Angela Cressey, RN

Early last month, I brought my 13-year-old to this emergency department after a suicide attempt, and he did not make any part of this easy on anyone, bless his angry and sad heart. We ended up being stuck in the ER for 6 days while waiting for bed placement. I worked out of the ER on my work laptop those 6 days. This experience was traumatizing, and our journey has already been long, exhausting, and fraught with issues at every corner. This was so hard for him, and for me too. This was his third hospitalization for suicidality. Near the end of our stay at this ER, Angela saw that I was struggling emotionally with everything that was going on and everything I still had to do and deal with and coordinate, and she took me aside.

She talked with me for what felt like at least an hour; she cried with me, hugged me, encouraged me to hang on to hope, and shared her own family's experience with some of the things my son and I have been battling for the past year. I don't want to share too much of anything she shared with me here out of respect for her privacy, but this moment of connection was the brightest light in what turned out to be an incredible dark 12 days total (6 at the ER and 6 at the inpatient pediatric psych ward my son was eventually sent to), bar none.

I will be forever grateful to her for all the compassion, hope, and connection she so freely showered me with that day. The fact that she also cried with me and genuinely acknowledged the dark reality that my son and I are currently living with meant so much - not an ounce of toxic positivity, which is so rare when people see you struggling and want things to be better for you but don't know how to help. I feel like I can't do proper justice to this moment, but I will remember how she took care of me in that moment for the rest of my life.