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Ohio printer Walter Ruiz could not quite recognize her features under all of her PPE, but the voice of Nurse of the Week Lisa Lane quickly became familiar to him during his struggle with COVID-19.

Hospitalized with COVID after passing out at his business, Ruiz was “scared; really, really scared,” and being cut off from his family left him feeling terribly alone: “When you don’t have anybody around you…no members of your family…it’s really hard.” Fortunately, Lane, an RN on the COVID unit at Cincinnati’s Mercy-Fairfield Hospital supported him at his bedside. She held his hand, offered him constant words of encouragement and hope, and urged Ruiz to keep fighting the virus so he could once again see his grandchildren. She told me, “You can make it; you can do it,” Ruiz recalled.

After his recovery, a grateful Ruiz was determined to thank the nurse who had kept his spirits up during his ordeal, but the disguising effects of PPE made it hard for him to identify her. With help from the hospital, he intently perused photos of the unit nurses and finally made a tentative choice. Ruiz’s uncertainties immediately fell away, though, when he once again heard Lane’s voice. To share his gratitude with all of the nurses on the Mercy-Fairfield COVID unit, when Ruiz was well enough to return to his printing business, he created a large sign reading, “THANKS to all Mercy Staff for Being Everyday Heroes in Our Lives.”

Lane was delighted to meet with such enthusiastic appreciation, but remarked, “I don’t do anything more than any nurse on the planet does…that’s just what we do.”

See also
Lessons From the Spanish Flu Pandemic

For the full story, see the article and video by WCPO Cincinnati.

Koren Thomas
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