What is a nurse? By one definition it means patients in your care must be able to trust you. It means treating your patients and colleagues with respect, kindness, dignity and compassion. By another it means loving to serve; taking care of your patients as is they were your precious family member. By our hospital's code of conduct it means we treat our patients with respect and dignity. It is for these reasons we nominate Becky Fetzer for The DAISY Award.

We know from the time of nursing school how the "little things" mean so much to our patients. There are also the days when we get bogged down with our documentation and the requirements of our job that we feel like we have no time and forget how much the little things mean to our patients and families. A few years ago, our Mom started having health issues, and in your 80s who doesn't? As she aged we were fortunate to be able to be there for appointments (with our usual stop for her favorite teaberry ice cream at any location who happened to be making it), driving her places and seeing that she got to events she wanted to attend. When you have an ailing parent you can't help but wonder how this earthly life will end; will we be there, will we just find her, will she struggle, how can we help? Then our Mom was admitted to our facility. She spent the night in the ER and on Christmas day was transferred to our Stepdown COVID unit. The hardest part was not being able to see her every day like we were accustomed to. She was progressing in her care and during the days nearing the New Year, we were told that she was too weak to return home.

On the day of the transfer to a care facility, snow, along with a minor accident in the ambulance, had her returning to our facility. She was placed on the Orthopaedic unit. That evening she was being cared for by Becky. Mom was a relative of Becky's Grandmother and, as Becky told us, Mom was able to figure out pretty quickly who she was. One thing Mom loved to do was talk and since we know Becky does as well, I can only imagine the conversation. It was within the hour of their conversation that we received the phone call that she passed to her Heavenly home with our Dad. We are so thankful that we were able to spend so much time with Mom during her last years. We had imagined that we would be there when that time came so we are forever grateful and can never repay Becky for the last conversation, the last physical comfort, the last tucking her in, and for caring for her in those last moments. COVID took so much away from all of us and from our patients and their families. What it didn't take away was the caring from our nursing staff, and thankfully from Becky