We found ourselves in the ER with our four-year-old son. We had quite a traumatic experience that left him terrified anytime the words “doctor, dentist, hospital, etc” were mentioned. Imagine our horror when he fell and cut his head open leading us to a subsequent visit to the ER. This time, we drove a little out of our way to take him to the children’s ER at Peyton Manning instead of the previous one we had used, hoping that the overall experience would be better. We were quickly ushered into a private room as the registration team could hear his cries and knew that not only was he hurt, but he was terrified. Shortly after, we met our nurse for the visit, Chris Ruane.

From the moment Chris stepped into the room, he did everything in his power to build trust and rapport with our son and make him as comfortable as he could be. Chris could sense the terror and made sure to ask me (mom) what things were scary to him and did his very best to explain things in a way that made sense to him and ease any fears he had. From the beginning, Chris talked to him and not around him or trying to hide things from him. Chris was sensitive to his fears, but also did not make any promises that he knew were untrue, reminding our son that we had to take little steps to get him home. Chris worked to think outside of the box and included me in brainstorming ways to make our son feel safe, while getting him the treatment he needed. When our son spit out all of his medicine, Chris didn’t get upset or go straight to administering it via injection, which would have been easiest at the time. Instead, we worked to find a way that he would drink it and still have the desired outcome. Chris waited until he was ready to be discharged and carried him to the door, while we waited on the shuttle to pick us up. Previously, our son would have been ready to get as far away as possible, but instead he asked if Chris could come and play hot wheels with him sometime.

The following morning, as some of the details of our ER visit were still foggy to our son due to medications used, he proclaimed “maybe I like hospitals and doctors now”. As I write this with tears in my eyes, I have no doubt that the patience, kindness and care Chris provided played a huge role in our son feeling and saying that. Because of Chris, our trip to the ER, a place we had hoped we wouldn’t have to visit again any time soon, was far less traumatic this time around.