It's good when a nurse treats you like family after she gets to know you and you hit it off. It's great when a nurse treats you like family before she even knows you. Then you really hit it off. There's something about a nurse treating a patient and their family with compassion and excellence of care from the get-go. That's what Angie did.
From the very beginning, she inspired confidence in both our child and my husband and me. Can you imagine your child coming out of a difficult open heart surgery and feeling that he was in the best possible hands? Or imagine the opposite … to fully appreciate what a gift that is? Angie was that. Angie was that person who helped us know that our child was through the worst part, was in excellent hands, and that things would be okay. How can one person do all that?
Angie went well beyond what she had to do for our child. While we didn't know her long, you would have thought she'd known us her whole life.
For the first meal post-surgery, she ordered bread because our child asked for toast. She toasted it herself, so that it would be warm and "not soggy."
When I came back to the unit after moving on from ICU (to look for something I'd thought we'd left) she greeted me with a big smile and asked how our child was. It wasn't a quick, polite question; she walked all the way out, listening to all that had been happening. I mentioned that the transition from ICU to a regular room had been rough for various reasons (getting sick in the new room and a roommate that had tons of company); Angie's first thought was that of how can we make transitions better.
That's a quality nurse! Angie's the best nurse we've ever met. Don't tell my sister I said that (she's a nurse). I hope you get some daisies, Angie!