July 2022
Jia
Zhai
,
RN
Post Partum
HealthPark Medical Center
Fort Myers
,
FL
United States

 

 

 

The amount of work she accomplished was astounding.
My daughter and her husband welcomed a beautiful baby boy into this world. We all were thrilled when the new little family arrived home. All was perfect until 3 days later, at 3 am, when my daughter woke up to 10/10 pain in her right upper abdomen. They rushed her to the ER and started the work-up. Nothing was overtly obvious, and she was admitted to 4W post-partum. Testing continued through the day, but my daughter continued to get sicker. Her pain was occasionally decreased with pain medications but continued in severe pain. A plan was made to have an urgent cholecystectomy the following day after the pipida scan was complete. During the evening hours, my daughter began to get septic. Her temperature spiked to 103, and her heart rate was 130’’s. Her BP was elevated. OB thought there was an element of pre-eclampsia occurring. At 1900 Nurse Jia walked into this mess. On 4W they often have an assignment of 4 moms and 4 babies. As the orders started piling on, Jia knew that taking care of my daughter would be a full-time job. She was able to have other nurses pick up her other assigned patients. Jia, who is a post-partum nurse, transformed into an ICU nurse. The amount of work she accomplished was astounding: blood cultures, new IVs, blood draws, starting a continuous Mag drip with frequent vitals and neuro checks, consults to multiple doctors, 3 new antibiotics, IV fluid boluses, stat CT scans, MET team call. A Covid swab was also positive (probably from a previous infection), so all this had to be done with airborne/contact isolation. She also did all the preop/shower for the surgery pending. On top of all of this, she was able to speak to me on the phone about questions I had. The icing on the cake is that Jia never missed pumping for break milk throughout the night every 4 hours. Breastfeeding was very important to my daughter. Jia definitely saved my daughter’s life that night, and I am eternally grateful. She was above and beyond.