ROZ HEFFNER, a presenter at the Presidential Forest Conference in 1993, now lives at Robison Jewish Health Center, confined to a wheelchair by Multiple Sclerosis.

Heffner reflects on successful life

By Deborah Moon

Though Roz Heffner was in charge of hospital units by age 21, helped several hundred injured workers find new jobs and was a presenter at a Presidential Forest Conference with President Clinton in 1993, nothing makes the 65-year-old prouder than her family.

Trapped in a wheelchair by Multiple Sclerosis, Heffner talks through an amplifier to boost her fading voice. A resident of Robison Jewish Health Center for the past seven years, Heffner abruptly lost the use of her legs and hands in 1998, 15 years after she was diagnosed with MS.

Heffner said that in the years since becoming totally dependent on others, she has watched a lot of television and listened to Dr. Laura on the radio. She said hearing about so many dysfunctional families on Dr. Laura’s show has made her appreciate her own family even more.

“We are together and my kids love me,” she said when asked of what she was most proud.

She married Claude Heffner March 12, 1966; the couple is still married and has two children, David, 38, a computer programmer, and Debbie, 37, a credit analyst, both of whom live in Portland. Though triple by-pass surgery prevents Claude, 67, from caring for Heffner at home, he visits her every day.

“That is what I live for,” she said, with tears in her eyes, adding, “but it’s not the same. I want to be held.”

“Because of all the things I’ve accomplished that I can’t do anymore, it’s very hard to accept,” she added. “It’s real hard living that kind of life where someone has to take care of me rather than me taking care of them.”

Taking care of people was what she did both as a nurse and as a vocational counselor.

Shortly after graduating from Buffalo (N.Y.) General Hospital School of Nursing, she became a charge nurse on the pediatric surgical floor. The next year she moved to San Francisco, where she became evening charge nurse on the neurosurgical floor at the same hospital where her future husband was a senior social worker.

“I had always wanted to help and take care of people,” she said. “Being a nurse seemed the most logical thing to do.”

When her children started school, she went back to college for a bachelor’s degree in sociology followed by a master’s degree in rehab counseling. But she arranged her class schedule so she could be home whenever her children were home. In 1979, the family moved to Oregon seeking a better neighborhood and schools for the children.

Though Heffner was diagnosed with MS in 1983, she wanted to continue to help others. From 1987 to 1998, she worked as a self-employed vocational counselor with several government contracts including one with the Department of Forestry. For six years, she lived in southern Oregon, where her caseload was primarily loggers and mill workers for whom she tried to find jobs in a depressed economy.

That expertise prompted the Clinton administration to invite her to participate in the Forest Conference, held in Portland in April 1993, to address the competing environmental and economic issues over the management of federal forestlands in the Pacific Northwest.

Sitting at the same table as President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, Heffner was a presenter in the roundtable session entitled “Where do we go from here?”

During the session, which was broadcast on Oregon Public Broadcasting and other channels, Heffner rejected the script prepared for her by White House staff that was based on several revisions of the speech she had submitted. Though she had been told to read the speech word for word, she never glanced at it during her talk and spoke off-the-cuff.

“I did it my way,” she said proudly, watching the video of her presentation from her reclining wheelchair at RJHC. “I knew my material and wanted to look the President and the Secretary of Labor in the eyes and talk from the heart.”

Following Heffner’s talk, which was more than double her allotted three minutes, Clinton said, “I’m convinced if there were about 100 people like you in each of these states, the unemployment rate would be lower.”

Five years later, in April 1998, Heffner finished helping what was to be her last client. She put down the phone finalizing the man’s new employment and went to stand up to go to the restroom.

“I couldn’t get up; all of a sudden I couldn’t move,” she said. “It was in a second. My world changed and it changed to the point I couldn’t do anything.”

Previously, Heffner needed a cane to walk, but had experienced no other serious problems. When she was first hospitalized, she expected to be walking again soon. But ultimately, physical therapy was discontinued when it became apparent she was paralyzed and totally disabled.

She said she feels fortunate to have found Robison when her husband could no longer care for her. Medicaid covers about 60 percent of the cost of care at Robison. As a beneficiary agency of the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland, RJHC receives community support to make up the balance.

Heffner said she enjoys the activities at the home, though she said it is frustrating to have to communicate her ideas to an aide when she participates in ceramics or beading projects.

“In beading, I can pick the colors and the order of colors, but a volunteer actually does the beading,” she said.

“It is lucky that I have my voice and my mind,” said Heffner. “Although having my mind makes it worse because I know what I could do and can no longer do.”

Still, the message she said she wants people to learn from her story is the importance of education.

“I want people to get the most education they can,” she said. “Because if I didn’t have this education, I wouldn’t have the memories of all I found. … I was a wife, a mother, a nurse, a businessperson and vocational counselor. You have to be doing your best irregardless of how you end up.”

With the assistance of Tammy Yashar, a volunteer from Jewish Family and Child Service who spends one afternoon a week with Heffner, Heffner maintains a blog about life with MS. To read her blog (which includes a short biography on the July 11, 2007, posts), visit rozfromny.livejournal.com. Heffner and Yashar also plan to add Heffner’s reminisces of the Presidential Forest Conference to the blog soon.