My husband was flown to your hospital Sunday morning with a heart attack. This was his second heart attack. The first one, ten years ago, nearly took his life, and I was scared to death.

We moved to Rutherfordton, NC with our youngest son 3 years ago and we have no family here. Our closest family is 7 hours away, so it is just the three of us. Sunday night, our son and I attempted to sleep in our car while my husband was in CCU because driving home was too far if something were to happen to him. At 430am, after 2 hours of sleep, I drove our 17yo son to Rutherford Regional, where I work as a nurse and my husband works as a paramedic, to drive my husband’s vehicle home and I drove back to SMC.

By Monday night I was exhausted, I only had about 2 hours of sleep in 36hrs and very little food because of emotional distress. My husband was cleared to be moved to a medical floor, but there were no beds available, so I had to find somewhere to sleep again. (No complaints here, the same happens at our hospital and we completely understand) I was attempting to sleep in the lobby when around 1 am, his nurse came into the lobby. She was concerned because he was not sleeping. She said he had not slept much the night before either and she was worried about him. She said she knew how married couples are and she also knew I had very little sleep the night before in the car. She said that normally caregivers were not allowed to stay in the CCU at night, but she really wanted him to rest and felt like he would if I was in the chair beside him. She asked if I would come and stay beside him for a while. After just a few minutes of sitting by him and holding his hand, my husband went to sleep and actually rested. He was discharged the following day. I am a nurse director and I love it when my nurses think outside the box for the betterment of our patients. We want to recognize and thank this nurse for such thoughtful and tender care during this very stressful time for us.

On another note, during another time while this nurse was caring for my husband, another patient coded. She was torn between leaving him to go and help her team and the other patient and apologized for having to leave him. She was so sweet to be so concerned, but at the time, my husband’s needs were minor, and we certainly appreciated her triaging the needs of the other patient and her team members. We let her know how much we appreciated her helping to save the other patient's life. We were certain she would do the same for us if we needed her to.

Congratulations Teresa Dodrill, our February DAISY winner!