Lynda has spent most of her career working with adults over 16 with cystic fibrosis. I met her 29 years ago when I became a patient on the ward at age 22 when I transferred to the unit. She has seen me through thick and thin in my medical issues. Despite not being able to drive she arrives at every shift smiling even after a long bus journey to and from a 12-hour shift. She always shows professionalism, love, friendship, compassion, and excellent patient-centered care to her patients. I was often in hospital on long visits with no family near me to visit apart from a weekend with me living 150 miles round trip to the hospital. She would always make sure I had everything I needed for my care, go out of her way to get me anything extra I needed personally, and to check I was OK, she always showed interest in my life, not just doing the required care, it felt like I had a friend visiting when she came in to do my treatment in my room. Because of the nature of Cystic Fibrosis we all are isolated in our own rooms so a friendly smiling face is what made your day brighter.

We had a lot of long-standing nurses who supported us through our times in hospital but Lynda is the only one left from the original long-term staff. I would like to nominate her for dedicating her life to the care of myself and the many CF patients she has been there for. Unfortunately, she has had to see a lot of us original, older patients die on duty so I would like to take this last opportunity to give her my thanks for everything she has done for me and every patient that has come through the door on our ward. She really is an inspiration to the nursing community and I would hope that every new nurse that joins our ward has even some of Lynda’s qualities then we will know we are in safe hands for our future care.