May 2021
Emily
Obemeyer
,
RN
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Philadelphia
,
PA
United States

 

 

 

Emily's intervention had a magical effect. Our daughter started crying and explaining to Emily how upset she was about having cancer and being in so much pain.
The way Emily helped my daughter was incredible. My daughter had been in excruciating pain for days because of really bad mouth sores, she was beside herself, furious, discouraged, not accepting any help beyond medications that were just not enough, she was in a very bad mental place. Everyone, including me, other nurses, doctors, child life, the art therapist, onco, and psychology had tried to get through her that day and she was totally shut down, screaming in pain. When Emily came in for the night shift, our daughter had another sharp pain event and was furious, she was yelling at me and feeling very angry. Emily started asking her very calmly basic questions at first "can you spell your name? do you know where you are? what month it is?" Our daughter started answering, then Emily moved on to "can you tell me why you are angry?" and started soothing her giving her very simple broken-down steps of how the treatment was going to work, and how she was being very brave. Emily's intervention had a magical effect. Our daughter started crying and explaining to Emily how upset she was about having cancer and being in so much pain. She was able to connect and break through the wall of pain and anger, and the effect is still persisting, ever since then, our daughter has been able to connect with the other nurses and me, and to accept more help. I was so grateful to Emily that night, I started to cry, I couldn't believe she was able to bring our daughter back. Emily has a true gift, and I want her to be recognized for that.