My husband was taken by ambulance. My husband has secondary progressive MS. He is healing from stage 4 cancer. he has diabetes and is an invalid. A lot is going on with him. When we arrived, the ER was crazy. There were patients in the hall. There were patients on stretchers in EMS standing with them because they could not leave until the hospital had a place for them. H and I were placed in the hall. Busy and crazy was an understatement. But I want to make it very clear that every employee, from Drs. to Nurses to LPNs, was working their tails off for lack of a better term that would sufficiently describe these heroes.

After spending 9 hours in the hallway and with a diagnosis of COVID, we were moved to a side room, which was huge! It was calming, and although my husband was so sick, it was better in there than in the hall. I want to mention another nurse named S, who made this change for us. We spent 22 hours in the ER before they could provide a room. H needed to stay there for 5 days to receive Remdesivir. Before we got to a room, 18 patients were waiting also for a room, so we had no idea where we were on the list. Upon hearing from another nurse who had just come on his shift, I literally lost it. Losing it for me is when I start crying and am absolutely impatient. I would not get this way until my nerves had enough. I requested a patient rep. I had 5 people (nurses mostly) in the room we were in asking how they could help with whatever was bothering us.

Along came Tara Harris. She introduced herself, and just to hear the tone of her voice, I knew she was someone who we needed at that moment. She immediately took over everything that we needed. Just to mention a few - H was wet (this was happening all day) and it was hard to find his nurse. S was not his nurse. She was someone who responded to me immediately when I said I needed help. I had to leave that evening because we had a dog that was not fed and needed to be cared for. When I told Tara I had to go, she was calm and sweet and told me she would be there until 1:00 am. She gave me her cell number, and I gave her mine. She called me (actually texted me before she left her shift) to tell me he was resting and she would be there the next day.

When I arrived, H was still in the ED. S was there and reassured me he was calm and hanging in there. He was not wet or soiled. This is huge how these two nurses rose to the occasion. I am my husband's sole caregiver. I know him inside and out (maybe 40 years of marriage does that, who knows). Tara was very in tune with our needs. we finally got a room at 4:30 that afternoon. Once I got him settled in the room and spoke to the attending nurses on the floor, I went home. I was drained. 5:00 am the next day, I woke up sick as a dog. I got COVID-19, which caused me to be home for the next three days. Tara went to his room a couple of times to check on him for me. We even FaceTimed with her phone. My husband is just about deaf and cannot see due to the MS, so he did not have his phone with him. This is commendable, and I don't think there are enough words to express the feeling when we saw each other! Tara made it happen. This nurse went about and beyond the call of duty for us. It takes heart from these professionals to do what they did for us. I am a retired Educator who, during COVID-19, called us heroes for returning to the classroom right during the pandemic. We are not the true heroes. All of those people in hospitals were true heroes, and they remain that way today.