Taylor Shores, BSN, RN, was recently honored with the DAISY Award for Extraordinary Nurses at Sarah Bush Lincoln. Shores received her nomination for the excellent manner in which she cared for and comforted a family who lost a loved one. Her nominator wrote:
“In October 2019, my wife was diagnosed with stage 2 endometrial cancer. After surgery and specialized spot radiation, we thought we were in the clear. Less than a year later, we were told that it had aggressively metastasized within the soft muscle tissue on her side, something very uncommon with this type of cancer. She painfully endured more than 10 sessions of chemotherapy, 30 radiation treatments, and eventually daily doses of Lenvima. Unfortunately, in late August of 2022, the Lenvima perforated her stomach and bowels, leading to emergency surgery. Her hospital stay lasted nine days, leaving her extremely deconditioned. This mixed with the pre-existing weakness led her to decide that she was ready to come home.
Although we had many great nurses during that entire period of time, one in particular stood out to our family. Taylor Shores was there to do anything and everything possible for my wife, for me, and for our two sons. When the end finally came, I called her and she was at the house within minutes. She stayed until the wee hours of the morning with us, comforting us with the enormous loss we all felt.
To this day, we consider her a family friend and will always have a place in our heart for her and have a deep appreciation for what she did for our entire family.”
Sarah Bush Lincoln has joined more than 2,700 healthcare facilities by becoming a DAISY Award hospital partner.
The DAISY Award was established in memory of J. Patrick Barnes, who died at 33 of complications of Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (ITP), a little known but not uncommon auto-immune disease. (DAISY is an acronym for diseases attacking the immune system.) The care Patrick and his family received from nurses while he was ill inspired this unique means of thanking nurses for making a profound difference in the lives of their patients and families.
Patients, visitors, nurses, physicians and other employees may nominate a deserving nurse for The Daisy Award and a nurse will be selected by SBL’s DAISY committee every month to receive this special honor. Nomination forms are located at www.sarahbush.org and at all SBL clinics and on patient floors. The forms can be submitted to any Sarah Bush Lincoln staff member, or sent via email to [email protected] or mail to Sarah Bush Lincoln, DAISY Nursing Award, 1000 Health Center Drive, Mattoon, IL 61938. For more information, volunteer nurse coordinator, Tracey McCord, RN, at (217) 238-4987 or [email protected].