Shelly Franken
April 2014
Shelly
Franken
,
RN
Labor & Delivery
Mercy Hospital St. Louis
St. Louis
,
MO
United States

 

 

 

I was taking care of a very critical patient one night who was in the process of, unfortunately, losing her triplets to extreme preterm labor. She was critical because of the amount of blood she was losing. Shelly was so helpful and calm. She helped me every step of the way. She helped me get the blood this patient needed and helped me hang it. When the patient was delivering, she was there to care for the babies and did so with such compassion for the patient and her family. She wrapped them up and took very caring pictures of them for the mother to remember them by. She encouraged the parents to see the babies and hold them. She then finished all of the mountains of difficult paperwork needed in this situation. Because she did all of this, I was able to stay at the bedside with my patient and care for her critical needs.

At one point, the patient had no working IV and needed blood desperately. We were able to have the ICU come and place a central line. I have not worked with central lines in a long time and Shelly was a great resource to use when I had a question about it. I don't know if I would have done so well that night without Shelly, and this is how I want to thank her for always being such a great nurse!