An Ode to Dr. Nancy

Happy three weeks of life to Landon! He had an awesome day today, which unfortunately I was not a part of due to my very mean kidney. Although I was sad to miss a good day with him, I was even sadder to miss our last day with Landon's wonderful Dr. Nancy. This is because the doctor team at the hospital we are at changes every month. It allows different doctors to get to know Landon and bring their unique perspectives, it also allows the doctors to pursue other areas of interest like research or get further training/experience in different departments. All of which makes perfect sense for the way the rotation system works, but doesn't prevent the separation anxiety I am already having at losing Dr. Nancy.

You see Nancy has been with us since our start in the NICU and she is amazing!!!! I will admit that for the first week or so we did refer to her as Dr. Pretty Eyes because we had met so many doctors that week and couldn't remember all of their names. Instead, we started to give the doctors names for attributes we could remember about them and in Nancy's case she has very pretty blue eyes making her name a no-brainer.

All joking aside, the first week in the NICU was the most surreal and definitely one of the hardest weeks of our lives. Nancy was on the team assigned to Landon for April and was with him from the beginning. She made what could have been a completely negative experience more than bearable. This is because Nancy loves the babies she takes care of. It shows in her eyes and the way she talks about them. She always made sure to let us know what was going on and was a shoulder to cry when things weren't going so well. More importantly, she really believes in Landon.

She understands what a fighter he is and loves him. On the days he wasn't doing well, she would have just as much trouble leaving him as I did. On her days off, she would peek in the system to see how he was doing. And she called to check on me while I was in the ER because she knew I would be worried about Landon. She goes above and beyond her actual job description. I truly feel that God sent her to help us through the beginning of this hard journey. Her skill and care is a reason why my baby is here today. She is the best advocate a baby could have and the medical profession is lucky to have her. So you can see why I am sad to see her go. If I could drink, I would say I am doing a toast to Dr. Nancy but instead I will take a vicodin and toast her with that!