Our daughter, M, passed away due to complications from hemolytic anemia post sepsis and a bone marrow transplant at the age of two and a half. As it pains us 8 months later as we write this letter, we must acknowledge a person that changed not only our daughter's life but ours as well. M had her bone marrow transplant, and this is when we first met Beth Hubach, RN.
Beth had an upbeat personality that M immediately was drawn too. Beth would purposely request to be M's nurse and would color with M, play Elmo music, and dance with her! M was admitted about 6 weeks post-transplant, and Beth was a major part in her speedy recovery. M was progressing wonderfully until she came in septic and her prognosis was not good. M was intubated in ICU for 2 weeks at Nationwide until we transported her to another hospital and M was extubated after 32 days.
Soon after extubation at the other hospital, we felt the quality of their bone marrow team was not to our expectations or Nationwide's quality. We had M transported back to Nationwide whole-heartedly for the care M received by Dr. R and Beth. When you have a sick child, you find yourself doing everything possible for her to receive the best care and have the best experience even in the worse situations. Being a Nurse Manager and my husband a firefighter, we have very high expectations. Rightfully so for the person that meant the most to us in the world. To make a decision to move M again back to Nationwide because of one nurse speaks volume in our book because to trust someone so much and go back to the person our daughter loved was a decision we will never regret. Even when M had medication every 30 minutes Beth never showed us she was stressed or overwhelmed; she literally created a spreadsheet in front of us with the help of pharmacy to make sure every medication was delivered on time, with no issues with compatibility.
During this time our daughter was still played with by Beth, where she would read to her or dance with her. M had no clue how sick she was because Beth always made it fun for her. Her hemolytic anemia began progressing, and M was seen sometimes daily at the outpatient clinic for blood and platelet transfusions. M and Beth's paths would still cross and M would become so happy when Beth would run up to her and say, "Hi Friend." M would "stomp like an elephant" in her stroller as Beth would be pouncing around, making M laugh so hard.
M was admitted due to her need for blood transfusions twice a day. During this time, we were admitted on the BMT floor where Beth was her nurse on Thursday before she passed away. This day that Beth had M was no different, with tons of laughter and M grabbing Beth's vocera yelling "Elmo" into it as they played the night away. We will never forget that Beth came back to the room after giving the dayshift nurse report and M was in one of her moods ignoring Beth because she knew she was going home. Beth again said, "Bye Friend" to M and again M would not acknowledge her. But then suddenly you saw M's arm go straight up in the air over her head and she waved once to Beth. We all could not stop laughing. Three days later M would pass away unexpectedly in ICU. Our last positive, happy memory of our daughter was because of Beth and we are forever grateful.