My nurse during my stay in the Cardiovascular ICU for peripartum cardiomyopathy helped with not only my physical health but also my mental and emotional well-being. My heart was failing, and my baby needed to be taken out via C-section days later, and I could have died on the table. Kyerstin came the morning of my C-section on her day off to check on me and wish me well, and that meant the world to me. Then she checked on me after the baby was delivered, and I was an emotional wreck.

When she came back to shift she ensured I had time to pump, time with my baby in the NICU for skin to skin often missing her own lunch in order to take me, and assisting to help me see my child in the waiting area who was too underage to come to my room in the ICU and I hadn't seen in weeks and was in tears. I'd never been away from my children that long. She made sure she came with me, no matter how busy she was. She also made sure to shampoo my hair and get me cleaned up before my first visit to see my son, and made me feel beautiful. She was always practicing safe techniques, ensuring I had my medicines on time and walked laps to strengthen my heart and get to my baby!

This world is a better place because of Nurse Kyerstin. I would have fallen into a deep state of postpartum depression, considering everything, if it were not for her, and I would not have made great strides to get better by walking laps, limiting sodium, and seeing my baby. She continued to tell me I was so strong for everything I had been through and how I bounced back from heart failure and labor and delivery so quickly, but the truth was, she was my strength, and I would have cried alone in a dark hospital room for weeks without her care and consideration.