Our mother is almost 87 years old and had emergency GI surgery in August.  She was not recovering well and spent five weeks in the hospital, mostly immobile and severely depressed. She came into the situation with a colostomy bag, then post-surgery had a PIC line inserted, was on oxygen, and ultimately had a feeding tube surgically inserted - she was really in rough shape.

Jackie was her main day nurse and lifeline to her family and the entire care team. The family and my mom can't say enough about Jackie's care both at a personal and professional level.  Though none of us are nurses, we can only imagine what is taught in nursing school and have got to believe that Jackie would be a role model for all students and experienced practitioners alike.

On an interpersonal note, Jackie was everything you want in a nurse - a terrific communicator, kind and caring, patient, and accessible.  With four adult sons involved in trying to get the best care for our mom, we know we can be a handful with many questions and differing personalities. Jackie dealt with all of us as individuals and most importantly our mom, she answered tons of questions about treatment, equipment, pharmaceuticals, nutrition, etc. She acted as a liaison with the physicians (surgeon, psychiatrist, GP, hospitalist, and more), NPs, and the entire care team. She held our mom's hand, helped aides change her bedding and re-position her many times each day, explained patiently all procedures, and calmed our mom constantly. And the four boys - no small feat! And her technical acumen was also obvious. With one of our brothers being a physician, Jackie went above and beyond the call of duty to complement the doctor-to-doctor communication that was occurring, and also took it upon herself to keep the other three brothers updated from a medical / treatment perspective.  She attended to our mom properly and on time, coordinated our care team communication as mentioned, and answered our questions with the appropriate level of medical knowledge balanced with our ability to consume (or not!) the technical jargon. We also observed Jackie's interaction with her colleagues,  fellow nurses, PA / NPs, aides, nutrition staff, PT and OT staffers, etc., and always saw the same level of caring, consideration, and communication/coordination that she offered our mom. It clearly is in her DNA to treat others with respect.

Our mom was discharged to a rehab hospital yesterday. She's doing better, and so much of her positive outcome was driven by Jackie's non-stop caring and technically competent support. We bought a “thank you” gift card for Jackie and gave it to her on our mom’s last day. This was a problem because each time we approached her in the hallway to give it to her and verbally thank her, it caused tears all around. And it’s happening again as this note is being written. It took two approaches to finally give it to her and get the words out! Thank you Jackie on behalf of our boys and our mom. And yes, if she continues to recover, as you suggested, we'll bring her back so she can dance in the Ahuja hallways!