I must share my experience with my 8-night stay in MAP unit in the beginning of month. Deanna helped me through the hardest nights of my adult life. I underwent an emergency stay due to a ruptured appendix and infection in abdomen. She stuck out from her coworkers in a variety of ways: an educational, respectful way to the quality of care. I was not only undergoing a great amount of pain, but then battled an ileus which caused vomiting for hours on end. Due to my worst symptoms being in the night when visitors were not allowed, she was my only help. I cry every time I think about how caring she was, not only in the sense of holding my vomit bags and putting my pillows in the right spots but the compassion and humanity she shared with me was just exceptional. She has a unique gift to connect with her patients and see past their ailments and made me feel still human in a surreal experience of when I felt like a lab rat. Having a nurse hold compassion for me when they are in a time of extreme workload and number of patients, she made me feel like my case mattered. Remembered things I shared about myself even the next day. She made each night more comfortable when I was in the worst time of my life. Making sure a CNA would make time for me to shower or go for an assisted walk, or she’d tell me joke to lighten my mental load. A gentle touch on my arm, or hand on my head when I’m sobbing from pain or from frustration of my body struggling. She never once made me feel like “she felt bad for me” but more like her heart could feel my pain and she wished she could take it away just for a minute. She even said that at one point. What a wonderful human. Just unbelievable a stranger could be so heartfelt to another. If I didn’t have her for a couple of those nights, I do not know what my experience would have been at that hospital. I had some other wonderful, experienced staff, but she was far exceptional. I no longer think of her as just my nurse. I left that hospital with another friend in my life. I can never repay her for the energy she provided me with and the amount of integrity she held in her position and listened to when I was stressed and upset with lack of answers and tried to troubleshoot with me to make me feel heard. Trust is such a difficult thing to earn in the healthcare system… I had some wonderful support staff and physicians surely. But I cannot even imagine what state I would be in if she wasn’t my nurse on some of those brutal nights. Please appreciate her for all that she’s worth. Because I will remember her dearly for the rest of my life.