My grandma's health declined very fast. Last week, she was helping with yard work, and this week, she was in the hospital, unable to move around, unable to eat and swallow, and unable to coherently respond to us. It has been a difficult week, but Shay has been amazing at making our family feel comfortable. She has been answering all of our questions, and we sure had a lot of them. She answered honestly and made sure that she answered our follow-up questions as well. She never acted annoyed, and you could tell that she genuinely cared and listened.

Something that I thought really made Shay stand out from other caregivers is that she remembered all of our names. There were a lot of new people there to visit my grandma on one Saturday. I find it amazing to remember family members' names when people are in and out. She also seemed excited to meet everyone! Another thing that made Shay stick out was that she talked a lot to my grandma. I know that seems like a simple thing, but that's not always the case. As I said before, my grandma wasn't really responding well, so some nurses might not bother talking with her in this situation. Shay would ask her questions and tell her what she was doing before she would do it. She would even joke and say, "We are talking about you." She really treated my grandma with care and compassion. She treated my grandma like any other person, even if my grandma might not know what was going on. She also told my grandma, “You have so many blessings here with you."

We all appreciate how sweet Shay would talk to Grandma. We all want to express our gratitude to Shay. She really did go above and beyond in the compassion category. I know it can't be easy to help families through the dying process, but Shay kept a positive and upbeat attitude. It was comforting knowing that Shay was taking great care of her.