I am a Rex employee and when I came in to work one morning recently I was extremely dizzy and had a headache. When the Express Care office in Cary opened I checked in as a patient. Lisa Kawaguchi was the RN working that day. I was their first patient for the day so she immediately took me in and took my vitals and I later found out that my blood pressure was extremely high. She was so compassionate and tried not to alarm me. She started a general casual conversation with me and waited a few minutes and took my blood pressure again, this time she told me my blood pressure was high and even higher when she took it the 2nd time. While I waited for the doctor to come in she kept checking on me to be sure I was comfortable and alright. After the doctor did his examination he asked her to do an EKG, which also came out irregular. The Express Care doctor suggested that I should go to the hospital and they called for an ambulance.
The dizziness and headache that I came to work with that morning became a lot more involved than I ever imagined. Lisa obviously could tell by the look on my face that I was getting upset. She stayed with me and went out of her way to comfort me. She went to my office and grabbed my personal belongings and brought me a phone and offered to call my family and did not leave me until I left on the ambulance. She went into detail giving the ambulance personnel the information that they needed and made a point to tell them I was a part of their Rex family and to take good care of me. She followed up with me after I got back to work the next week to make sure I was doing better. She made a very stressful experience for me and my family so much better by her professionalism and her experience as a nurse. She did not give me preferential treatment because I was a co-worker, but because I was a patient. I see her on a weekly basis and she gives this same special treatment to all of her patients regardless of who they are or their circumstances. She sets the right example and delivers the compassion, which I appreciated so much as a patient. I'm so proud to know and work with Lisa. She is an asset to Rex with the experience and knowledge that she has and she is quick to know when there is an emergency situation and she knows how to handle it in the best interest of the patient. She is always pleasant and cheerful, and I know that she works in some extremely stressful situations, but you would never know it when you see her.