Keri Ellison
November 2020
Keri
Ellison
,
RN
ICU
Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville

 

 

 

Keri cleaned up the patient and made her as comfortable as possible and then I watched her pull up a chair and just hold that poor woman's hand until she took her last breath and her heart stopped.
On tower 4A we've become the COVID ICU. Around this trying time, family members are not allowed to come and be with their loved ones while they fight for their lives. We had a patient in recently who 6 days prior to presentation to the hospital had just buried her husband due to COVID. The patient had worsening shortness of breath and eventually came to the hospital where she became worse and worse until she needed to be intubated. The patient's children decided to make her comfortable knowing what the most likely outcome would be after going through it with their father. Unfortunately, because these family members had been exposed they couldn't come to the hospital and be with their loved ones so Keri Ellison, the charge nurse and ANM for tower 4A, decided she would put on her N95, all of the other required PPE, and go sit at this patient's bedside so she wouldn't have to be alone. Keri cleaned up the patient and made her as comfortable as possible and then I watched her pull up a chair and just hold that poor woman's hand until she took her last breath and her heart stopped. Even knowing the state of uncertainty that we are in with COVID-19 she still did everything she could to ensure the patient, who technically wasn't even hers that day, was comfortable, comforted, and able to pass with dignity. Keri is one of the most Extraordinary Nurses I've ever had the pleasure of working with and she's the definition of a DAISY Nurse.