Hannah Stende
January 2018
Hannah
Stende
,
RN
PICU
Sanford Medical Center - Fargo
Fargo
,
ND
United States

 

 

 

I received a call that every mother fears, my three month old baby girl had quit breathing at daycare. Without going into the details, the next twenty-four hours were a blur. We made our way to Essentia emergency room, then Sanford's emergency room, and then finally Sanford PICU. On Wednesday or Thursday of that week, we were introduced to Nurse Hannah. She was then our nurse for several days. There are no words that can adequately express the compassion that Hannah showed for our little girl. She was so attentive, caring, considerate, and gentle in her care for our daughter. As parents, we had many questions. Hannah always answered our questions and if she could not answer a question, she would find someone who could. We had literally hundreds of supporters and visitors at the hospital. Hannah never wavered, she cared for our daughter and remained strong. As I said, I watched Hannah quite closely. It became obvious that she has an incredible passion for being a nurse. I cannot even fathom the difficulty of her job. After seven long days in the hospital, my husband and I made the difficult decision that no parent should ever have to make, removing our daughter from her ventilator. Hannah was with us on the difficult day. She explained everything and per her usual, handled everything with such compassion and care.
As I begin to reflect on everything, I can say with certainty that Hannah proved to us that there are individuals in this world put on earth to do certain jobs and for Hannah, she was put on this earth to be a nurse. I am so incredibly thankful that we had her through this painful journey. She was a ray of light in our nightmare. Hannah is amazing and a true DAISY Nurse.
Note: This is Hannah's 2nd DAISY Award!