My husband was brought down to the Cath Lab in Dyer. An angel of a nurse named Mary Elizabeth was assigned to assist with my husband's TEE, as a prelude to his ablation scheduled for the next day. First of all, you need to know that due to experiences with his mom in the past, my husband is extremely distrustful of the medical community in general. He was also feeling apprehensive about both procedures and was looking for information as well as some comfort to ease his troubled mind. When my husband gets apprehensive, he starts to crack jokes. Mary Elizabeth did a masterful job of not only picking up on his attempt to hide his apprehension, but she joined him in the levity. She told her own personal funny stories and joked with him, which immediately put him at ease and helped him trust her as his nurse.

When his TEE was over, she answered some basic questions about the ablation scheduled for the next day and told him that Dr. M was a great doctor to do the procedure. My husband was disappointed to hear that she wouldn't necessarily be assigned to his case the next day, but she said she would look for him. True to her word, the next day when he went down to the Cath Lab, Mary Elizabeth was one of the first ones in the holding area. She told him she wanted to say hello, and he was immediately relieved.

After the ablation, I was relieved to hear that Mary Elizabeth was in the procedure room with him during his ablation. She stayed by his side afterward. She went with him up to recovery, showed me the waiting room, and made sure the team knew where to find me once he was able to go up to his room. Mary Elizabeth was thoughtful, caring, intuitive, and so knowledgeable. She comforted without being condescending, she was attentive without being smothering, and through it, all was good-natured and positive. It wasn't until the second day that Mary Elizabeth found out I was an employee. When I told her that I was nominating her for the DAISY she was ever so briefly overcome with emotion. Perhaps this was her first nomination? I find that impossible to believe. In dealing with so many others in the hospital, it is easy to see that she is one of the best that we employ. How she hasn't been nominated on multiple occasions and hasn't yet received the DAISY Award is beyond me. These are the kind of nurses we need to recognize. These are the kind of nurses we need to keep employed with our organization. I will forever be grateful for the wonderful care and genuine concern that we received from this angel.