10 • SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2019 • CAREGIVER
PROFESSIONAL CAREGIVER SPOTLIGHT
A GUIDING LIGHT
Fox Chapel woman receives national Caregiver of the Year award
Heather Bailey with her fiancé Sean D’Alessandro.
After Brian Lunt suffered a
life-changing medical event in
September 2018, his wife, Rose
Purrelli Swensen, was told he’d
never walk again.
He’d never be independent.
He’d never this. He’d never that.
Caregiver Heather Bailey, who
works for BrightStar Care, didn’t
say that. When Swensen told
Bailey and those coordinating his
care through the agency that she
wanted him walking up the stairs,
she said, they answered, “Absolutely.”
When she said she wanted
him walking down the sidewalk,
they said, “Absolutely.”
“When this happened to Brian,
I had so many people tell me no,
you can’t, he won’t, it’ll never,”
said Swensen, of McCandless.
“I finally said stop. I needed
someone to believe in us the way
I believed in us, and Heather did,
and BrightStar did.”
Bailey, 33, of Fox Chapel, was
honored as the agency’s regional
Caregiver of the Year in September.
She then won the national Caregiver
of the Year award Oct. 24.
She was honored at a gala in
Milwaukee, Wis., and received a
$5,000 scholarship that she plans
to use to get her certified nursing
assistant’s license.
Brian Lunt helps Heather Bailey show off her Caregiver of the Year award.
SUBMITTED PHOTOS
BY KAREN PRICE
FOR TRIB TOTAL MEDIA