Maggie Schwartz took care of W for the first several days he was admitted to the ICU. She was a huge advocate for W from day one and never stopped caring for him. She shaved him, kept him clean, dressed, and comfortable. There was a Sunday when we thought maybe his condition was not as bad as the trauma was and maybe he would be able to recover, but no, he took a turn for the worse and confusion happened and in my husband’s words, “Do they think it’s Grey’s Anatomy?” Again Maggie stopped this scene from continuing and eased the confusion and advocated for our son who was intubated and had no voice, yet he did, he had her to speak for him and she was doing it so sweetly.

My son would have been honored to have Maggie by his side. She even came to our family meeting on her day off when we got the news about his complete brain injuries and the decisions were made to remove life support. She remained to help my family through the traumatic news. In the words of everyone around, including myself as a nurse, who does this!? Maggie does this. She is the nurse who The DAISY Award was created for; she is the above and beyond nurse, she is the one nurse you want around you all the time. She was meant to be a nurse and the best part of this all is she did all of this caring for us while training someone else to be caring.