Nurse celebrates birthday by solving 2-year-old’s predicament

When 2-year-old Lucy needed an especially challenging blood draw to answer big questions about her health, pre-admission nurse Leslie Essay found a way.

It meant going to work at 6 a.m. on her day off, on her birthday, at UCHealth Poudre Valley Hospital.

“Oh my goodness, she was so far above and beyond to take care of Lucy and make this happen,” said Lucy’s mother, Megan. “It was such a gift to our family.”

Lucy is small for her age. She’s comparable in size to a 10-month-old, her mother said. She has low muscle tone, and special blood testing was needed to help determine whether she might have muscular dystrophy or an array of metabolic disorders.

Accurate results required a blood draw with a short tourniquet time, a tough task involving a little child with tiny veins. Three attempts at other hospitals were unsuccessful.

Lucy had a tonsillectomy scheduled at PVH. In the days before surgery, Essay, as her pre-admission nurse, spoke by phone with Megan several times. She learned of the trouble the family was having with the blood draw.

“As a mom, you’re just trying your best to find answers, to provide the best life you can for your child – so I just went for it,” said Essay, who has two daughters of her own.

She arranged to have the blood taken before surgery, after Lucy was sedated. The gas used for anesthesia causes blood vessels to widen. And with Lucy asleep, the needle stick would be “one less traumatic thing she would’ve had to endure,” Essay said.

The eight blood samples required special handling, so Essay ran three practice drills with lab staff to prepare. Overall, she coordinated among about seven people, including the anesthesiologist, physician, operating room nurse, lab staff and others.

She credits them for helping: “I couldn’t have done it alone.”

When surgery day arrived, Essay was there to welcome Lucy as well as to see the blood draw through.

“She made sure Lucy was comfortable, struck up a little friendship with her, made sure Lucy wasn’t scared,” Megan said. “She could have been like, ‘I’m not gonna be here.’”

Essay previously worked in the operating room, so she knew how to work with the staff there. An operating room nurse drew the blood, then Essay collected the tubes to hand deliver them, on ice, to the lab staff.

“It all just went super smooth,” Essay said.

And the test results brought relief for the family.

“We were able to rule out the worst of it – that it’s not a neurological problem,” Megan said. “Without these labs, we wouldn’t have been able to know.”

Lucy is in better overall health since the tonsillectomy. And she was full of energy when she visited the hospital a few weeks later to thank her nurses with greeting cards and flowers.

Essay, who’s been a nurse for 16 years, said she treats every patient the way she’d treat a family member. So the decision to help this family came easily.

“I started my birthday amazing, doing something great,” she said. “We all have this in our personal life – that you know that people could go an extra step.”

Essay added that, when such opportunities arise: “It may mean more than what you think it does to the other person.”