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After liver cancer and a transplant, a patient was struggling for survival. His wife was watching him suffer while trying to hold herself together for the both of them. During one of their many hospital stays, the couple met Ana Akhtar, RN, Staffing Resource Office. She came into their lives at just the right time: They needed her clinical skills and compassion more than ever. The wife showed her appreciation for Ana’s unwavering care by nominating her for a DAISY Award. Read the full story in the words of the patient’s wife, below.

“My husband is a liver cancer and transplant patient at UVA. I was his living liver donor. Since his transplant, he has had many complications that resulted in several hospitalizations per year.

“At two years after his transplant, my husband was diagnosed with stage three fibrosis of his new liver and was hospitalized for almost a month due to a bile duct infection in the setting of a bile duct stricture.

“After only a few days of having been discharged from that stay, my husband became septic. It was a very scary time for us both: My husband became unresponsive twice and was in and out of severe delirium, pain, and many procedures on his new liver.

“Ana became a trusted source of support throughout this time over multiple hospital stays. Even when my husband wasn’t her direct patient, she would check in on us several times a day, help us understand where my husband stood in his fight using layman’s terms, offer supportive hugs if I needed them, and stay after her shift to ensure I was able to get basic needs met (like showering) when I was living at my husband’s bedside.

“Even when my husband wasn’t her direct patient, she spent her own time advocating for my husband to be placed in a private room near a window to help protect him in the setting of a suppressed immune system and delirium.

“For me, it wasn’t some huge grand gesture of kindness that made Ana stand out to my husband and I as someone deserving of this award; no, it was all the little things that showed a constant love for my husband and an underlying and unmistakably authentic compassion toward my husband’s journey and fight. As a wife, this meant I could shut my eyes for a few minutes and know my husband would be safe and loved…a gift that truly means the world! Thank you, Ana, for just being you!”

Nomination edited for clarity.

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The Professional Nursing Staff Organization honors up to two UVA RNs each month with a DAISY Award. Nominations may be submitted by patients, patient families, visitors, and fellow UVA team members. Learn more at uvadaisy.com.