With 16 years of experience, it’s safe to say Leayanne Miller Hilden, our nurse here at Sahuaro, knows what she’s doing. Beyond her job title, she loves to volunteer at the Humane Society and Galpal Rescue Mission. She also enjoys reading, especially psychological thrillers. She even says if she wasn’t a nurse, she feels like she would’ve been a great detective; solving mysteries is her true calling!
She works as a T.L.R. (Track Leader & Rescue) when volunteering at the Humane Society. Nurse Hilden helps by walking dogs and visiting locations with feral cats, also known as community cats. She tracks where they stay and helps catch them; they have seen over two hundred stray cats! Once they catch them, they neuter each cat so they don’t increase the population, and then later return them. The animals that need more care get washed up, and Hilden ensures they are healthy and have all the essentials to survive in the wild. Many types of cats they find usually have to be 8 weeks old to be neutered, but if they find kittens any younger, they would take them back to the Humane Society and turn them into normal house cats.
Nurse Hilden was a pediatric nurse for 13 years before becoming a school nurse – she enjoys helping young people. SHe notes several differences between her pediatric care and school nursing careers. At a school, she has mostly assigned tasks – helping people and giving them bandaids, but there is more of a mental side with nursing at a school. Students require more patience sometimes, and many kids come in just for someone to talk to. She now takes time out of her day to speak to the kids instead of giving them a band-aid for the third time that day and telling them to go to class.
Nurse Hilden has learned so much from nursing. Listening plays a big role in giving the kids time, and recognizing where they are coming from will most likely prevent them from coming back again in the future. Hilden has been with TUSD for a long time, but this is her first time dealing with high schoolers. When she worked with little kids, if they came in and they had a stomach ache, it usually meant they had one. With the older teens, it’s different; learning and recognizing that does play a big role in her job. Also, she’s had to master dealing with criticism because some high schoolers can be mean – recognizing when she is overwhelmed and asking for a break is something Nurse Hilden feels she has gotten better at. She wants to be here until she retires; she loves the community and having the summer off, which she’s looking forward to spending with her grandbaby!
