HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — May is Nurse Appreciation Month, and there is a lot to appreciate about Lauren Mankewich of Moffitt Cancer Center.
Mankewich, an ICU nurse, kept getting that empty feeling, returning to an empty room, and watching the families of deceased patients leave the hospital.
"Every time they left, I felt like they were helpless, they didn't know what to do, they were grieving, they were crying, and they just kind of walked away from their loved one," said Mankewich. "I needed to do something more than just say, 'I'm sorry for your loss.'"
Mankewich got the idea for a keepsake involving something unique, the patient's EKG strip. She then put the strip in a bottle, almost like a message.
"I came up with the whole bottle situation because I felt the bottle protected the heartbeat, and the memory would last forever," said Mankewich.
She calls it Heartbeat in a Bottle. Over the last year, she had handed out more than 100 of them to families.
"I believe when I give them the EKG strip, it helps the grieving process a little bit; it's not like they are completely empty-handed," said Mankewich. "The first one I ever gave out was to a 16-year-old girl, and her mom passed that morning, and she told me she was going to get a tattoo of the rhythm strip of her heartbeat."
Mankewich also hopes she can be an inspiration to more nurses who cope with similar circumstances daily.
"I think it would be a great idea to put in every hospital; I think it can help several people and just have other nurses run with it," said Mankewich. "I know that doing this helps them, and nursing is about helping people."
