Addison nurse celebrates 10,000th visit

Whether it's for her blood-pressure monitoring skills or her girl talk, several homebound residents across the suburbs are thankful for Ancy Zacharia.

The registered nurse practitioner, who works with two full-time physicians to provide advanced in-home medical care, recently celebrated her 10,000th in-home visit since joining Home Care Physicians of Wheaton in 1999.

Zacharia, 35, of Addison said she travels several miles each day, treating sometimes as many as seven patients a day in their homes.

"I love my elderly patients so I'll drive all over to make sure I can keep them out of the hospital," she said. "That is so expensive and I know they are much more comfortable in their own homes and their own beds."

Her patients realize Zacharia works for a professional service, but they say the personal touch and emphasis she places on their comfort makes her someone they will forever be thankful for.

She's visited James Pivoney, 74, at least once a month for the past five years. The wheelchair-bound Carol Stream resident can't imagine his life without her now.

"She takes amazing care of me and is probably more concerned for my health than I am," Pivoney said. "I wonder how she keeps all of her hundreds of patients straight and if she knows as much detail and personal information about them as she does with me. Her 10,000 visit mark is an amazing number."

She does. And Violet Erickson is proof. Erickson has severe arthritis that prevents her from leaving her home, walking stairs and doing a variety of other things.

In the two years she has known Zacharia, the 74-year-old homebound woman from Addison said, a bond has been formed on both a professional and friendship level.

"She is everything you could want in a nurse, a person, and a friend. She's so caring," Erickson said. "Sometimes we'll even talk a little girl talk, but my girl talk at 75 is a little different than hers."

Home Care Physicians founder Dr. Tom Cornwell is also thankful for Zacharia. Since she joined the practice, he said, the care program has been extended over 300 square miles surrounding Winfield's Central DuPage Hospital.

Zacharia received her bachelor's degree in nursing from R A K College, India, in 1993. She completed her master's of science in nursing with a specialty in gerontological nursing at Rush University in Chicago. She became a certified Geriatric Nurse Practitioner in 1999.

"I can't help it," she said. "I love my elderly friends."