My father was brought into the ER with a seizure that had occurred at home. He was diagnosed with small cell carcinoma and had made it through 4 rounds of chemo and one immunotherapy. He was starting to decline. After being seen in the ER, we had to make a decision to try and get him home or lead him to be admitted and hope to find a hospice house that could care for him in his last days. We chose to do that later and try to get him the care he greatly needed at this point.

He was admitted to the 4th floor, where the nurse for him was Tristen Parsons. She was immediately caring for him and asking us if there was anything we needed. My sister stayed at night; I would arrive in the morning while she would run home to shower. We spent every day with our father, my mother, and older sister, and family came in. And for every family member, Tristen rocked with compassion. She would talk to my father even though he was no longer responding. She would answer any of our questions and do everything she could to be sure our father was taken care of. She was always able to be found if we needed her. She would sit and do her charts by our father’s bedside if one of us wasn’t there. Her presence, compassion, and empathy made what we were going through a little less harsh.

On Sunday, we knew it wouldn’t be long, and on Monday, we got the phone call from Tristen, who, mind you, was supposed to be off but took extra hours (I don’t think she could leave him either), that it wouldn’t be long. As we arrived there, Tristen was right next to him. Her heart is so big! As the moments came down and we would cry, she, too, would shed tears. She hugged my mom and told us how lucky our father was and what a great family we had. Tristen took time, listened, cared, and you could clearly see her love for her job. We could not thank her enough for going through this with us.

We lost our father, husband, brother, uncle, grand, and great-grandfather at 1:45 on Monday. With much love from my family. Thank you, Tristen.