Amy Gonzalez, ADN, RN

My 88-year-old father came into the ER at Rush-Copley unable to urinate or move his bowels for almost two weeks. We learned that his kidneys were damaged. He was catheterized and they kept him overnight for observation. He was admitted as an inpatient the next day due to pain in his wrist/hand from gout caused by the kidney issues. They gave him some meds to help move his bowels. He had been losing a lot of weight lately and the doctors thought it was IBS. He had never had issues with his bowels up until a couple of months ago when he really started to lose weight.

I was not convinced that what he was suffering from was IBS and asked about having a CT scan done to be sure. I shared my concerns with nurse Amy. My father had a new nurse every day, but the day he had Amy Gonzalez as a nurse, everything changed. She agreed that more needed to be done to rule out other issues and worked with the physicians to get an X-ray of his abdomen. From there, it was decided that a CT scan with contrast would be done to get a better picture of what was happening.

The CT scan was done the next day, and they saw he had severe diverticulosis and that there was a thickening in his lower abdomen, along with an enlarged prostate. This finding led to him having an endoscopy and colonoscopy two days later. He was then diagnosed with colon cancer. If Amy had not listened to me and agreed that there was more happening than just IBS, my father most likely would not have been diagnosed and treated for his colon cancer. We are so incredibly grateful for Amy, her insistence on more testing, and her consistent advocacy. We have had some incredible nurses in the 13 days since my dad arrived at the hospital, but we will always be thankful for Amy.