I am going to start at the very first beginning of someone very special to me. I hope you find her very special to you and BWH. It really began around 8 am Tuesday morning when I had a horrific night and woke my eyes to a beautiful and sunny smile. Caelene Burnham introduced herself to me and instantly there was a deep humanistic and loving connection. I felt myself in a rather unusual state for me. As a person with a degree in advocacy for a community of multiple disabilities, I fell apart and broke down, started to cry, and expressed my fears. Caelene not only encouraged me to get it all out, sitting and holding my hand, hugging me with shiny beautiful eyes, and said, “We’re here. We are going to do this together. I am not going to leave you. I am yours for the whole day and we will get through this”. After that, she kind of went into this makeshift song and dance routine, hands moving, and antics that just changed my whole inner self into this whole laughter and smile, feeling safe and loved.

Throughout the day, she kept checking in on me, with a smile and laughter, and I am not sure that I will ever be able to convey how she made me feel. Except that I can say, I felt safe and loved, and she is able to touch patients’ hearts and bring joy when the world does not seem at all joyous. I knew that she had made sure before leaving that new staff knew my needs and how to treat me with the respect, the care, and most of all the listening – the listening – that is so desperately important for patients’ continual recovery. She said goodnight with a hug, a smile, and again a song and dance routine with a strong reassurance that I would be hers again tomorrow.

Today, I woke up with my “Mamacita” again with a beautiful smile, helping me know that today will be a warm and beautiful date because she is here for me and take away the horrors from the night before. I have personally worked as an advocate with a couple of hundred people in the past decade with different disabilities. Caelene has shown me that she knows what it takes to help someone through a rough and difficult time. Most of all, because she has the gift of listening. She heard my pain. She heard my need for laughter. She heard what I needed in order for her to treat me as the individual I am. I so strongly am encouraging all of you at BWH to not only consider Caelene for the DAISY Award, but I also am sincerely encouraging you to scholarship her for her future educational endeavors to become a nursing professor. She will help make this hospital what the hospital's reputation has been and I hope to become for future patients. With sincere gratitude for helping me to have this incredible nurse, who truly has made a major difference for me.