Hospitals are scary places.

People go there to get better, but the process can be terrifying.

Our family spent a few days in at Lane Regional Memorial Center in Zachary, La. when our mother underwent procedures to have stents inserted into blocked arteries.

Physicians thread a long, thin tube into a blood vessel through the wrist and place the stents. Patients usually go home that day, and the relief is almost instantaneous.

Because Mom’s a tiny person, the team had to insert the tube through the groin, a bit more involved.

Mom’s a trooper and accepted the tougher procedure. The first time was exploratory to see where the stents needed to go, but her second procedure wasn’t as smooth.

A swelling about the size of a softball developed at the insertion site. My sister and I went to the cafeteria for a quick lunch, and we came back to find two nurses working on Mom.

One was using a sonogram to find where the bleeding was coming from and one was applying direct pressure to the area.

For over 30 minutes, these two kept searching for answers and solutions, all the while talking to Mom and us to keep us calm.

We were fortunate in that both had prior experience in a cardiovascular center and knew what to do.

Mom pulled through in fine fashion, and we were relieved and grateful these conscientious health-care professionals caught the issue before Mom was in serious trouble.

After that scary experience, she wasn’t keen on returning, but she was still short of breath and wanted to feel better.

So back to the hospital we went.

The doctor performed four stents on her – a lot, by the way – and she came out of the procedure groggy but cracking jokes.

She seemed to be stable, so my brother and I decided to grab a quick lunch.

Not more than a minute after we sat down at the restaurant, his cell phone rang. It was the nurse and the message was quick – come back to the hospital right now.

Mom was experiencing a “vasovagal syncope,” a fainting spell, but the episode was more complicated. Her blood pressure dropped to the double digits and she was as white as the sheet.

We stood in the doorway as five nurses and doctors surrounded her bed.

Laura, the head nurse in the cardio wing, was calm as she monitored her team and the machines.

What I noticed, though, was that all the while, she was stroking Mom’s hair. In a quiet voice, Laura was reassuring her patient she’d be okay and they wouldn’t leave her.

In what seemed like an eternity, Mom finally stabilized.

Most of the nurses left the room but not Laura. She moved to the side of Mom’s bed and held our mother’s hand for over 30 minutes as she monitored the machines and talked us through what had happened.

Professionally, the team was on point every step of the way.

Personally, they went above and beyond, and that care was evident in the small gestures.

Every nurse who came in Mom’s room, day and night, not only took her vital signs but didn’t leave without tucking in her sheet and blanket.

They checked her ankles for swelling and then gently rubbed the bottom of her leg as they asked how she was feeling.

They brought heated blankets without being asked.

They called Mom by name and thoroughly answered all our questions, even though they probably heard the same lines every single day.

The kindness the nurses, doctors and aides showed to our mother means more to us than we could ever express.

Thank you for remembering the scared person wearing a cotton hospital gown is first and foremost a human being.

Thank you for treating our mother with dignity, professionalism and compassion.

Thank you for saving her life.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.