Every nurse we came in contact with in Pediatric Cardiac ICU at Arnold Palmer Hospital was 100% amazing, but Luis truly went above and beyond his role as nurse to care for our daughter and us as a family. He was her nurse overnight several nights in a row, and the first evening when we met him he was super nice and compassionate. He understood how hard it was for us to leave her overnight. He made sure we had the phone number and code to call in and check up on her whenever we wanted to, and he even told us if we want to call and check on her every hour we can or if we wake up in the middle of the night and just want to know how she's doing we can always call.

Then the next morning when we woke up we had an EASE notification with a picture of our daughter and a summary of how she was doing. It was super comforting to see her and hear she had a great night and that all is well. He even explained that he increased her sedation a little to ensure she was comfortable and about the plan to remove her breathing tube and chest tubes. The EASE app was an amazing tool that we greatly appreciated during both her surgery and her stay in PCICU, and Luis used it every day he was assigned to be her nurse. We always knew what was going on with her and could tell from the photos that she was being taken care of and was happy and comfortable.

In addition to and as an extension of his compassion, Luis was a great resource for knowledge on our daughter's condition and health status. I feel like every time I would ask him one question he would answer it along with three other questions I didn't even know I had. He was very informative and explained in detail anytime we had a question or inquiry. Our daughter had surgery to take care of her VSD, ASD, and PDA. We have of course talked over these things with our daughter's cardiologist, her surgeon, and even the APRN, and they would draw or show pictures with their explanation but it still only made so much sense to us. At one point we asked Luis a question about her surgery and he of course answered it and then the next evening much to our surprise he actually pulled up pictures on his computer and went over each specific condition with us in great detail and explained the proper function and blood flow of the heart versus how her heart was functioning. For whatever reason, his explanation clicked with us and made perfect sense. Perhaps we just needed to hear it a fourth time before we could fully comprehend it. Whatever the reason we were truly grateful that he took the time to pull up each image and go over it with us. Even though her surgery was already over, we so appreciated understanding fully what needed to be done and why.

Every evening Luis was her nurse we took comfort knowing she was in great hands and we could entrust her care to him. He is truly an Extraordinary Nurse.