Brandi Carlile, Billy Strings, Mavis Staples, Buddy Guy. These names were Thursday’s lineup for 2023 Bourbon & Beyond. Chair passes, registered wrist bands and optimal paid parking crossed off the list. A rocking day of music ahead. Eighty degrees felt a lot hotter sitting in a black chair in full sun. Two hours into the lineup the Jack Daniel’s Shade Tent with cooling misters called my name.

Out of the sun in front of the fans with misters worked at first to cool me down. But the heat had made me light headed and the stand-up bar tables looked like the next best move. As my husband and I walked to the tables, nausea set in. I stepped outside the tent and vomited. Someone offered me their chair and I sat down and vomited some more. The purge helped me feel a little better and crouched beside me was a fellow festival goer who identified himself as a cardiologist from New York. The Good Samaritan asked me how I was doing, what I was experiencing, and about my heart health history. I have quite a history of heart issues, beginning with a stent in 2017 and open-heart surgery in 2021 for Hypertrophic Obstructive Cardiomyopathy. This cardiologist had already alerted the festival medics that someone in the shade tent needed help.

Trying to convince the doctor, the medics and myself that my problems were a result of heat exhaustion because I was feeling better, the good doctor said they have a fully equipped medical tent with a physician back there and I think it would be a good idea if you let the medic drive you in his cart back there and just get checked out. The service is here may as well take advantage of it.

In the medical tent all vital signs showed I was returning to normalcy. For about half an hour I rested on a cot, drank water, and was tended to by staff. The doctor asked me to take a lap around the tent and they would release me. When I stood up my situation changed dramatically. I began vomiting again and then it started. The crushing chest pain of a heart attack. No mistaking the symptoms. A quick EKG proved “worrisome” to the doctor, nitroglycerin was administered, and before I knew it, I was in an ambulance, siren blaring, heading for Baptist Hospital.

The paramedics handed me off to a waiting team, including cardiologist Dr. Dillon, and in the cardio Catheterization lab, he worked to crush a clot that blocked my stent. The pain subsided, and I was taken to the Cardiovascular recovery room, where I got one-on-one care for the rough night.

Friday, I was moved to the Cardiovascular Floor and attached to heart monitors and an oximeter. For the second night, I didn’t get much sleep. My monitor kept going off all night, and the nurse was in and out through the night. I asked him what was up, and he said, “You have some funky beats.” I believe they did three EKGs on me that night. When the sun finally rose, I felt relief.

The doctor came in Saturday and I realized how grave my situation was. The heart attack was a big one and there was a clot in one of the lower heart chambers. There was heart damage and my ejection fraction was less than half of a normal heart. The man who saved my life apologized for being hard on me during the crisis telling me to stop moaning loudly during the procedure. Knowing the situation was tense on crack for both of us in the Cath lab, I acknowledged my panic wasn’t helping matters and an apology was unnecessary. The doctor hugged me and said, “Take a shower”. A shower, just what the doctor ordered. The tech came in and assisted me so I could shower and I assured her I was feeling fine to shower myself. The shower was restorative helping to wash away the trauma of the last two days. But when I sat on the couch to put my socks on, I felt a little dizzy. I moved to the recliner to rest and that’s where my story ended from a conscious level.

McKenzy Stilger was not my nurse that Saturday but she heard me moaning and saying help. I have no recollection of calling out. She just happened to be walking by and with the heart of a true medical professional, she came in to check on me. At the chair I was unresponsive and had no pulse. She began CPR with one hand while calling for help with the other. Somehow the room full of people got me to the bed and shocked me back to life. When I opened my eyes, I saw that there must have been 20+ people in my room looking at me. Someone asked how I was feeling, and I said, “It’s so hot in here. Where’s my fan?”

No one told me I had coded. I suppose they took it for granted, I knew. I thought maybe my heart rhythms were out of whack and they shocked me back into rhythm. My family thought the same. Back to the catheterization lab for a second check and the stent was holding.

The next day I had the same nurse who had been assigned to me on the day I coded. She said, “I haven’t been a nurse in a hospital that long and you’re my first patient who died and was shocked back to life. Now we knew the rest of the story. My daughter and I looked at each other. I asked how it all went down and she told me about McKenzy. I needed to meet the angel that saved my life. McKenzy came to visit me and told me all about the emergency. She said I don’t know if you’re a spiritual person, but I think I was sent here at just this time to help you. I am, and I do, too.

As I reflected on my experience, I realized that every step of the way, I seemed to be right where I needed to be to get the care I needed. The shade tent with the cardiologist, the festival medical tent with an EKG machine and doctors, the ambulance on standby at the festival for just such an emergency, a capable cardiologist to smash my clot, and then a caring nurse with a heart of gold and a head full of knowledge at the very moment my pulse was nonexistent and I needed someone to keep my heart pumping for me.

My mom was in a long-term care facility, and there were often moans and cries for help that went unanswered. But McKenzy took the time to answer my call for help, and I lived to tell her about her skill, her heart, and her heroism. Throughout the rest of my stay, McKenzy visited me when she wasn’t assigned to be my nurse. She explained things to me about my condition and procedures, encouraged me, watched over me and even called sometimes to check on me when she was off, I was told.

I’m forever grateful to McKenzy Stilger for giving me the chance to be a wife to my husband, a mother to my daughters, and a Mimi to my grandchildren for a little bit longer. There will always be a special bond to her for me. The very least I can do for this professional angel is to nominate her for the DAISY Award. People in the medical profession save lives daily, I suppose.

When one is in such a vulnerable position, the kindness and care of the nurses and techs daily make a huge difference in the mental health of a patient.  I simply couldn’t have asked for better people to care for me during my stay. I’m blessed.

I’m reminded of The Starfish Story where the little boy is told he can’t make a difference throwing one starfish at a time into the sea when there are miles of them stranded by storm. As he throws one into the ocean, he says I made a difference to that one. I’m a lucky starfish.

*** 

McKenzy was a first responder to a patient’s declining condition on our unit. She rapidly assessed the situation, called the appropriate code, and began working to revive the patient. Thankfully, the patient survived the code without having suffered any neurological damage. 

In the days following, McKenzy continued to advocate for this patient, making sure important specific testing was ordered and completed. The results were, again, lifesaving for the patient.

McKenzy takes exquisite care of all of her patients every day. She is very kind, compassionate and skillful in her delivery of excellent patient care. The patient was a recipient of McKenzy’s excellence nursing assessment and skill, which was a blessing to her and everyone here at Baptist. 

It is my opinion that McKenzy should be given the DAISY Award for her exemplary work in nursing at Baptist Health in Cardiac Care.