Janna Noel was nominated by her leaders, peers, and feedback from a patient that is very near and dear to all of our hearts. Janna has been a nurse in the Neuro unit since 2017. Since beginning her career with us, she is known for her wit and humor. She is known to be a team player who consistently asks her peers if they need help with any assignment. She very often gets kudos from her patients and their family members during nurse leader rounds.
B initially came into the ER in the fall. B is a 37-year-old male. His girlfriend found him unresponsive at home. He had been laying unresponsive for quite some time before being brought into the ER. He has a significant medical history and was being non-compliant with his medications prior to this. He was admitted to ICU with a physician noting a very poor prognosis.
Initially, B had severe deficits. He could not speak, walk, talk, or even eat. It has been months of working with him to get him where he is now. B just played kickball with the staff in the hallway and high-fived staff over it this week. This is absolutely remarkable. Throughout his journey, B has had some highs and lows. Some days he became very depressed and did not want to eat or participate in therapy at all. Some therapists were even ready to sign off because of his depression and lack of participation in his care plan. There were several staff members who would not let B quit.
These two were Janna Noel, RN, and C, Nurse Tech. One important note to this nomination is that B had dreads that were over five feet long when he arrived at the hospital, as well as a big beard.
Janna has been the biggest cheerleader for B. Janna would not give up on B when he had clearly given up on himself. She sat at his bedside for very long periods of time and just tried to convince him to even sit on the edge of the bed. There were days that he would not eat at all. Janna would try everything in her power to get him to eat. She would go buy him anything he wanted from the coffee shop. He loves milkshakes now. Janna would even order him food from multiple places and got it delivered to his room. She really struggled some days to understand what food he was asking for. He has come to be quite spoiled with Texas Roadhouse, Red Robin, and Chick Fil A.
Janna and C have even started a meal train among the staff in order to make sure that he gets all the good foods. He even has requests some days. Janna has spent countless hours talking B into doing so many things that we never thought he would. Janna spent quite an extensive amount of time calling different stylists around town. She was trying to get some to come to redo his dreadlocks. One set of hairdressers finally agreed.
When they (on their own) realized it was their regular client B, they came in for free to do this. It took them hours. Janna came in on her day off to help them with this. They closed the door and played his favorite music. He was the happiest I saw him besides at the pond lighting.
Janna worked with staff to come up with a nice tip for these ladies. Janna has bought so many different hair and bathing and shaving products for him. She has spent hours on her day off coming in to check on him, bathe him, feed him, and just sit and talk to him. She comes at least once a week to bathe him or do his hair. She truly has gone way above and beyond the expectations of a compassionate nurse.