May 9, 2019

What it's Like to be an EveryStep Nurse: Amy Overhake

Amy Overhake's journey to being a nurse took a few detours. In fact, the EveryStep Home Care nurse in Creston started out in an entirely different field: cosmetology.

After graduating high school Overhake headed to cosmetology school and worked in the industry for five years.

"I decided I was meant to be doing more," she said. "I didn’t always know nursing was for me but my mom struggled so much with her health growing up, I wanted to know everything the doctors were talking about."

That's when she made the decision to quit doing hair and begin her prerequisites to become a licensed practical nurse (LPN). She graduated in 2010 and began working in that capacity for a few years, before deciding to go back for her registered nurse (RN) license.

Over the course of her nursing career, Overtake has worked in several medical settings, including long term care, clinics, and hospitals.

"I love bits of all of the different nursing but what I really needed was flexibility, as I have four active children. I had heard working in home care would be flexible so I took the leap and applied," she says of finding EveryStep Home Care in Creston. 

In her role, she visits patients in their homes across eight counties served by the Creston team, helping them recover injury or illness, or live with chronic conditions.

While the flexibility of the job may have drawn Overhake in, her patients and team members keep her in home care.

As a home care nurse, Overhake says she gets to do a little of everything, from educating patients about their illness to caring for them.

"I like that you aren't doing the same thing every day," she says. "You use all your nursing skills with home care."

Overhake recalls working with a patient who had very little knowledge about his illness or the medication he had been taking for years to control the disease.

"We spent almost our entire visit talking about it and what it is and why he takes medications," she recalls. "I realized how little education is given or retained when you are at your doctors office."

It's making a difference in patients’ lives that Overhake finds so rewarding about working in home care.

"Nursing is one of my greatest accomplishments, aside from my children," she says. "Nursing is spontaneous and you never know what day you're going to have. Even on the worst days, there's always something rewarding with nursing. Our patients and family rely on us for support."