My son W was transferred to the ICU and was there until he passed away. W had complex medical problems; he was born with hypoplastic lungs and dysplastic kidneys with little function. In addition, he also had colon and urinary tract complications. He was very critical throughout his stay and required 2 to 1 care.
Mardie was his nurse the night he arrived, and she fell in love with our son and signed up to be his primary. Mardie had our son more than any other nurse. I am not sure how many shifts. Each time she worked diligently and showed remarkable compassion for our son as well as my wife and me. She answered all of our questions and explained things that comforted us as well as our son. Her actions increased our faith and our trust that W was receiving the best care possible.
All of W's nurses were amazing but because of the relationship, Mardie developed with us my wife and I rested better when she was on shift. Mardie displayed competence, compassion, dedication, in addition to creativity throughout her shifts with W but perhaps best displayed these attributes on Saturday night. W was on several IV medications and fluids 2 of which were vasopressors (blood pressure meds). My son was very responsive to these meds; anytime the dosage would change, or the syringe would have to be changed, his blood pressure would dip really low. If he got a little more for whatever reason his vitals would swing in the opposite direction. On that Saturday night, his syringe was due to be changed out.
Mardie knew about this and hours before it was due to be changed, she came up with a plan and she got a brand new IV pump tower, brand new fluids, and medications everything that he was on and ran new lines, 6 in total so that the medications would be in that right mixture in the lines in order to try to prevent his BP from dipping. She ran the mixture for 30 minutes to an hour before hooking it up to my son. During this time other nurses would come by and she would explain the situation to them, they would mention an alternate solution and she would explain how she had already thought about that and how their way wouldn't work, she even found time to explain it to me.
She gathered all the resources she needed including other nurses to help and executed the line change. His blood pressure still dipped, and the plan didn't work however Mardie was undeterred; she would continue doing things like this throughout W's stay. I realize that line changes are a part of life for nurses, but this wasn't a normal line change it was nurse Mardie exhausting all options and using all her resources and abilities to try to help my son. Mardie was instrumental in letting W's grandparents and aunt visit with him as well.
Mardie was supposed to start a week-long vacation however the night nurse told her that W had developed a bleed at a catheter site and was not doing well. Mardie came in and took another shift with him starting at 7 am. W passed away at 7:10 pm; Mardie was with him the whole time and stayed well after promising his mom and myself that she would escort him to the morgue. She even took more of her vacation time and traveled over 2 hours to come to his funeral and brought his hospital ID bracelet to us.
Mardie's care, compassion, dedication, and professionalism are in keeping with the finest standards and traditions of the entire nursing profession.