A phone call sounds like such a small thing. But the sedated man in a Missouri hospital room was gravely ill with COVID-19, and nurses arranged for his family to wish him well, perhaps for the last time.
In another hospital, a guitar-playing nurse sings ”Amazing Grace” outside patients’ rooms. And in another, doctors show smiling photos of themselves so COVID-19 patients can see the faces behind the masks.
In a time of anxiety and isolation, simple acts of kindness from medical workers are giving comfort and hope to patients and their families.
That phone call arranged by a nurse at a St. Louis-area hospital let Erin Muth talk to her dad, Steve Blaha, for the first time in six days and just hours after doctors revived him when his heart stopped beating.
“Dad had basically died and we hadn’t had a chance to say anything to him,” said Muth, a nurse herself in Iowa. She tearfully told her dad, “Thanks for everything you’ve done for me, rooting for me and cheering me on. I’m cheering you on now, Dad.”