November 2016
Angela
Gillies
,
RN, BSN
Surgical ICU
UC Irvine Medical Center
Orange
,
CA
United States

 

 

 

My nephew was in a terrible car accident. Two nurses have been his primary nurses on the day shift. He is a much loved son, cousin, nephew, and overall great kid. He's 30 years old and it was determined that he is in an irreversible vegetative state. From the time he was admitted, Angela showed us great compassion, caring and downright outstanding nursing care. He has every monitor you can imagine attached to him and Angela was able to deliver her care dancing among the deluge of people that came to see M. At one time, we had 100 people in the SICU; all for M. I must tell you that when the news of his current state was delivered to us, we were shaken to our cores. We all cried and cried and Angela cried with us. She came to us, hugged us, held us and comforted us amidst her own tears. I have never been a part of such compassion and caring in my life. She was in it with us.
She and the other nurses became experts at negotiating the crowd. Angela could have been overwhelmed with the sheer number of people that showed up, but she kept her composure; her professionalism was outstanding. She and the other nurses actually came to our family and asked permission to go to lunch. We knew they were tired and hungry, but they put themselves aside in our best interest.
As I write this, I am bursting with pride to be a part of this community. I want to do my own job better because of what Angela showed us. It was love personified and it doesn't get any better than this. This has been a terrible time of trouble for us, but Angela made it a bit easier to deal with. We are not out of the woods yet. We have major decisions to make. Knowing that Angela gave us her best gives us great confidence as we face the days ahead. Thank you so much.