Care Center 'a-peel'

Lana Sanchez, affectionately known as "Lana Banana" to coworkers, started working as the Social Services Director for the Saratoga Care Center in August.

Friday morning, the smiling Sanchez was putting together Christmas baskets for the residents of the facility.

Sanchez explained that, though the nursing home does a "Secret Santa" system for holiday gift giving, the care center has enough continuous donations that it is possible to make up nice gift baskets for each of the residents.

Currently Sanchez advocates for those living at the facility, making sure the residents' needs are met and any problems or grievances are addressed.

As part of these duties, Sanchez frequently visits with residents to both see how they are doing on a daily basis and set a baseline for a resident's behavior and mood so that she can more easily tell when something is troubling someone and communicate that to the nursing staff.

Of the staff at the care center, Sanchez said, "We have a really good team right now I feel that gives the quality of life to the residents that they need," and added, "I feel like we kind of bounce off of each other as far as being able to do that for them."

Originally from Ozona, Texas, Sanchez met her husband from small-town football rival Sonora.

When she graduated from high school, Sanchez moved to Colorado to go to CU Boulder where she graduated with a degree in International Affairs.

Later, Sanchez went back to get a nutrition license and looks to get a Registered Dietitian/Nutritionist license over the summer.

When asked about how she went from international affairs to nutrition, Sanchez explained, "When we got pregnant with our (first two) little girls, I suffered from postpartum depression and gained a lot of weight from my girls since we had them close together. My biggest thing was I wanted to lose weight-and I wanted to do it naturally. I was training to do a half marathon and everything they were telling me was that I needed to take supplementation and I didn't want to do that."

To that end, Sanchez began looking into ways to achieve a natural nutritional balance using regular foods.

Since that time Sanchez and her husband, Ross, have had another girl-bringing the total to three.

Sihauna (7) and Averie (6) both attend Saratoga Elementary School while Brynn (19 months) is a lil' Panther in training.

Sanchez says she came to Saratoga because she has family in the area. While her husband was eager to move to the area after a family holiday visit, Sanchez said she was not convinced. Though she was unsure of living in a small town, she eventually concluded it would be good for their children and hopes there is a better possibility to buy land here versus Colorado where she feels that has become harder.

The decision being made, Sanchez saw the opening for the Social Services Director and applied.

Sanchez and her family did not move to Saratoga until she was sure she was employed and had been in town only a few hours before she had to show up for her first shift.

So while Sanchez is not at the moment using her nutrition degree, she feels very comfortable getting to know Saratoga Care Center residents in a one-on-one capacity to ensure their continued quality of life.