When Catherine M. Dopp needed new sneakers, she didn't toss the old ones -- she gave them to her doctor.
The worn-down shoes show how far the multiple sclerosis patient has traveled since she left Kane Regional Center in Ross four years ago.
Dopp will be at Three Rivers Center for Independent Living in Swissvale this morning to celebrate the success of "Nursing Home Transitions: Choosing Community," a year-old program that offers senior citizens or those with disabilities a chance to leave assisted-care facilities and live at home.
"They're offering me a whole new life," said Dopp, 41, of Avalon, who has lived nearly 20 years with MS, a degenerative neurological disease.
The program is run by human services agencies, with money from the state and federal government.
It has helped 64 people in seven counties -- including 30 in Allegheny County -- to move from institutions to homes or apartments. Another 64 Allegheny County residents are preparing to move.
Unlike similar programs that preceded it, this program pays $4,000 toward relocation expenses and any other government assistance to which the individuals are entitled, said program coordinator Lynn Buccilli. Program staffers also coordinate homemaker and medical services.
Dopp was 23 when MS began to gradually rob her of balance, coordination, her career as a cardiothoracic nurse and, eventually, her independence.
At 36, she joined her grandmother in the county-run nursing home. That lasted 22 months, Dopp said, just long enough for her to know she would do anything to keep from going back.
Dr. Eric Rodriguez, a geriatrician with the University of Pittsburgh Institute on Aging and associate professor of geriatric medicine at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, said moving home can greatly benefit people.
"I think (people) lose a lot when they move into an institutional setting, especially here in Pittsburgh where the sense of neighborhood is so strong," Rodriguez said. "It's not just the loss of a home, but the loss of a home in a community, of the habitual things they do in a community. Schedules are enforced; you have to go to bed when the staff says, get up when the staff says."
Still, Rodriguez said he had some reservations about the program, including whether people would get sufficient support services.
"It's not clear if it is cheaper to have someone in a community, with the same needs that put them in the nursing home, than it is to have them live in the nursing home," he said. "I'm skeptical."
At times it's tough, says Dopp, who went from being nearly bedridden to walking with a walker. The improvement was made possible through rigorous physical therapy, sheer will and the help of a daily-living assistant. She shudders to think of the progress she might have lost by staying institutionalized.
"I'd be back to not walking, in bed and just getting out because it's the rules," she said.
A devout Roman Catholic, Dopp no longer prays for absolute recovery. Instead, she counts the blessings independence has brought her: a swim with the dolphins, several hot air balloon rides and, much to her surprise, a fiance.
Dopp and Ken Whigham, a coordinator of nursing home transition services, met when he worked for Three Rivers scheduling replacement home assistants. He proposed in November and they plan to be married next May.
Dopp already is planning her walk down the aisle -- without her electric wheelchair.
"This is the best I've been in years," she said. "It's been this way since I left the nursing home."
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