Stephanie Diehl is devoted, proactive, and extremely hardworking. She has been a wonderful caregiver and powerful advocate for our daughter and family. One specific situation where Stephanie provided expert patient care was the first time we fed L after a CT swallow study showed that L was silently aspirating.
We had fed L without incident earlier that day under the guidance of speech therapy, but on our own, L started choking, coughing, and making high pitched noises on each inhale. Stephanie immediately put down the other baby she was attending to and listened to L's lungs and throat to make sure she didn't have any remaining fluid, checked her oxygenation history, and diagnosed the noise as likely just stridor that was not worth worrying about.
Our attending physician and our ENT specialist later confirmed this. We were terrified because we thought L was choking, but Stephanie's calm and competent actions quickly put us at ease. There were many occasions in which we felt grateful that Stephanie was our nurse. From the times that she hunted down a specialist when we were waiting for important consultations, to the time that we received life-changing news from ophthalmology regarding L's visual impairment and she wordlessly drew the breastfeeding partition around us so that we could grieve in privacy. We will always be grateful to Stephanie for the way she has looked out for L, and went above and beyond to support us all in some of the most challenging times of our lives.