My son Matthew has cerebral palsy and lung disease. He has been in several children's hospitals and his condition has worsened over the years so that two years ago he had a tracheostomy and on April 15 he was placed on a ventilator he will be on the of his life. Justin began caring for Matthew on April 21. He is a 7 on/7 off employee and he had Matthew for his entire week. Matthew is non-verbal but communicates through his many varied facial expressions.

I have just recently discovered that Matthew loves sci-fi. He laughs and grins when he can watch a movie, but due to his vision impairment, he can't see the large screen on the wall in his room. I wanted to connect a DVD player to the smaller TV that is on a boom and move it closer to his face so that he could actually see the screen. Justin called Maintenance one day while I was at work and made it happen. I walked into Matthew's room and there he was, grinning ear to ear watching Star Wars and having a grand time.

Justin also plays Matthew's iPod in the morning and "jams" with him as he calls it while doing his morning assessment, mouth care and so forth. Matthew adores Justin too and likes to play tricks on him. My other child is autistic and I often have to go home and spend time with him as well so on Sunday while I was at home and Justin had Matthew, I called to see how the day was going and after the conversation I thanked Justin for taking such great care of Matthew.

His response brought tears to my eyes. He said, "No, thank you for having such an awesome son." To a mom who has seen her child ignored at best and spoken down to at worst, finding a nurse who sees the jewel that Matthew is and actually enjoys his company is a blessing and instills such confidence in the care Justin gives.

We are so blessed to have Justin on the Children's team, and I should know because I too am a nurse employed here at Children's.