Ms. Fontelo was not our nurse during a weeklong stay at UCLA facility. This day was on the heels of a 5 day stay at Los Robles, Thousand Oaks; only 4 days apart. My wife has been diagnosed with a failing liver, hoping to be placed on the transplant list. Ms. Fontelo literally covers her primary assignments but really the entire floor at Internal Medicine. I say so because in observing her work she acknowledged and spoke to families and supporters of the patients; always a smile and a greeting.
One morning, a rough one at that, during our stay, I visited the cafeteria for a bite, my wife was NPO and I couldn't eat in front of her. I approached the cashier after standing in line a while and the cashier told me my bite was paid by the woman in front of me. In my current worried state, I did not even notice her. What a fool I was, it was Ms. Fontelo who was gone in a flash. Just nothing more than luck, I ran into her later in the hallway and thanked her, and apologized. She simply said she was glad to do it and realized what a hard week I had been going through. I thought "my god is it that obvious?"
She woke me up to reality and now I can get out of a funk and be thankful, appreciative of my luck and fortune to be alive and my wife of 40 years to get treatment here. I think Carclea Fontelo is an angel and I thank her for noticing. I nominate her hoping that this UCLA organization notices and acknowledges her too. What a blessing! Thank you Ms. Fontelo!