Christina is just an amazing, outgoing, warm, charismatic person. Every day she shows up to work and she makes her peers feel welcomed and remembers details in our lives. She also takes her time with patients and families and never rushes any interaction with anyone, it really shows with her nursing care. Christina will take the time to walk around if she has downtime to make sure she is lending a hand to a fellow employee who may be swamped with their assignment. There have been plenty of times where Christina will help me out with my "job duties" and dissolve that line of PCA duties and goes ahead and knocks out a bath, linen change, or intake/output weight, while she is in there. It is very helpful when she is able to but the fact she acknowledges we are busy and above all, it is helping with the care of our patients. She is very thoughtful and aware of those sort of things that really gives her a "spark" about her. Christina is phenomenal in the care that she gives to her patients, hands down. A true gem to have on this unit.
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Our girl with the sass is hilarious, to say the least, we never know what kind of mood she was going to give and if it was a good mood Christina would give us the green light to go into her room and say hello. Or if it was bad, Christina would politely ask us to steer clear. Christina didn't mind handling her mood swings, I think it's what makes AYA care so "fun". When I say fun, well it keeps us on our toes! We all relate to being a teenage girl and then throw the "C word" on top of a teenage girl's world and we are in for one heck of a ride! Anywho, Christina would take the insults of "crappy" nursing care (if it was her bad day) but really we know that was her way to express what was going on, not actual crappy care. Christina would hear about our girl's boyfriend drama, best friend drama, father drama, and lovely Christina would kindly listen and be the voice of reason. Or if that bf is a cheater! "You dump that loser!" Christina empowered our girl. She encouraged her through the bad days of radiation and the swollen days of steroids and meds and the days our girl wanted to GLAM her makeup for flashes of hope! Seeing the care Christina gives but also Christina giving the patient the "okay" to give me a chance. It has been a heartwarming experience to be a part of this journey with the patient and her dad.
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WHEW! Our girl has been educated! She just runs the show lol! We have learned quickly how to better communicate with the team, doctors, nurses, PCAs, and patient and her father. In the midst of these months, it keeps us flexible. I think the more "challenging" patients sharpens our nursing/caring skills because we find different creative ways to relate to the patient. As well as talking with the patient and allowing the patient to plan her day with a little give and take on both ends. It's those patients and families that we rise to the occasion within reason to make us better caregivers.
Christina and I were on day 3 together and I had our girl with her for the past 3 days and overall the patient wasn't doing well. A component of treatment plan changes, side effects of the medicines and mental stress really took a toll on her. This day it wasn't going to let up, the doctors didn't give the patient the best of news and the patient's options were narrowing for the treatment plan. For an hour this patient just sat on the floor and cried with Christina. It was within that moment Christina empathized with that patient receiving crappy news, empathized with the girl who is 17 and has spent a year in treatment, traveled to us to receive care, and to be told this treatment isn't working. Those moments our patient needed a friend, needed a spectacular nurse and needed a role model to show this patient we understand. We get it. As health care workers we understand it and sometimes it's hard to really show that connection because we don't have cancer, but we care so deeply because we are the caregivers on this journey with these patients. We are just as sad when their journey is not going how we all hoped, prayed and supported it to be. We think about these patients on our off days and after their journey. We hope that our patients are in school, outside playing, or if they passed away- how are their parents doing or their siblings? It was such a genuine moment for Christina and this patient to have.
If our girl doesn't want to take her 12 pills at 8 am, well Christina would try and wait as long as she could before she would barter with the mandatory ones and ones that could wait a little longer. We really tried our best to let her/her father plan their day if it didn't clash with other patients' care. I think we honored our patient and her father well. I think we won them over from their previous "standards" from a different hospital and we succeeded what they thought our care would be. At the end of it all, I think Children's gave exceptional care, personalized care and we changed the outcome day to day with her and her father.
Note: This is Christina's 2nd DAISY Award!