The birth of our daughter was an extremely stressful experience; nothing was going planned nor well straight from the beginning. She wasn't due for a whole month but high potassium levels caused an early entrance to the maternity ward for delivery. Fortunately, my wife was able to successfully birth our daughter naturally with the help of great nurse, Jessica Wilson, who my wife already nominate for this award.

The next obstacle appeared shortly after our daughter's sugar levels were non-existent. After failed attempts to get those levels to rise, she was whisked off to the NICU with me in tow. After shortly getting to the NICU, her blood sugars immediately rose to safe and normal levels. What then made her remain in the NICU, were her bilirubin levels remaining far too high.

Our daughter struggled to eat what little food my wife was able to produce as well as the formula that we had to rely on. There was even a period where she needed a feeding tube because she didn't have the energy to eat enough food to help with her bilirubin levels. While John wasn't the very first nurse that I met when I arrived in the NICU, he's definitely the one that stood out the most.

He was incredibly kind and caring with the way we discussed our daughter's condition. He was patient as he watched two brand new parents struggle to feed a baby that couldn't eat very well. We were able to converse about other topics to lighten the mood, despite the fact that my wife and I were having a difficult time seeing the silver lining in an otherwise dark cloud.

My wife endured a lot of pain and hardship throughout the birth of our daughter so having John as a sounding board helped so much. He's a very grounded individual and didn't feed us any false hope during our stay. Even after my wife was discharged from the hospital without our child, we hoped we'd be able to return to visit her and see John. Our last visit with him secured my belief that he is deserving of this award.

We spoke with him and asked if there was any way he'd be able to care for our daughter. Unfortunately, his responsibilities lied in new patients getting admitted to the NICU so there wasn't much more he could do. He mentioned to us that he'd occasionally pop by her room when he was on shift to check on her and see her status. That was when I knew he was an amazing human being and worthy of the DAISY award. Our daughter was discharged a week after birth, and while I know the Kaiser staff in the NICU worked tirelessly to care for her, John was a fundamental rock that helped my wife and I get through an incredibly difficult period.