All of the nurses at Children's Hospital are OUTSTANDING. However, even when Jes is among the best nurses, she still stands out. She is so caring, compassionate and thoughtful. Jes has eased all of our family's nerves/feelings. We had trouble with meds, taking vitals, or doing any of the needed actions with our son. Jes worked hard to make a bond with him. He lets her do whatever is needed to be done now. Jes goes above and beyond with everything that she does for our family.
Jes invested time and patience with our son. She found out what our children (both) are interested in and what makes them happy. Our son is really into The Incredibles. To be more specific he is into the 2nd movie with the character Jack-Jack. Jack-Jack is a cartoon red-headed toddler character. He is a redhead, hence his connection. She went above and beyond by drawing a picture with "Jack-Jack" and my son's name on it. She delivered it overnight when he was asleep so that he would wake to a surprise. In the morning he was so happy and showed/told every person that came in. By her engaging with our son she built a trust with him. Sometimes he will do things for her that my wife and I cannot get him to do.
My wife and I have been so overwhelmed by this illness that we are not able to keep half of the information that is being told to us. She made us feel comfortable and encouraged our questions, thus building trust. To us, it feels like a revolving door of people coming in and out of the room non-stop. We expressed that we had concerns of remembering everything. She explained that if there is anything that we don't understand or need further explanation just to ask her and she will explain or find someone who can. A couple of the examples questions I asked are: I needed an explanation on A.N.C. = Absolute Neutrophil Count, I couldn't wrap my head around it. It didn't make sense how it dropped or when and what the counts meant. Mask, no mask, public, no public just worried me. She showed me a chart that helped a lot, then she wrote down on the dry erase board the "zones". This helped me a lot and took the pressure of that concern off of me. My wife and I both had issues with the use of the Celsius instead of Fahrenheit. She helped by giving us a chart and listed again on the dry erase the point he has a fever in a metric reading. When we asked about any readings that were taken in metric readings, she automatically had started converting them to standard units.
Besides making a special connection to our sick son and our other son. She wore scrubs with Incredibles and Toy Story to make him feel at ease. Days later she saw him watching Minions she asked if he liked Minions and took an interest. The next day that she was assigned to him, she had Minions scrubs. Jes drew another picture of a firetruck and hung it up. Our son tried to draw pictures to hang up as well.
The evening meds that he takes are not a small amount. She works with my son and my wife, and I to make sure that the meds are given at a time when he is receptive and following protocol. She has also answered and helped discuss a plan for our life after we leave the hospital.