Where to begin? I will limit my submission to one story, but please know that my brother was in Intensive Care at Memorial Hermann at the Woodlands for 17 days. During that time, he was cared for by a number of different nurses, but Megan provided a significant amount of care for him - and for our family. My brother had a heart attack while driving his car. He's 42 years old. During his time in the ICU, he was cooled, heavily sedated and then "woken up". Our family was balancing our concerns for his recovery physically (his heart, the ventilator) with concerns about his neurological condition given we didn't know how long he might have been without oxygen. Megan was a gift for our family every day. She is clearly very skilled at the medical portion of her job - and I'll get back to that. But even more so, Megan was able to connect with our family, provide implicit comfort through her demeanor and interactions and build a rapport with us that helped us to trust that, not only was he in good hands medically but that she would be clear and correct with us while balancing hope and reality. I don't know how many people can really do that and Megan does that amazingly well. She balances caring and concern with the practicality of life. When I had to leave Houston to return to my job and family, I knew that my parents were in very good hands having Megan there. She laughed and cried with us. She danced with us when we were trying to encourage him to wake up. She cheered (and cheers) his successes and worried (worries) right alongside us as we travel down this long road. And all of this was on top of providing extraordinary medical care. Megan is so knowledgeable and I know she was able to provide my brother's doctors with insight about his status that helped them to make better decisions about his care. In particular, we were coming up on a time crunch with extubating him. He was waking up and breathing on his own but experienced a slight set back with an infection. I know that Megan added significant value to the decision making process about how to handle his intubation tube's expiration date. We are blessed to have met Megan and can never say thank you enough for what she provided for my brother and our family. And amazingly, for what she provides every day that she comes into work. She's a gift and Memorial Hermann are lucky to have her - as are their patients.
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Last month we received a patient post-cardiac arrest in his car while he was driving. The patient was very busy and extremely sick, but as our team worked on him, little flickers of light started to shine through of the patient waking up. Megan had this patient for many days during his ICU stay and became very close to the family. She celebrated with them in the tiniest moments of holding open his eyes for 10 seconds to even taking the time to transport him to the Healing Garden with our Intensivist at their side for some sunshine therapy. The most memorable thing that Megan did was on her day off, she purchased a baseball and inspirational sign to gift to the patient. Megan had the MICU sign the ball and put it in a case for him. You see, the patient is a Pro-Baseball recruiter, and during his darkest hours, his family had a baseball in his hand the entire time. Megan presented this gift to the patient and his family along with a sign that said, "The only difference between possible and impossible is determination". Megan not only exhibited excellent patient care but she without a doubt created a memorable experience for this patient and his family in what could have been one of their darkest times.