Samantha was a Godsend at the right time! My 86-year-old father had two spinal surgeries within 7 days. He had made progress and been sent to a regular ward. Then pneumonia set in, and he was returned to the surgical ICU. Within 48 hours, he could barely open his eyes and could only make noises - no longer coherent. On the 12th night, I was at my father's side, desperately watching him slip away and longing for someone to pay attention. His robe was soiled from the waist down and smelled like urine. As he lay crooked in bed, I felt like we had taken a hard turn on the road to recovery.

As I sat here in the semi-dark room, Samantha, the charge nurse, came and knelt at my side and asked me what was going on. The timing was impeccable, and the level of concern was straight from the heart. What made it so touching was watching as many nurses walked by, seemingly avoiding eye contact. I'm not trying to say anything bad about them, since he wasn't their patient, but my dad wasn't Samantha's patient either. She listened to me patiently as I explained my fear of losing him. Then, without me mentioning it, she noticed he was soiled and said, "I see he soiled himself. Let me fix that right away." And that is exactly what she did! She came in right away, changed his gown, bathed him, fixed his leaking catheter, found he had gone number two, and wiped him clean. My father went from incredibly restless to peacefully resting for the rest of the night.

Samantha's level of care was above and beyond. As charge nurse, she could've delegated, I'm sure, but didn't. She led by example. She represented Memorial Herman in the best possible way. I didn't know which way my father would go from there, but I went from desperate and lonely to comforted and hopeful. Thank you, Samantha.