February 2018
Crystal
Griffin
,
RN, BSN
Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Unit
Children's Health
Dallas
,
TX
United States
When my 5-month old son was in the ICU for over a month awaiting a heart transplant Crystal went above and beyond her duties to make sure that he received the absolute best care possible. Two days after his heart transplant, when he was taking bottles well but the doctors kept mentioning that he needed to take more and kept pointing to placing a feeding tube so quickly because it's easiest, she constantly reminded them that it is amazing that he's even taking bottles on his own so quickly after surgery. She kept buying time for him by recommending fortification of feeds and by really working hard to get him to eat a little more every day. She knew how against the feeding tube I was as he had had one pre-transplant and was starting to develop an oral aversion because of it. By the third day post-transplant, my son was taking as much as the doctors wanted him to without the feeding tube! This is only one instance where she went above and beyond. My son had so many amazing nurses in this unit but Crystal stands out the most because she treated him as she would treat her own baby brother or her own son.