Kyra has been a nurse for 3.5 years here at Egleston. She started her nursing career in the Egleston Emergency Department, where she excelled in all areas. Her passion is to become a CRNA, and she needed critical care experience for school. She made the difficult decision to leave the job that she loved in the ER and go to CICU. While she was fearful of the unknown, she quickly excelled in that unit as well.

In the CICU, some of the more chronic patients have nurses who become their primary caregivers, usually at the request of the parents. It wasn't long after she got off orientation that the parents of a patient requested her as one of his primary caregivers. This nurse not only took care of him every shift she worked, but she became close to the family. They spent hours sharing things about life, fun football banters on Saturdays, coffee talk, all while taking care of him. She spent his one and only Christmas with the family at his bedside.

The day the family decided to withdraw care, Kyra was at the bedside all day comforting all the extended family and then just the parents as they held their little boy for the last time. She went to his celebration of life/funeral to support the parents and to celebrate a very short life of a child that was so loved, and she was a witness to that love daily. As a friend and colleague, I saw a side of this nurse that any parent would be lucky to have as their nurse. She had some personal struggles outside of work during the months that she cared for this patient, but never once let that affect the amazing care and support that she gave to him and his family. This nurse is one of a kind, and this family will forever remember her for the love and compassion that she showed them during the most difficult days of their lives.