Our Husband, Father, Grandfather, Brother, Friend, and Coach was a patient here for a week. He was married to his true love for 32 years and together they shared 6 children and 11 grandchildren. For 41 years, he coached youth baseball, touching the lives of hundreds of young men over the years. Roughly a month prior to being admitted to the hospital, he was running around the yard with his three youngest granddaughters, tending to his garden/yard, and running around the state attending every event of his 11 grandchildren -just being his usual active self. Then suddenly, he was diagnosed with an aggressive and rare lung cancer that had spread throughout his body. We were numb with disbelief and fear.
Luckily, not only did we have a compassionate and educated team of physicians, we had Jacob Lakatua assigned as our nurse on Day 1.
Jacob and our father had a connection from the beginning; their personalities meshing perfectly, which made a very difficult family situation, bearable. Our dad had a dry, sometimes crude, sense of humor, and Jacob understood him from the start. At one point when he complained that "he missed all the pretty nurses", Jacob offered to wear a wig the following day, and we all had a good laugh! This is just one of the many examples of their connection and the humor Jacob injected into our lives during a truly devastating time.
Our mother never left our Dad's side while he was in the hospital, however, she was recovering from a recent shoulder surgery. Jacob always made sure our mother was comfortable and that she was taking care of herself. He brought her snacks, extra pillows, water, a cot, bedding, tissues - anything she needed - without her even asking. We're pretty sure he "nursed" her needs just as well as those of our dad.
Each morning, after the family meeting with the doctors, Jacob would make himself available for as long as necessary to answer our questions. While the doctors did an incredible job of explaining situations, procedures, etc., sometimes we'd discover we would have additional questions once we began talking amongst ourselves. Jacob explanations were in layman's terms we could understand and were laced sincere compassion.
It didn't take long for us to see how much Jacob was respected by the nurses and doctors on the floor. While never intrusive, the other nurses on staff seemed to turn to Jacob more than any other nurse when a question arose, or they needed help - Jacob would always respond with a smile - never irritated due to the interruption.
With six kids, eleven grandchildren, friends galore and hundreds of young men he had coached over the years, it's not surprising to know that our dad had a flurry of visitors during his stay at Overlake. More than once, we found ourselves "flinching" as Jacob entered the room as 10 or more visitors surrounded our dad. We held our breath when Jacob began to speak because we knew he was going to ask some of us to go to the waiting room (which no one wanted to do - we all wanted to be by our father's side), but instead, Jacob would ask if he could bring us some additional chairs or some water. Jacob understood not only how important it was for us to be by our Dad's side, but more importantly, he understood how much our Dad needed to be surrounded by his family and friends.
Although we know Jacob was also caring for other patients, Jacob made us feel like our Dad had his own private nurse. Jacob was constantly checking on his vitals, making sure his medication level was such that he wasn't in pain as well as checking on the needs of us as a family. During each visit, Jacob thoroughly explained not only what he was doing, but why he was doing it - all while keeping in constant communication with the staff of doctors. When the doctor compassionately came to us and asked us to change our approach to one of comfort for our Dad's final days, Jacob was there - as a member of our family. He answered our questions, he shared in our sadness, he held us as we cried.
Our family is quite large and between all of us, we've had our fair share of hospital experiences, but none of us have ever witnessed the level of dedication, compassion, experience, and brilliance as we experienced with Jacob.
Jacob is second to none and we can think of no one else as deserving of this special award, "The DAISY Award".