Laurel Law was a wonderful example of all core values while our daughter was hospitalized in the PICU for nearly 3 weeks. I would like to start this letter out by saying that I am also a PICU nurse on this very unit and every single person on this unit and hospital treated us as "family". Not a single person in this hospital treated us with anything less than respect and care but it was not a hard decision in choosing Laurel as the nominee since she did go above and beyond in the way she treated our daughter and in the way I see her treat patients every day on our unit. Our daughter was diagnosed with influenza B and had to be placed on the ventilator for an extended period of time. As a PICU nurse and mother this is your worst nightmare staring you in the face. My husband and children however are not in the medical field and were in complete shock at how quickly she seemed to "go downhill". My husband would sit at her bedside and cry those first few days and Laurel always said just the right thing to snap him out of it and get him laughing. Laurel always stopped by her room even if she didn't have her that day. One very special memory I have and is really the reason why I nominated her has to do with not only the wonderful way she treated our daughter but the way she treated me. After our daughter had been on the vent several days she was getting no better and it was decided to do a CT scan to see if we were missing something. The news was devastating to me that my little girl who was only 6 had a strange pneumonia that was taking over both her lungs. In true nurse fashion I went over to her bed and continued to do what I always did and was helping take care of my daughter. My daughter began to cough and I began to suction out her breathing tube and before I knew it I was sobbing while trying to care for her. Laurel stepped away from her bed and I thought she was just giving me a moment to cry but instead she simply went over and closed the door and curtain, moved my daughter to the side of the bed placed a blanket over her tubes and wires, politely took the suction catheter out of my hand and pointed next to my daughter and said "That's where you need to be". Laurel gave me exactly what I needed by allowing me to let out every emotion that I had been so hard trying to keep bottled in from my friends, family, and fellow staff, all the while snuggling with my sweet daughter. I think by reading this letter that you will agree that Laurel definitely deserves to be acknowledged for the exceptional way that she treated our entire family during this bad time in our lives.