C2—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, January 3,1981 Farm wife practices nursing too BY JOYCE BUPP Staff Correspondent Trying to catch Treva Markey for a couple of pictures is like chasing after a honey bee With an unspoken purpose of helping others, Treva quietly goes about her full schedule of responsibilities, touching 'he lives of countless people, and leaving a bit of accomplishment and cheer behind at each stop. Treva is a farm wife, married to Dwight Markey, of Joppa Road, and the partner in a greenhouse, truck farming and market stand business for nearly 30 years. She’s also the mother of three daughters, a grandmother, and church and community leader But this busy woman wears yet another, most unusual, hat. A licensed practical nurse, Treva is the Blood Bank Coordinator for York’s Memorial Hospital, a position cho’c halH fnr H vparc Two days each week, she schedules and processes volunteers who generously donate a pint of blood for the hospital’s store of the vital life-saving fluid Treva also does occasional private duty nursing, which once filled most of her professional nursing hour. One blood donor on a recent afternoon was Elmer Hall of 2675 Lewisberry Road, York Hall is an employee of Consolidated Freightways and one of the numerous blood donors that Treva calls in on a regular basis, perhaps once in every six to nine months. Other donors are likely to come in response to urgent blood needs for a friend or relative. Before Treva can accept an individual's donation of blood, she must run a hemoglobin test Taking just a drop of blood from a tiny puncture to a finger, she then runt, that sample through the computerized Coulter Counter machine in the hospital blood lab next door to her offices “That test gives us the red cell or hemoglobin count, and performs several other tests as well,” she explains “Basically, it tells me that a donor can afford to lose a pint of blood with no harm to his health ’ ’ About 45 minutes are required for the complete processing of a blood donor. After the hemoglobin test shows that the donation is safe for the volunteer, Treva takes the donor’s blood pressure and temperature. When those vital signs also show that the donor is in normal good health, the actual blood donation can then be started It takes only about five minutes for the fluid to fill the sterile plastic blood storage bag, with pre-measured amounts of anti-coagulant. When the bag is full, an automatic trip device stops the flow from the vein in the donor’s arm. A long, narrow, clear plastic tubing, extending from the bag, is also filled with blood Using a special machine, Treva clamps that tubing into small sections, each about three-inches long and automatically marked with a corresponding number. Before any of the stored blood can be used on a patient, those marked samples are run through an hour-long senes of tests, including mandatory sampling required for records of the state. Blood is then refrigerated at 40 degrees and can be used in a vanety of patient needs. As it cools, the blood separates, with the red cells dropping to the lower portion of the plastic bag and the white cells, or plasma, rising to the top. Depending on the needs of a patient, either whole blood can be given or the red and white cells can be used separately as needed. When the actual donatmg process is finished, Treva offers her donors fresh orange juice and cookies or r .. V/ *<****<****» Elmer Hall, a blood donor, has his blood pressure and temperature checked by Treva. Both must be normal before final preparations can begin for the actual donation of blood. Treva Markey, a licensed practical nurse and partner in a greenhouse and truck farming pretzels, foods to help quickly boost the body’s sugar count. Donors are asked to stay and rest for a brief period, a precautionary ten or fifteen minutes of time to momtor them for any possible reaction Treva also presents each donor with a peel-off sticker, colored in brilliant red and shaped like a drop of blood, that announces, “I helped save a life today Befoe they can become a donor, volunteers must sign a release form that also includes the hospital’s recom mendations for post-donation care Donors are advised to drink extra fluids for the following several hours and eat hearty meals. No strenuous athletic activity is recom mended for a 24-hour period According to Treva, the body quickly leplaces such amounts of blood loss and quantity levels return in just a few hours under the body’s normal health conditions At all tunes, no matter where she is any day or night, Treva knows that ‘Plan Purple” could go into effect Plan Purple” is the hospital’s large-scale disaster code Periodically, “Plan Purple” is run, always thus far as a practice drill However, when staffers receive the disaster warning, they never know if it’s another practice run, or a genuine emergency. In case of a large-scale disaster happening, Treva has emergency blood donor processing methods at her disposal, in addition to the hospital’s usual methods of blood screening On those days that she doesn’t don her white uniform and supervise the blood program, Treva can be found in a score of places fulfilling her role as an operating family farm partner Serving and preparing for retail customers at their stands at the area’s farmers’ markets claims many of the Markey’s hours Fresh produce is a mainstay of the year round retail stands, with many of the vegetables raised on the several acres of truck crops included in the operation Much of Treva’s tune at home revolves around the seven greenhouses clustered near the farmhouse. Bulbs, annual bedding plants, a variety of vegetable seedlings, mature decorative indoor plants, hanging baskets and fresh floral arrangements are all part of the floriculture side of the retail-wholesale and market business As the last Christmas pomsettias, bought in for resale, were going home with regular market customers, Dwight and Treva were already well into the scheduling of the Easter line of potted bulbs that must be brought into When a pint of the life-giving fluid has filled the plastic storage bag, an automatic trip is activated to shut off the flow from the donor’s vein business, checks the Coulter Counter as it performs a hemoglobin scan on a potential blood donor ytfotncsfead t/nffis bloom at just the right time In order to better handle their bulb forcing schedules, the Markeys are in the process of remodeling their barn to include a large bulb cold storage refrigeration unit, just a part of the expansion program recently begun The Markey’s have three daughters, Donna Jean, Carol and Bonnie. Donna is married and her year-old son is Dwight and Treva’s first grandchild Carol is a secretary tor the Campbell Chain firm in York and Bonnie is a junior at Juniata College, studying chemistry and biology with plans to further her studies in the medical field Through their daughters, the Markeys have gotten involved in the American Field Service program and have hosted numerous foreign visitors In 1973, they were the host family to two Finnish students and in 1978 opened their home to a German high school exchangee Treva serves as president of the AFS’s adult chapter at Dallastown Area Schools and recently held a dinner tor the school’s two current exchange visitors, one from Australia and one from Spain Their interest in hosting visitors from around the world grew even stronger when the Markey’s were invited to become part of Friendship Force, an organization founded by President Jimmy Carter to expand the goodwill between nations Last May, Friendship Force took a planeload of 354 travelers from the area to live with West Berlin families for ten days, and returned with an equal number ol German travelers hosted a week and a half by local families Since the exchange took place over their extra (Turn to KageU4>
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