Brandi Zimmerman
November 2018
Brandi
Zimmerman
,
BSN RN
Pediatrics
Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital
Downers Grove
,
IL
United States
Our daughter was in a very serious car accident and was airlifted to GSAM. She sustained numerous injuries including a concussion/bleeding on the brain, a fractured nose, a splenectomy, a collapsed lung and several fractures to her pelvis and eventually appendectomy. Our daughter was in the hospital for almost a month - on one unit for a few days and then the remainder in another. I was there with my daughter pretty much 24 hours a day for the first week and a few additional days here and there as she needed me, and the rest of the time pretty much 12 hours a day. I got to know the entire unit staff, both shifts, fairly well and the quickly became part of our family. If I could nominate the entire staff, I would, as they each contributed something different/unique to my daughter's healing.
It was one day, however, my daughter was having a particularly bad day (from "visitors are not welcome because they get to go home" to "I'm gonna die here") that one of these nurses went above and beyond the call of duty. The nurse was Brandi. She had gotten to know our daughter pretty well and had a sense of what to do when she needed help. Brandi took matters into her own hands and created a "spa day" for my daughter, in her room, for the very next day. While I had no idea what it took to do this, I am very aware that this is not something that is normally done. In fact, later in my daughter's recovery, I had the pleasure of meeting a woman/chaplain at Maran Joy Rehab who used to volunteer at GSAM as well and she told me this was unheard of. The day of her "spa day" was a day of celebration for my daughter. Not only did she feel a sense of normalcy by getting her hair cut and a mani/pedi, but the night before she also had a "breakthrough" in her prognosis.
Up until this point, I had always thought of nursing as caretakers/healers of your physical wounds. In our case, nursing was not only about physical healing but spiritual/mental healing. Thank you, Brandi, for being an extraordinary nurse. Your compassion and endless support of our daughter will stay with us always. We'll always be grateful for your kind gesture.
It was one day, however, my daughter was having a particularly bad day (from "visitors are not welcome because they get to go home" to "I'm gonna die here") that one of these nurses went above and beyond the call of duty. The nurse was Brandi. She had gotten to know our daughter pretty well and had a sense of what to do when she needed help. Brandi took matters into her own hands and created a "spa day" for my daughter, in her room, for the very next day. While I had no idea what it took to do this, I am very aware that this is not something that is normally done. In fact, later in my daughter's recovery, I had the pleasure of meeting a woman/chaplain at Maran Joy Rehab who used to volunteer at GSAM as well and she told me this was unheard of. The day of her "spa day" was a day of celebration for my daughter. Not only did she feel a sense of normalcy by getting her hair cut and a mani/pedi, but the night before she also had a "breakthrough" in her prognosis.
Up until this point, I had always thought of nursing as caretakers/healers of your physical wounds. In our case, nursing was not only about physical healing but spiritual/mental healing. Thank you, Brandi, for being an extraordinary nurse. Your compassion and endless support of our daughter will stay with us always. We'll always be grateful for your kind gesture.