Lee Buschard

I really can not explain how comforting it was to me to have Lee by my side and constantly telling me that  “we are going to take good care of you”, “we aren’t going to let anything happen to you”, I put all my faith into her.  Lee saved my life, not just by her quick action to get Respiratory and reconnect me to a machine but by her being calm when I was terrified and her reassuring me constantly.  I spent the whole afternoon in PACU and Lee was always by my side.  I knew I would be okay with Lee by my side.

When I awoke and opened my eyes, Lee was standing right beside me.  She told me that I needed some help with my breathing and they had me connected to a machine to assist my breathing.  I immediately became frightened and just started to pray and think about my two teenagers.  I prayed over and over again not to let me die, I was so scared. I thought about my kids’ friends who have lost their mothers over the years and how well those children have adjusted, which only made it worse on me, because now I was thinking that my kids would do fine and not need me.  It was like there was no reasoning with God.

Then I heard Lee say, we are going to take good care of you, we aren’t going to let anything happen to you”.  I heard Lee say that over and over again.  It felt like she said it a hundred times.  I remember that I stopped praying and just kept listening to what she was saying.  I just focused on what she was saying and I truly believed her.

As hours went by, whenever I opened my eyes, Lee was right at my side and still saying “we are going to take good care of you, we aren’t going to let anything happen to you”.  I motioned with my tied down hand that I wanted to write something.  I wrote “please do not put me on a regular floor”.  I had a fear of being put at the end of a hallway and something happening to me and the nurses not being there to help me.

Lee visited me every morning that week in SICU on her way into work.  She is a wonderful person and nurse and Winter Haven Hospital should be so proud to have such a great nurse on staff.  In my heart I will always believe that Lee saved my life that day and I will always be grateful to her.  I really do not think that I would have made it through the ordeal without her positive comments and me believing in what she was saying.