DECATUR - She tried retirement for all of two weeks. It didn't take.

Mae Woods found out she wasn't a morning person and didn't like getting up to go fishing with her husband, Robert.

"I'm just not the get-up kind of person," said Woods, since she was used to working the 2 to 10 p.m. shift as a certified nurse's aide.

"When I was a little girl, me and my sister would play doctor and nurse. I was always the nurse," Woods recalled.

"I started doing this (being a nurse's aide) in 1971," said Woods, who moved from Kentucky in 1992 and brought her experience with her. For a while, she tried private care, then worked in hospitals before coming to Imboden Creek Living Center.

Woods has been at Imboden for 13 years, said administrator Molly Carpenter, putting her among the 20 employees at the facility with eight years of service or more.

And even though she turned 70, she continues to work four or five days out of every two weeks, according to Carpenter.

"She's one of our older nurse's aides," Carpenter said. "She's so consistent, so steadfast, so ready and willing. She knows the job."

"Mae typically works the same wing," she added, as do all the nurse's aides, giving consistency and benefits to staff and residents so they get to know each other personally.

Woods said the staff gets a nurse's report when they first come in for the day. "Then we take it from there."

She does whatever is needed for the residents in her care, from assisting them to the bathroom to bathing to helping them get to the dining facility.

"I just have my hands full, but I get it done," she said.

And what's her favorite part of the job?

"Sitting down and talking and having discussions with my friends," she said.

"She's my friend," said Peg Rathnow, when Woods entered her room.

"It takes a lot of patience," Woods said. "A lot of people don't want to be bothered, but I just love what I do."

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