We are coming up to 2 years of treatment for Leukemia for our now 3-year-old daughter with a hopeful conclusion in August.
I have been meaning over the last 2 years to recognize our daughter's amazing nurses and just kept putting it off. I'm not sure if it was just being wrapped up in what pill or pills I had to give every night or trying to move life along for the rest of the family. It also could have been because recognizing them makes everything seem more real and I've been trying to avoid that and pretend like her cancer was a dream until it's all over.
So, here we are almost done with her treatment and I would be completely remiss to not recognize her amazing team. Everyone in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology is truly awesome but there are nurses whom we see most often who have grown near and dear to our hearts.
Jamie Rogers, it's hard to put into words how amazing she is. How she makes our daughter feel. The lengths she goes to in order to make her comfortable. It feels like she considers M family. As M has aged she has come to understand more what is happening when we go to the clinic. She has lumbar punctures every 12 weeks now and this last time she was beginning to correlate the procedure room with what was about to happen. M can't stand having the cling wrap on anymore for her numbing cream which was never an issue before. Jaime went out of her way to try all sorts of solutions to make M happy and willing to move forward with her procedure. To not watch my daughter go through more anguish was so relieving and to Jamie, it's just her job.
Every time we walk in she has a calm and sweet smile for us and puts M at ease. M really opens up to Jamie and tells her all sorts of stories and talks about her at home, so I know Jamie is special to her. She just goes out of her way to make us all comfortable. She always asks if we need anything before leaving the room. She lets M shake her blood tubes, ship them off with the press of a button and pick out her band-aids from the special stash. She's always doing these little things that make such a huge difference in M's comfort level and it is surely noticed! Watching kids go through cancer is not an easy job at all. I've heard kids crying and screaming telling the nurses, "no, they didn't want something done to them". I just see them all walk out of those rooms calm, collected and not shaken. They always know what to do next or how to handle it to keep doing their job. It is truly amazing.
It's not a job I would sign up for. It's not a job many people want to do, but we are so lucky these nurses have chosen to care for our child and made such an impact on our lives. I couldn't have imagined going on this journey without them and we are so lucky that they were the ones to care for us.