carrying on her life’s work. I graduated in Nursing at Cebu Doctors University in 2007, and came to the USA to work a year after.
My Journey
I have taken care of patients with different needs, since then, but senior care has always been close to my heart. Even now when I own and manage 4 Com For Care homes, and work for a big hospital in the Houston Medical Center at least four times a month, I would still take the time to do bedside nursing at Com For Care at least once a week. It just keeps me going. Plus, I get to work with like-minded caregivers who share my passion in providing the best quality care possible for our residents. These caregivers have been with Com For Care for years and were my colleagues from the start. They are like family for keeps.
My journey towards achieving my goals has been and will continue to be so much easier and more fulfilling because of people who inspire me to be better. These are people who believe in me, people I emulate, people I serve with and people I care for.