Liver transplant recipient: Care memories to share

Hi, Lissa and Welcome to the Transplant Discussion group. I am happy to meet you and I want to extend my virtual handshake to you.
I am a transplant recipient, too. And I also experienced blessings with my contact and treatment at Mayo (Rochester).
I want to invite you to participate in any of our discussions. I am going to guess that you are already familiar with some of them as a result of your reading!

I would like to ask you a couple questions that this discussion has brought to my own mind.
-What brought you to Mayo Clinic Connect? How did you discover this on line community?
-Without names, Can you recall an event or a situation that stands out in your memory of a particularly 'wonderful' staff interaction?

I look forward to reading what you have to share!

Thank you for your reply. I found Mayo Clinic connect while still in the hospital last year and have been reading along since.

I have so many wonderful memories that I could share and so many people to thank... Some of the people that standout the most in my mind are the nursing assistants. Not everyone realized their value but for me they were invaluable. One in particular always went out of her way to make me feel great. She would rub my back, or feet... Spend time talking to me and listening to me. This became so important to me because of complications with peritonitis after my transplant. I never met a single person there from the doctors to the people that cleaned my room... Everyone was kind, respectful and caring.

Hi @gurli, I want to add my welcome and glad you had the courage to post and introduce yourself after following the community for the past while. You'll meet plenty of other liver transplant recipients in this thread. Please join in:
> Liver transplant support group https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/liver-support-group/

Lissa, I hope you don't mind, but I added to the title of this discussion calling it "Liver transplant recipient: Care memories to share". I like what you and Rosemary started with this discussion and want to invite others to share their memories. Anyone else care to share? @jodeej @contentandwell @jerrydrennan

-Without names, Can you recall an event or a situation that stands out in your memory of a particularly 'wonderful' staff interaction?

@gurli
Welcome, there are a lot of good things that happen to me and I cannot list all the names of the people. THis would take all the space to write. My post transplant coordinator name after a car. Was a angel to me. She seemed to no what I needed before I could ask for it. After a major setback it seemed she new what I had to get done and it’s done. I do not want to take away from the Drs they saved my life twice. The nurses where awesome.
God Bless
Jerry

@gurli Hi Lissa and welcome to Connect. I too am a liver transplant recipient, but if you’ve been reading the posts for awhile you probably already know that!

One of the nice things about Connect is that it is not limited to just Mayo patients. My liver transplant occurred at Mass General (MGH) in Boston.
I think the physicians, nurses, and other people serving transplant recipients must be very special people because they were all wonderful at MGH also.

It’s difficult to single out any of the people who cared for me, from the doctors, nurses, physical therapists, dieticians, right down to the food service staff and the housekeeping staff. They were all pleasant and did everything they could to make sure that I was doing well and was comfortable.

Two people who made an impression on me do come to mind though. One of my first night’s post-surgery I couldn’t sleep due to discomfort. A nurse came in and chided me, in a nice way, to never do that again because I needed my sleep to recover. She could have given me some additional pain killer, which she did then.

I was back in the hospital a year later with legionnaires disease. I had the same nurse and she remembered me! I was discharged about a week before Christmas and had been invited to a couple of gatherings on the weekend. I asked the doctor who was discharging me if I should not go to the parties. He crouched down so we were face to face and told me that they didn’t get me a new liver so I could sit home and not enjoy life. He said to just take precautions, which of course I always do anyway.
JK

I arrived at Mayo Rochester in critical condition. I was many miles away from home, and fearing for my life. My husband was with me, but during procedures, I was completely alone.
I remember when I had a procedure at Mayo, there was a nurse who came to my bedside. She called me by name. Then she introduced herself and told me about the procedure. She also asked me if I had any questions and then patiently listened as I struggled to to speak. She answered each one.
She would hold my hand and tell me that she would be with me. I remember that I felt a gentle little squeeze to my hand as the anesthesia took effect. And then - she was with me when I woke up.
This was both comforting and reassuring to me each time it happened.

@rosemarya good, caring nurses are truly angels from heaven when you are sick and in need of that little extra attention.
JK

I remember the gentleman that cleaned my husband room on 10-2 after his transplant. He was always smiling and encouraging him to "get better and go home."

Everyone on the floor from the nurses to the CNA'S were amazing.

Blessings,
JoDee

@jodeej I think the top rated hospitals must treat their employees very well. That makes for happy employees who are not grumpy with the patients. My future daughter-in-law was a nurse at UCLA medical center and she loved it there. Tray are rated #7 now, I believe.
JK

JK, I agree! The gentleman from housekeeping was so happy all the time. He said his family owned a nail salon, but he enjoyed working at Mayo and talking to the patients so he kept his job. My guess is that he liked the insurance coverage, also. Lol