I have so much to say and nothing would be enough to describe the impact that Meri Armenta had on me & my recovery. After a grueling, traumatic, and unexpected 14 hour surgery, I was swollen beyond recognition, in more pain than I’d ever felt in my life, and emotionally struggling. This was made even worse when I found out I woke up with an unexpected ileostomy. Throughout the course of my 6 days in the hospital, I was lucky enough to have Meri as my nurse for 4 days. In these 4 days, she helped me set goals, encouraged me to reach them, and cheered me on when I pushed myself even further. She laughed with me, cried with me, cracked awful jokes with me, and genuinely provided me with the emotional support I needed to learn to be okay. On one of my last days with her, she was doing a bunch of research on tips/tricks/how-to’s for caring for an ileostomy to help me find some acceptance in all of the chaos. She knew how to help me care for it, but she read a bunch into actually living with it to gain more knowledge in order to care for me. She also knew that I was overwhelmed in trying to coordinate my home health, so she worked with the case manager and ran interference in order to provide me with relevant information to prevent any additional stress on me. She went out of her way to make sure I went home with more than what I needed in order to continue to thrive. I barely remember, but during the first few days of post-op when the pain was at its worst, I remember crying and repeating, “I can’t do this,” through my tears. Every time she heard me say this, she told me and showed me that I could. I genuinely feel like I improved so quickly solely because of her support not just as a nurse, but as a person. As a nurse myself, I know what it means to go above and beyond for your patient. Being on the other side of the hospital bed was hard for me, but the one thing I know for sure is that Meri did more than just go above and beyond. Meri helped me to become me again and for that, I will be forever grateful.