I brought a patient to the PACU who awoke from anesthesia in a confused and agitated state “emergence delirium.” The patient required much more 1:1 nursing care than a typical PACU patient. We needed to treat the delirium, keep the patient calm and not harm themselves or the staff and do some testing and treatment to make certain that nothing more serious (hypoglycemia, CO2 retention, stroke, and pulmonary embolus) was going on.

Carlee went above and beyond the call of duty to compassionately care for this patient. Her PACU co-workers also came over periodically to help her. Fortunately, no serious underlying changes were discovered and over time, the behavior subsided and the patient was able to go back to surgery and be discharged home later that day.