January 2022
Deborah
Bean
,
RN
ICU
Ascension St. Agnes
Baltimore
,
MD
United States
I just wish I had the words to say how comforting it was as a nurse to feel so well cared for by Debbie.
In the middle of the night, I woke up alone to a lower GI hemorrhage. I passed out in my bathroom. When I came to I had a broken nose, had a very bruised face, and a bathroom full of blood. An ambulance would have taken me to the nearest hospital so I called my daughter to drive me to St. Agnes which I consider MY hospital. Being a nurse, all I could think of on the way to the hospital was how hard it was going to be both a nurse and a patient. My condition rapidly deteriorated after I got to St. Agnes. I hemorrhaged again, was a METs call, and was transported to 2200. My nurse for the next 2 days was Debbie Bean. It wasn’t long before I was almost unconscious again and it should have scared me that I was no longer going to be able to continue as both nurse and patient. Debbie was now my only nurse. I had 100% confidence in her. She was exceptional in trying to stabilize me so I could go down to the special interventions department to have my bleeding stopped. I cringed at the mess I made as I continued to bleed but she helped me deal with it as she patiently would clean me up time after time. At one point my rector gave me last rites and I still knew I was in good hands and was being watched over by a well-trained nurse and God. I just wish I had the words to say how comforting it was as a nurse to feel so well cared for by Debbie. We nurses really do admire the work of our fellow nurses in their own specialties, but we are probably the hardest critics when we are the patient. I had never been so sick in my life and I am forever grateful that I had a nurse the quality of Debbie when I needed it the most.