I am a 50-year-old woman who has been through a lot in the past three weeks. I came in due to severe bladder issues with bleeding and hypertension. My husband just passed away in December and my body and mind have been on a roller coaster ride. Alyssa had such a strong presence of compassion and respect that I haven’t seen in a long time and I have spent a good amount of my life in the hospital. Nothing seemed to be going right these last few days, and if anything, things were getting worse because of others' attitudes toward my situation and I seemed to be overlooked. It was like I was just another patient to get in and quickly get out the door.

Alyssa however, showed me that I did matter and that everything going on with me mattered. She advocated for me when I was having a hard time being acknowledged. Alyssa went out of her way to change my whole bed by herself because no one would just listen to see what was wrong. Again, as I said, my husband passed away a little over three weeks ago and just trying to hold that together was hard yet I knew that if I needed to cry, I believed she would be by my side just for that.

As it turned out, they were trying to just send me home until one particular person was there to take care of my issues. I had these issues that were still serious and they wanted to just basically cut off my meds, keep me hooked up to my medical device and send me home until the doctor got back from vacation the next week. I totally lost it. I cried profusely and couldn’t deal with it anymore. Alyssa went out of her way to discuss this with the ones who were controlling at least part of it, and the next thing I knew, I was speaking to the chaplain, crying so hard into that deep dark pit you get when the world seems like it’s all against you, yet when I got through Alyssa was by my side telling me that it wasn’t going to happen the way she was initially told and that I could breathe. When I saw the look on her face, I could tell that she cared enough to fight for me and my feelings which she definitely didn’t have to. However, in doing so, she changed me in that moment, from barely being able to breathe to taking a deep breath and hearing her say, “it’s going to be okay.”

For people who have never needed anyone to stand in the gap for them, you will not have a clue what I’m saying but for me, it changed me and gave me a desire to help others and myself. Alyssa was my heaven-sent angel this weekend/week and I know she is going to help many more people. She is a very special, very compassionate, and an amazing woman.