Nathan Dawkins
August 2024
Nathan
Dawkins
,
RN
Medical Intensive Care
Cone Health Moses Cone Hospital
Greensboro
,
NC
United States
I sat in the room and watched as he took extra time and care to ensure that my mom was comfortable. He was extremely gentle and compassionate towards her. He also took extra time to show compassion towards our family.
My mom was the epitome of love and joy. She went through a lot in her life with various medical conditions, car accidents, surgeries, and the diagnosis of FTD-PSP, which put us on the path to her final visit to Moses Cone ICU. After three days in the ICU, her heart stopped beating, and the nurses and doctors were able to save her life. My dad and I were in the room with her when it happened, and we witnessed most of the life-saving measures. Nathan was the nurse who performed CPR on my mom.
The second day after Mom was placed on the ventilator, Nathan was assigned to care for her. I sat in the room and watched as he took extra time and care to ensure that my mom was comfortable. He was extremely gentle and compassionate towards her. He also took extra time to show compassion towards our family. I was terrified by what was happening to my beautiful mama and traumatized from witnessing CPR being performed on her. He was very patient and kind. He let me talk about the CPR and how scary it was for me. He took extra time to explain things to us and made sure we understood everything that was going on.
Ultimately, I feel that he played a major role in giving us the peaceful goodbye that we all needed. Instead of losing her suddenly and violently that night, we had a few more days to process our grief. My family got to hug and kiss her and say our goodbyes. We shared favorite memories and played her favorite music. We held her hand and told her how much we loved her until her very last breath. We wouldn’t have been able to do that if Nathan and the other nurses and doctors hadn’t taken action so quickly. I feel like many medical professionals that we have dealt with in other settings have either been uninformed, apathetic, unwilling, or unable to provide appropriate answers or care for my mom during the course of her disease. It was touching to see her treated with the compassion and care that she deserved. Thank you, Nathan, for playing a part in allowing us to have more time with my mom. Your compassion is greatly appreciated by our family.
The second day after Mom was placed on the ventilator, Nathan was assigned to care for her. I sat in the room and watched as he took extra time and care to ensure that my mom was comfortable. He was extremely gentle and compassionate towards her. He also took extra time to show compassion towards our family. I was terrified by what was happening to my beautiful mama and traumatized from witnessing CPR being performed on her. He was very patient and kind. He let me talk about the CPR and how scary it was for me. He took extra time to explain things to us and made sure we understood everything that was going on.
Ultimately, I feel that he played a major role in giving us the peaceful goodbye that we all needed. Instead of losing her suddenly and violently that night, we had a few more days to process our grief. My family got to hug and kiss her and say our goodbyes. We shared favorite memories and played her favorite music. We held her hand and told her how much we loved her until her very last breath. We wouldn’t have been able to do that if Nathan and the other nurses and doctors hadn’t taken action so quickly. I feel like many medical professionals that we have dealt with in other settings have either been uninformed, apathetic, unwilling, or unable to provide appropriate answers or care for my mom during the course of her disease. It was touching to see her treated with the compassion and care that she deserved. Thank you, Nathan, for playing a part in allowing us to have more time with my mom. Your compassion is greatly appreciated by our family.