Donna Logan

It’s the time of year when we are reminded to give thanks and be grateful. We want to thank Donna Logan for submitting this wonderful story to the Denver Post Your Hub about her experience at HCA HealthONE Sky Ridge!

The visit was nine days and eight nights, and it will go down as one of the most memorable experiences of my lifetime. By the time I walked into the ER, my appendix had ruptured, attached itself to my small intestine and a full quart of puss had developed. They did what they could, stitched me up and admitted me.

By my third night at Sky Ridge, there was no doubting this hospital is the real thing. A hospital where hundreds, maybe thousands, of people come night and day to heal, console, feed, bathe, operate on, assess, provide comfort to, monitor and x-ray people just like you and me.

The people at Sky Ridge work long into the day and night with a passion like I’ve never seen displayed in another care site. The shift change is the busiest time of the day and occurs at 7:30 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. The sixth floor ramps up and is abuzz with activity. If the nurses are lucky, they get to leave an hour after these bi-daily events, as every chart, every stat and every individual is visited by the nurse going off shift and the nurse coming in. They talk collectively with you about the last 12 hours and what happened.

These are the people who prep us for showers, put in ports and PICCs, distribute our medicine and place cold towels on our head when we have killer migraines. They clean the floors and meet the helicopter pilot for AirLife. They pull out drains, take us to radiology, and day after day they still greet us with a smile at the end of their shift.

I met a volunteer in her 70s who was a breast cancer survivor. We cried together. How does one say “thank you” to the doctor who scraped out my belly and closed me up? How do I say “thank you” to the nurses and so many others working tirelessly night and day? The faces, souls and eyes of these people projected unimaginable discipline, education, empathy and human comprehension, coupled with the ability and knowledge on how to respond to every conceivable situation.

So, now I say “thank you and God bless you in abundance!” Next month, I go in for a follow-up surgery to take out what remains of my appendix. While I’m not looking forward to it, I rest assured that I am in the hands of people from all generations who care about what they do and how they do it.

Now that I have tenure at both, allow me to say, Stanford’s got nothing on Sky Ridge.