UCH received a transfer of a woman who had just delivered premature twins at an outside hospital. She developed a rare complication of pregnancy called HELLP syndrome that resulted in acute liver and kidney failure. She had already had surgery at an outside hospital for a rupture of her liver and arrived in critical condition to our STICU. Over the course of the next month, we tried to treat her liver failure unsuccessfully and she eventually underwent a liver transplant. She has had a very complicated postoperative course with multisystem organ failure and recurrent infections. She remains on hemodialysis still in critical condition, but fortunately, her new liver is working.
At the time, she had yet to see her newborn twins in person (they have been discharged from the NICU). She is also the mother of 3 other children, all under the age of 10. She has quite literally been fighting for her life for months now and has become appropriately depressed and over the course of the last week, nearly catatonic. By the end of last week, she had stopped talking to everyone and was totally unable to engage socially. Naturally, with 5 children under the age of 10 at home, she has had little in the way of visits from her husband and family members.
This past weekend our patient had the good fortune of having Lisa Duncan RN as her STICU nurse. Taking care of this patient is an extraordinary amount of work for any nurse but Lisa went above and beyond her duties as an intensive care nurse. When I came in to round on Sunday morning I found a completely different woman lying in the bed. Lisa had not only given her a bath and washed her hair, but she painted her fingernails and toenails. On Sunday Lisa spent hours with coconut oil trying to take the tangles and knots out of her hair. This extraordinary act of compassion and human kindness has resulted in a woman who is smiling again, talking and engaging socially with the care team. Lisa probably did more to help this patient in 2 days than we have been able to do in months. Lisa's actions exemplify what we should all continue to strive for... to never lose sight of how much simple acts of human kindness mean to our patients and everyone else around them. All of the nurses in the STICU are outstanding in the care and compassion that they give to our patients, but I wanted to call attention to Lisa's extraordinary actions. I am very grateful to her and all of the other nurses who care for our patients.