I was a patient of Michaela Anderson's during a hospitalization following life-threatening complications. My heart stopped, needed electric paddles to restart it, kidneys were in shutdown mode, internal bleeding, took 2 units of transfusion blood after I aspirated my own blood, then given 3 new diagnoses: Pulmonary Edema, Pneumonia, Congestive Heart Failure attendant to an ablation to each of my atria. I have no family in Northern CA, so she was not able to interact with them. During the time she cared for me, Michaela demonstrated a professional manner, attending to all my medical needs. Yet she went above and beyond that, she took the energy out of my embarrassment/shame when I partially missed the urinal and made a mess. Perhaps most important to me as a patient, between the hospitalization I had at Kaiser Santa Clara and Kaiser Santa Rosa, it had been a week since I had been able to take a shower. Michaela, despite other pressing demands on her time, near to shift change, caring for 4 patients and having to do discharge and entry duties, she made time to organize my being able to shower. There were many small details this required like finding conditioning and shampoo for my long tangled hair. Showering and being clean, a simple act of compassionate kindness, made a huge difference in how I felt about myself and my outlook in my healing. Michaela is also very intelligent and well read, and she engaged me in conversation as she performed her nursing duties, that helped me to feel much more optimistically human and connected to care.