Stephanie Cruz-Iati
July 2021
Stephanie
Cruz-Iati
,
RN
Medical Cardiology
Albany Medical Center
Albany
,
NY
United States
Stephanie kept my anxiety at bay, listened to my complaints, and was an overall joy to be around.
Back in March, I had the biggest health scare to date. I went in for an a-fib ablation and everything seemed fine. A few days later, my daughter had to rush me back to the hospital. My a-fib had returned worse than before leaving me tired, breathless, and hopeless. This was a scary situation in itself, now imagine having to go through all of this without speaking a lick of English (my granddaughter is currently writing this for me). I was brought to the ER where I believe I was being looked after by a rapid response team whom I couldn’t understand at all due to the speech barrier which was very anxiety-inducing. My stay became longer than what the physician had intended with a total of seven days in the hospital with very restricted family visits; this altered my mood in a very negative way. The doctors did everything in their power to help me understand and sometimes even used translator phones which helped but they weren’t very accurate to the situation. I was brought to D4N where I was assigned to my nurse Stephanie and by the grace of God, she was Salvadorian and a fluent Spanish speaker. This doesn’t seem like much but with COVID regulations, my family wasn’t able to visit but her company kept me going. I can say that I looked forward to seeing her every day. She made sure to be there to translate whenever the doctors came around to help me understand. She kept me company in a place where I could truthfully only speak to her. She was extremely kind and attentive to my needs and requests, going as far as using FaceTime to communicate daily with my granddaughter (an English speaker and medical student) in order to keep my family up to date on my current condition. She kept my anxiety at bay, listened to my complaints, and was an overall joy to be around. My meds were administered every day at the same time on the dot and she paid special attention to detail (from my mood to my food, to helping me around my room). She is a very special nurse and Albany Med should be proud to have her on staff because my recovery wouldn’t have been the same without her.