May 2021
Lisa
Madary
,
BSN, RN
ICU
EvergreenHealth
Kirkland
,
WA
United States
She was warm and understanding as I shed a few tears about how sick my dad was. Evergreen, Lisa is a keeper, all new nurses need to have a short mentorship by her on the value and importance of family for each patient.
My dad woke my mom up and asked her to call 911 because of intense chest pain. He spent the day in Evergreen ER with severe kidney sepsis, A Flutter with RVR, and flash pulmonary edema. He was sent up to ICU where Lisa, the night nurse, took over his care. I called around 9:30 pm to get an update and spoke to Lisa. She has forever changed how I, an RN working MedSurg at another hospital, will deal with family in the future. She immediately connected with me, I knew patients were the most important and at any moment she may have said, “I have to go – call again in an hour,” but while her patients, one of them being my dad, were stable she caught me up with much hope on how he was doing with his meds, vitals, cognition. She also asked valuable questions about his baseline. As we talked, she really listened when I was so sad that I had missed the start of my dad’s sepsis the day before- she reassured me that his symptoms as they had presented the previous day would have been hard to nail down. Anyone could have missed it. We talked about her parents and how she frets about their health. We talked about our jobs and how much I love working in MedSurg and where her last job was. She said, “You should come work here-your brain works like ICU.” What a compliment. If I met her, I feel I would be friends with her! She was warm and understanding as I shed a few tears about how sick my dad was. Evergreen, Lisa is a keeper, all new nurses need to have a short mentorship by her on the value and importance of family for each patient. Treat her with great value, you have a gem!!! Not only did she take care of Dad but also of me, his daughter. Let’s not lose sight of the incredible value of family. I hope I can be there when Lisa is honored.