My wife was admitted to Shady Grove Hospital in the 25th week of her pregnancy due to gestational hypertension and we have been in the hospital for 16 days. In late December, my wife and I had the hardest day in our lives when our beloved son passed away in the NICU within 48 hours of his unexpected early birthday. We were heartbroken, devastated, and feeling hopeless. Our son's little heart stopped in front of our eyes, and we were taken into a room to grieve while it was still dark outside.

As the sun was slowly rising in the cold Rockville morning, our nurse, Ms. Hana, was starting her shift. She gently entered our grieving room and immediately started taking care of my wife with enormous love and compassion. I was still in the shock of losing the first and only child I ever had, but I was also extremely worried about the health of my wife, who still had serious, life-threatening postpartum hypertension.

In the next two days, we felt so fortunate that Ms. Hana was assigned as the day nurse for my wife. Hana not only provided exceptional clinical care to my wife, but she also provided her with tremendous emotional support. Every single time she entered the room, she had an extremely pleasant and positive attitude, which helped my wife to cope with the loss and to continue taking her medications.

We didn't have any family in the country to support us, and Hana even joined us while we were grieving. My wife requested a final service for our son in the hospital's healing garden, and Hana helped us to take our son along with a chaplain. Hana joined our prayers, and I noticed her prayers when my wife was saying goodbye to our son. Despite being so busy, and getting so many calls, Hana always treated my wife with patience and always listened to my wife entirely. Whenever I requested her help, Hana immediately responded with a big smile on her face, which gave so much hope to my wife to recover.

Hana is an extremely careful, professional, courteous, and compassionate nurse. During the 16 difficult days in the Shady Grove Medical Center, we met so many great nurses who provided great care. Hana stood out among all the nurses, and it has been our privilege to get to know her at the most difficult point of our lives.

My wife once told me that when Hana enters her room, she feels like the room is filled with sunshine. I am so grateful Hana happened to be our nurse on those two days because I am not sure how my wife's blood pressure would otherwise have gone back to relatively normal that quickly after all the trauma she has experienced.

It has been almost a month since we got discharged from the hospital, and my wife and I are still talking about Hana and sending her our prayers. We believe our son became an angel, and he sent us Hana as my wife's angel on that December morning. We are extremely blessed to know that nurses like Hana exist, and Hana further increased our respect and gratitude towards all healthcare workers. After seeing Hana's kindness, patience, compassion, and exceptional support to my wife, I feel obligated to pay it forward by striving to be a better person. We believe Hana is an influential nurse, and we hope she will be given opportunities and recognition to inspire many generations of great nurses.

I can imagine your committee may be getting many nominations at this time of the year. Thank you for considering my nomination of Ms. Hana for the DAISY Award, I believe she so much deserves this recognition for her outstanding service.