Audra Smallwood
August 2021
Audra
Smallwood
,
BSN, RN
MICU
IU Health Adult Academic Health Center
Indianapolis
,
IN
United States
Audra helped get the little girls to bedside so they could say goodbye to their daddy.
Our unit can be a very emotionally draining unit due to the amount of end-of-life situations with our patients. We had a 37-year-old male with terminal inoperable gastric cancer. He had two little girls and a wife. Our team did everything we could for this young male, but he medically could not recover. Audra helped get the little girls to bedside so they could say goodbye to their daddy. A hospital, especially an ICU (Intensive Care Units), can be a very scary place for young children, even traumatizing. Audra did a fantastic job making their visit as enjoyable as possible. She helped the little girls make handprints with their daddy, letting them pick the colors and paper. She talked to them about their favorite memories with their dad. She then got them coloring pages and crayons to help distract them from the tragic thing happening in front of them. Audra got them an Angel basket with snacks and drinks. I even heard her tell them that if it wasn’t enough and they were still hungry she would go get them something at the cafeteria. The amount of compassion and thoughtfulness she showed these girls was heartwarming. I know that this death was not easy on her. As a unit, we sometimes get callus to the passing of our patient, but I could tell this one hit harder than normal. She created a bond with those little girls, and I know they will never forget her.