Michelle Adwell
February 2016
Michelle
Adwell
,
RN
Intensive Care Unit
Indiana University Health Arnett
Lafayette
,
IN
United States

 

 

 

Michelle is an incredible nurse. She truly cared for our family member as a person, and not just his disease. She did not pity him; that is not what he needed. She was extremely compassionate. She engaged him in his care, but was light-hearted enough to joke with him. He has had 24/7 nursing care for over 9 years. He is very picky about his nurses; but when he heard Michelle was working, he requested her.
He says "She has great bedside manner. She's compassionate and one of the best nurses I have ever had". She spoke with him about movies, TV shows and other things of his interest. He and his family made end of life decisions and when she said "goodbye" to him and it was a sight to see. As an observer, you could tell that they bonded from the time they had together.
Thank you is not enough. But thank you so much…for everything.
***
Our mother was brought into ICU after surgery. Michelle was her nurse for 3 days. She made us aware of everything she was doing for mom's care. She explained in detail the status and treatments preformed. She helped us to understand, when we were uncertain. The information was very helpful. Our mother was on a ventilator and as the time came that we had to decide to stop it and let her pass, Michelle explained options and gave us great comfort in our decision. She even brought another nurse from ICU to do an assessment of her neurological status, which was extremely helpful and gave us the assurance we needed to take her off the ventilator. When we did, Michelle did everything she could to make her comfortable.
While we write this, it is taking our mom time to pass and it was very hard for us to wait; but even then, Michelle was checking on us and continuing to make our mom her priority. We are now on another floor, waiting for mom to pass and this has been a really hard experience. But the one constant we know is that Michelle was there and she genuinely cared.