A 53-year-old woman was admitted to MCD through the ED. She drove herself here not feeling well; she is still our patient today, months later. She survived a long complicated surgery; she has had numerous setbacks since then. She has made improvements and has come a long way from that first day, but she is still unable to leave the ICU.
R has limited visitors, so we have become her support, her family and her friends. The NVICU staff has helped her through many dark and difficult days, we have also celebrated her victories, like getting out bed, speaking, eating solid food. There have been some great days!
One of these days was planned and created by two amazing NVICU nurses, Ronisha Norwood and Shelby Ollinger. They saw that needed something positive, something to help celebrate how far she has come and to give her hope that she can continue to improve. They created "R Day", this day consisted of crafts, cleaning, organizing, lunch, spending time with R, and most of all FUN!
So, Ro brought tons of craft supplies to our multipurpose room, they set up the room and were ready to work! This was a surprise for R, so Shelby and Ro showed up in her room with their craft aprons on and said, "Let's go, get out of bed, today is R Day!"
They helped R out of bed, gave her a craft apron and brought her to the craft room! She was so excited! She made crafts, one of the crafts was a hand-painted sign for her granddaughter to hang in her room. She was very happy to be able to make something to give to her granddaughter.
We also order lunch for R and the staff that day, R's choice; she wanted KFC, which we all enjoyed.
While R was eating, Ro cleaned, reorganized and decorated her room, so she had something cheerful and clean to come back to.
All during the day staff came in and out to visit with R and to see her progress with the crafts. We shared lunch with her in the multipurpose room.
Ro and Shelby came on their day off, brought craft supplies, cleaned, talked and laughed with R. R is still talking about what a wonderful day she had; she will never forget the kindness and compassion.
Ro and Shelby demonstrate what "above and beyond' really means. I am very proud to be able to say I work with these exceptional nurses.