May 2024
Hazelle
Anover
,
RN
KDU
James J. peters VAMC
Bronx
,
NY
United States
I just feel better when I walk into the unit and see her, and I'm not even one of the patients for whom she's caring.
Hazelle Anover doted on Mr. W, a vet who was my dialysis patient. In the time when he was doing pretty well, which meant he was eating and drinking well and gaining a lot of fluid between dialysis treatments, Hazelle, whenever she was assigned to him, would carefully monitor and adjust each of his treatments to try to get rid of all that excess fluid. This wasn't easy, as Mr. W unfortunately also had a tendency towards intradialytic hypotension. But in Hazelle's hands, with her constantly increasing the UF goal, decreasing the UF goal, giving 100 mL of saline, giving a bottle of albumin, increasing the UF goal again, Mr. W would make it down to dry weight or even lower. In the last 15 months of his life, Mr. W became progressively sicker and was in obvious pain much of the time. Removing a lot of fluid was no longer the main challenge during HD; keeping him comfortable was. Here too Hazelle made it happen. She was always checking on him, asking him what he needed, repositioning him, or just talking to him to try to soothe him. It was obvious how hard it was for her to see him like that (it was hard for all of us), but I'm so glad she was there, and I know Mr. W and his family were, too. I don't really think this one story does justice to just how extraordinary a nurse Hazelle is, in both the technical and interpersonal aspects. In a dialysis unit full of great nurses, she still manages to stand out for how much she manages to do and how well she manages to do it all. I just feel better when I walk into the unit and see her, and I'm not even one of the patients for whom she's caring. Thank you.