Ryan was our nurse 3 out of 9 days that we've been here so far and I must say we were happy to see him back with us today. Ryan has been the best part of this horrible experience. He comes to check on my child all day long and always asks if I need anything as well. He's shown an amazing level of compassion and understanding towards me and genuinely cares about my baby. He makes sure I go eat, I sleep enough and that I am informed throughout every step of our stay here. He constantly relates to our circumstances by telling us stories about things that have happened in his personal life with his own children. He treated us like we were guests staying in his home, not like hospital patients. This situation has by far been the scariest thing that we've experienced with our child aside from him spending the first 2 weeks of his life in the NICU and I don't think I would have made it, emotionally, without Ryan.

I know my words cannot express the gratitude I have towards him or tell him how much I appreciate everything he did for our family. They came in this morning to discharge us and when he saw the severe amount of concern in my face, he assured me they weren't going to make us leave until I felt comfortable. With that being said, he's come in all day today to see how I was feeling about leaving and even showed me ways to test my son's O2 level and circulation at home. He assured me that my son will be okay and really made me feel comfortable in making the decision to go home tonight.

We've been here 9 days and we've been in three different rooms, and had 30+ different staff members (doctors, nurses, CA's, RT's, cardiologists, the "stick" team, etc) and I say, HANDS DOWN, Ryan was the BEST of the best that Dell Children's has. Courteous, caring, informative, compassionate, personable, patient, are just a few words that could be used to describe Ryan. One word I'll always use when telling people about my experience here is "favorite". He's my favorite nurse in our "favorite" hospital.

We have 5 children and we will always (although I hope we never to have come back) choose Dell Children's Hospital because of the care and support we were provided by Ryan. Thank you so much!