The first specific incident I can think of from my last stay that I find most important is the day I had a mini stroke. Any day before that, any nurse I had took over an hour to get in my room. I had Brandon Scholtes as my nurse that day, and if I hadn't had him as my nurse that day, who knows what would have gone wrong. I hit my call button and the symptoms hit so fast that within the two minutes it took for him to answer, I was already having trouble talking. He came in my room immediately and did a few things, then got on the phone before he even left my room. Within minutes a resident was in my room as well as a neurologist. I was absolutely terrified, I had kind of figured out what was going on after seeing my mom go through them a couple different times as I was growing up.

Brandon went down for the CT scan with me and stuck with me as much as he could after the scan. I also had him as my nurse the next two days after that and he kept a close eye on me, popping into my room at least once an hour to make sure I was doing okay. He's got a great personality and sense of humor and that made my 6 week stay a lot easier to deal with. I requested that he be my nurse every time I heard he was working, and I will do so for future stays. He does everything he can to help me out from ordering my food because I've lost my voice from inhaled medications, bringing my pain medication in without even being asked or reminded, helping me get out of bed just to move around my room, or just coming in and sitting with me for a few minutes when he's not busy to crack jokes and make me laugh.

Anytime a nurse hooks up a medication to my port I have to watch their routine, if they wipe it off with an alcohol wipe, when they change the cap or tubing, or if they put a new cap or tubing on after unhooking me, and whether or not it touches the floor. I'm extremely paranoid and particular about certain people going near my port, but if there is even the tiniest doubt of sanitization involving the tubing or caps, Brandon changes all of it without hesitation, which makes me feel a LOT better.

I'm very happy and thankful that I had Brandon that day of my mini stroke incident because anytime I hit my call button, he came right in and got what I needed. Brandon has a lot of compassion and care for his patients. He's been extremely helpful, not only with physical things, such as running my IV medications, but mental things too such as keeping me laughing and just being there to listen when I was upset about things going on at home. He's been an awesome nurse and friend. I really hope he gets this award, he deserves it.