My daughter was born earlier this year, and after 19 “normal” healthy days at home, we brought her into the clinic due to some concerning spots on her legs. We thought that we were overreacting by bringing her in for evaluation, but were shocked to find out that she had an extremely rare infant leukemia, and she was hospitalized very quickly. Within 30 minutes of being admitting to the heme/onc floor, she was rapid-responsed to the PICU, and spent 5-6 days there. While everyone on her care team was absolutely incredible, Cale was her primary night shift nurse, and truly went above and beyond for us and for her.

She got to the PICU about one hour before night shift, and when Cale got on his first shift she has just been intubated. That night, Cale had an incredibly busy night with her. He took her on not one, not two, but THREE road trips to the main hospital for two CTs and an MRI. On top of that, he assisted with four or five line attempts for them to get her central line and arterial line placed. They were also very concerned with her labs for tumor lysis syndrome and DIC – so he was drawing labs frequently, and gave her eight different blood products that night. Throughout all of this chaos, Cale was calm, competent, compassionate, and efficient. He cared for her but also made sure to check in on my husband and me. It was only after I thought about it the next day that I realized just how stressful Cale’s night had been – you never would have guessed it based on the ease that he went about his shift.

The next night, when Cale had less going on with my daughter, he took the time to talk with my husband and me and ask us questions about her. He took an interest in how we had chosen her name and made us feel that he didn’t just view her as another patient but as a little human being.

On our third day in the hospital, we found out that her massive brain bleed had resulted in significant unrecoverable brain damage, and we decided not to give her chemo and to keep her comfortable. Before our final night in the hospital, we found out that the nurse we’d had the previous two nights wasn’t back, and my husband told me, “I hope that Cale is on tonight.” Sure enough, Cale was back and was our nurse that night. He knew we planned to take some photos the next day and remove her breathing tube, and he told us about his plan to remove her extra and unnecessary IVs in her arm and hand, and also removed her arterial line so it would be easier for us to put her in my favorite sleeper. After doing this, he accidentally got some blood on her sleeper. When I took it to see if I could wash it out, he told me not to worry about it and that he would take care of it that night while I got some sleep. Sure enough, the next morning I entered her room and he had successfully gotten the blood out of her outfit, and had washed and dried it. He had also cleaned up not only her area of her room, but also our family area. My husband had even left his dinner on the table and had forgotten about it, and Cale wrapped it up and put it in the fridge. This was by no means necessary or his job, but he took the time to make her room clean and comfortable for the challenges of the day ahead.

Not only did Cale notice the clinical things, but the small and personable things as well. While I am sure that I am forgetting other things that Cale did, we just wanted to express how grateful we are for the care that Cale provided to our daughter and to our family; we will never forget his compassionate care for all three of us. Thank you, Cale, for everything.