so then i got a job in methodist dallas icu it says huge hospital it's an awesome hospital i loved it this is one of three halls in the icu i worked in so it's like a 34 bed neuro icu all neuro patients that's where i met nicole and again that's kind of what the patient looked like i loved it you either love neuro or you hate it most people hate it i luckily i ended up liking it uh it was really really cool patients really sick people and got to see a lot of things it's okay if i tell one story from working there please okay so when you start in a in an icu you do like a 13-week internship if you're lucky if you get a good hospital and my my preceptor was vanessa and she's like the typical icu nurse type a hardcore she didn't take from anybody and i really ended up appreciating her a ton she was a really really really good nurse but all good things come to an end and my internship ended and now i'm nurse john all by myself that was scary so my first day i remember my first day actually this is how it happened i i pull up to the hospital and the neuro icu is on the fifth floor so i push the elevator button go up to the fifth floor the doors open and jennifer the day shift nurse charge nurse is coming on and i'm going off and i go uh jennifer do you really think i'm like ready to be alone and this is her walking in the developer she goes you better be that was my first day alone but about two weeks into that i got assigned to a patient way on the very end of one of these halls and this was a guy who is a young guy maybe in his 50s mid 50s 60s who had suffered a big stroke big ischemic stroke and was non-survivable so the family had decided to withdraw care so what that means is you turn off the vent turn off the meds and let them pass so that's my patient for the night i've never done this on my own remember i'm two weeks into being like a real nurse uh and that this involves a ton of stuff so you have to take care of the patient the family you have to call the coroner you have to get the physicians up there to sign the death certificate you have to get all it's it's a lot of work so this is my patient so i walk down there trying to look confident i'm like you know shaking get to the room and i'm like hey i'm john i'm gonna be a nurse it's gonna be great wrong thing to say uh so they asked me they go so i say okay we're gonna this is what we're gonna do tonight that's kind of how it's gonna work trying to do the best i could to explain all this and inside the room right when this happens like all the family starts to show up right they're like because they know what's gonna happen so his mom's there she's this really short little lady and then all the families there the brothers the cousins the kids everything everybody's there so it's this big room of people crowding out into the hallway and it's my job to take care of all that so they're like how long does this normally take 10 minutes i had no clue so he had actually had a pacemaker so we had to get like a magnet and put over the pacemaker to deactivate it to stop the heart so we withdraw the tube i get the magnet took about 10 minutes so i lucked out there uh no so as the family's leaving after he passes the family starts to leave we close the blinds give everybody a chance to say their goodbyes right and this was the crying part that's when i was supposed to cry so um i shut the blinds and i go stand outside the room right just kind of waiting for me to kind of leave and the last person to leave is his mom right so i'm just standing there and she comes up she stands outside the room and she reaches around and gives me a big hug and she looks at me and she goes thank you john i will never forget you i love you i just met her 10 minutes ago but here's why she was saying that because in that moment i represented all nurses ever to her i represented each of you who are about to go work in hospitals and do this i represented the medical team i represented the hospital i represented health care to her in that moment she didn't care that it was john what she cared about it was that i took care of her son and here she was about to leave her son in my hands and go home the next time she would see him would be at a funeral when you guys graduate when you pass the nclex when not if and you get those letters after your name lpnr and i don't care you represent me you represent nicole you represent chance miriam marie you represent every nurse in the world you represent each other people never forget that nurse that took care of him in their darkest moment ever in fact i still remember that time with taz when he was in the nicu this is our first baby we were terrified right one night we go down the cafeteria to eat just to get out of the moment for a second we come back up god and stacy stacy was her name the nurse she's bathing him she's taking care of him and i knew he was safe be that nurse okay