Jon Carpenter
June 2019
Jon
Carpenter
,
BSN RN CCRN
Pediatric ICU
Helen DeVos Children's Hospital
Grand Rapids
,
MI
United States

 

 

 

We met Jon as our 20-month-old was first diagnosed with Tuberous Sclerosis Complex and Jon was to inject our infant with ATCH gel. I brought a small Igloo that was sent to our home from NORD to the hospital and he was the shift RN on PICU to administer the gel. His honesty of, "Wow, this is thick like a gel," cracked me up as he rolled it to warm it in his hands.
Since then we saw Jon in the ER with fevers and seizure-induced head trauma (needing stitches or staples) and he would stop, listen and catch up on not just the medical issues but how we were managing the stress. Once he pulled up a "safety bed" on the laptop to show me a way our son could be safer during the night to stop "meeting like this" in the ER. He came to visit during video/EEG monitoring and genuinely felt like family to us at Spectrum Health. He advocated for testing for strep throat after days in the ICU and he was right! He's a character but also a heartfelt RN who treats the patient and who sees the whole picture and treats it.