Ashley Ezell, RN

It's difficult to choose one nurse who stood out in our stay. Everyone on the CCDH unit was great. It felt like they all listened to us and trusted us with what we were seeing with our baby. Ashley was phenomenal. When our son was first sent up to the unit post-surgery, we weren't informed that he'd gone up. By the time we figured out where he was, we were a little shaken up. Ashley was his nurse at the time, and her patient/family experience recovery was amazing. She settled our nerves and answered questions we had even as she was trying to do his first assessment. She clearly has a love for her patients and often told us that she thinks of her patients as "her kids" since she doesn't have any of her own yet. She talked to our 6-month-old and just loved on him. She found him toys to interact with. The biggest thing she did, though, was advocate for us.

Our baby was 6 months old when we underwent his CDH repair. By the morning after surgery, he was hungry. Although the team planned to follow their normal post-op plans, Ashley recognized that our little guy was ready to nurse again. He had good output, his vitals were stable, but he was definitely showing hunger cues. We had tried clear liquids, as recommended by the team, but he just wasn't having any of it. Ashley voiced our desire to get him back to breast and supported that she felt this was an appropriate action. She and Dr. Kays agreed that we could attempt getting him to nurse and see how it went. He was such a happy little guy after he had a full belly again.

Even beyond that, Ashley had great recommendations of where to eat to try more local options for when we didn't want hospital food anymore. It felt like she adopted us for our stay. Even when she wasn't our nurse, she made deliberate stops in our room to say "Hi," see how we were doing, and check in on our baby to see how he was looking. It was evident to us that Ashley sees her job as a vocation, a calling, and we couldn't have been more pleased with her.