I've been meaning to send this since my mom passed away in September 2019. Good intentions gave way to issues with my father, which in turn gave way to another death in my family, and then the demands of life. In short, I should have nominated Christina Greer as soon as I could and I didn't. My mom was admitted to Sarah Cannon in early August 2019 battling her cancer and while she received excellent care from many nurses, one nurse became almost a member of our family. My mom was a needy patient and quite frankly didn't have the will power to fight like she needed to. Christina Greer took it upon herself to coach, motivate, and will my mom to health. She told my mom and my family what we needed to hear instead of what we wanted to hear and she was correct about what might happen 100% of the time if mom didn't do what she needed to. She was extra firm with my mom (she needed it) and my mom began calling Christina "Sgt. Mom", as a knock at her firmness and later as a term of endearment. Each day at the end of her shift Christina would come and check on her and they would exchange a salute and Sgt. Mom would tell us when she would be back. It almost became part of the day that we looked forward to because we could tell that we meant as much to her as she was to us.
As I mentioned before my mother lacked the will power she needed to get better and as mom's condition worsened Christina walked with us side by side giving us information on things that concerned her and she made sure we asked questions of our doctors so they had the best information to make the best care decisions for my mom. Towards the end of mom's life, Christina stayed with us after her shift ended to check on us, connecting us to social workers, and she even came in on her day off to come and check on mom.
I'm tearing up writing this because she went so far above and beyond the role of a nurse and deserves to have a giant S on her uniform to represent her superpowers as a nurse. Christina just meant that much to us. As mom's death approached and hospice got involved, Christina walked us through what to expect and it happened just like she said. She offered to stay with us until the end, but she had a family of her own to take care of and we knew that just wasn't fair. A couple of hours after she left, mom died and in the chaos that followed, we accidentally left mom's purse in the room. Christina secured it the next morning and had it waiting for me to pick up a week later when I came by to get it. I made sure she knew how much we appreciated her and that we had never had a nurse care for a member of my family as she did. In our opinion what she did was far beyond the normal call of duty and we hope she is recognized for it.