Thank you and your team for the exceptional care you provided to my little brother AND our family while he was on your floor. I want to specifically recognize the heart and soul of Janaye. Her actions elevated our entire perception of UCHealth. She is living proof that one person is all it takes to make a huge difference in the lives, and life, of others.
While my brother's condition as an alcoholic is not new to us, the severity of the episode that landed him at UCHealth was new. We thought we were going to lose him. And very likely may have it not for the fierce dedication of your nurse, Janaye. On this Friday he was on the edge of either sobering up or dying... and as harsh as that edge is for loved ones, it's a dull blur for the alcoholic. They feel nothing, hear nothing, and are as unreachable as a ghost. He didn't hear me plead with him to get back into bed, lay down and ride this out. All of the words that used to work evaporated and I wasn't there to barricade the door or bind him in my arms and hold him through it. When he said goodbye I knew he was going to die and I believe he did too. I placed the phone down and sat at my dining room table as the harshness of the edge of his despair gutted me to the core and then some. The rage. The regret. The panic. The love. The all-encompassing fury...which lead to a raw, empty call with his doctor where I begged, pleaded, cried, screamed at him to put my brother on a 72-hour hold to keep him from hurting himself to the point of death by drinking again, which is what he was planning to do.
When the phone rang with UCHealth caller ID some hours later I could hardly answer. I did not want to hear this same doctor's voice tell or say whatever the words are that people say when they tell you your brother has died...because even though I knew fundamentally he would have died because of his own. Heavy as it was, I answered the phone and heard not his voice, but one of an impassioned female voice demanding "I will explain later but right now I need you to give me T's number. Right now." T was a friend who had been traveling with my brother and was scheduled to leave for California that night. I gave it to her, heard muffled rumblings in the background before she came back on and said "Your brother is trying to leave the hospital and if he does he will die. He is too sick to leave.
This nurse, I later learned was Janaye. Not only did she get fierce with my brother in trying to get him to stay, but she also employed sharp critical thinking, projecting outside of the hospital box and into the world to connecting something that could possibly help him, like a friend by his side so that he at a minimum wouldn't die alone. Her final words to me were "I am going to fight to keep him here." Her intuition was spot on! He was even closer to death than imaged as he couldn't even make it down the stairs and nearly fainted by the elevator. She readmitted him and stayed with him, by his side for another four hours even though her shift had ended.
Without question, he is alive today because of her attention, heart, willingness to do what was RIGHT. The length of time that she was able to delay him, stall his departure, and let him get closer was the difference between him fainting in the hospital or outside of it. Her swift heart and rock-solid judgment saved his life and has propelled the entire UCHealth as an organization in the hearts and minds of his friends and family. Janaye is living proof that one person can make a difference between life and death. Throughout his twenty-some year battle with alcoholism, I have prayed for that "one person" that one voice the one thing that people who have recovered talk about experiencing. I believe that Janaye is that angel voice. And I don't know what propelled her into nursing or what personal triumphs and tragedies she has gone through as a human being to become who and how she is today. But I do know with certainty that she is filled with immeasurable goodness. And UCHealth is so so lucky to have her on their team. The world is lucky to have her in it.
I also want to take a moment to tell you that it wasn't one person or five people it was many people on your staff who beamed when they spoke of their love of nursing their love of UCHealth as an organization. It is evident when people are happy and love their jobs. Your staff seems to truly love each other and the work they do and that comes from you.
I am forever and ever grateful!