Nurse and COVID patient given fond, and musical, farewell
In the heart of San Antonio, Brenda, like countless other healthcare heroes, battled the relentless grip of COVID-19.
Like many healthcare workers, Brenda Valle recently found herself fighting the very virus that has afflicted so many in San Antonio, COVID-19. As a Certified Nursing Assistant (CAN) at the Southeast Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, Valle found herself especially vulnerable, although she would not know that until the end of March, when the facility publicly announced a COVID outbreak in the nursing home.
On March 31, the same day Southeast Nursing went public with the outbreak, Valle was rushed to the Emergency Department at Methodist Hospital | Metropolitan. Within hours, her health failing rapidly, Valle was on a ventilator. She would stay on it for the next 16 days. At times, her nurses thought they might have to do a tracheostomy. But over the past two week, Valle began to slowly improve. By mid-April, she was breathing on her own again.
After spending almost a month at Metropolitan Hospital, Valle went home — but not before receiving a big send off from the nurses and medical staff who cared for her. Several executives also participated in the event.
As a nurse wheeled Valle down the halls of the Rehabilitation Unit, staff clapped, cheered, and presented her with poster-sized cards and balloons — all the while, another nurse following close behind playing music by the late Latin singer/songwriter Selena on her iPhone.
“One of the nurses, when she visited (Valle), would always play Selena music for her,” recalled Mary Lee Potter, nursing administrator for Metropolitan Hospital.
Of the going-away party, Potter said, “Not only was her family there cheering for her, but the entire team from Metropolitan Hospital,” she said, “from the ICU nurses to the (physical rehabilitation nurses), everyone who was there for Brenda.”
To have such a grand turn out truly made this event, “very special,” Potter added.