This post is a companion to our Trip 31 Greene Does Greenville recap, where I break down the full ten days and Harrison’s surgery. This one zooms in on two nurses who changed that week for us.
I sometimes get in my own head about how to write these posts.
If you’ve been around here for a while, you probably already know that. I ping-pong between “just document everything so we remember it later” and “make it worth reading for someone who isn’t Jenna or me.” I worry about my voice, about whether I’m saying too much or not enough, about whether it’s too dry or way too emotional.
There is a very practical version of these posts where I just lay out the trip in order. Day-by-day. Appointment-by-appointment. High points and low points. They’re not always the most gripping reads, but they’re gold when we’re trying to look back later and remember what happened when. There is a lot of value in that.
But there is also value in zooming in on the pieces that really matter.
Trip 31 to Greenville was our longest stay yet. It had the longest surgery, some of the biggest milestones, and one more thing I did not see coming: two nurses who changed what those days in the hospital felt like.
I’ve never written a post dedicated to nurses before. I had never even really considered it.
Until now.
Thirty-one trips and a lot of faces
This was our 31st trip to Greenville, SC, to go to Shriners Children’s Greenville for appointments, surgeries, and follow-ups. If you asked me to count how many times we’ve walked through those doors, checked in, and done the whole routine, I’d have to go back through the blog and start tallying.
Some trips have multiple days of appointments. Some are surgery days. Some are cast changes. Each one comes with a different set of people: doctors, nurses, techs, POPs, random staff. Some stick in your memory because they were great. Some stick because they were… not. Most fall somewhere in that pleasant, forgettable middle.
We have the nurse we always remember because she wrapped one of Harrison’s first Mehta casts and casually mentioned that her sister used to live in Renfro Valley. There are people in Kentucky who cannot find Renfro on a map, but here’s this nurse in Greenville who knows exactly where it is. Funny enough, we saw her again this past visit as she was the one to wrap his first set of casts. (The blue ones for those keeping score at home.)
We’ve met more than a few folks who see “Mt. Vernon” on our paperwork and say, “Oh yeah, I know that exit on 75.”
We’ve met a handful of die-hard UK fans, whom I’m always happy to see walk in the door.
You see enough people, and you start to expect the full spectrum. Some good, some bad, some forgettable.
This trip, we landed on two of the best: Cassie and Caroline, Harrison’s day and night nurse, respectively.
How people talk to Harrison matters
To be completely honest, it’s often frustrating to watch how people interact with Harrison.
Because he is physically disabled and nonspeaking, and because he can’t respond the way a typical four-year-old would, people make assumptions. Some pity him. Some talk down to him like he’s still a baby. Some come in with this over-the-top excited tone, like they’re trying to hype up a toddler instead of talking to a kid who understands every word they say.
You can see his reaction right on his face.
If you pity him, talk down to him, or get way too extra with the praise, you’ve hit one of Harrison’s top three crimes. He does not respond well to any of those. He shuts down.
What he wants is simple. He wants you to talk to him like a person. He wants you to interact with him, not around him. You can feel bad about what he’s going through. You can say, “I’m sorry, buddy, I know this stinks.” He’s fine with that. He just doesn’t need baby talk, and he especially doesn’t want your pity.
This is not me projecting. You can watch him and see it.
Cassie and Caroline got that immediately.
From the very first interaction, they talked to him like a kid, not a case. No pity, no fake cheerleading, no talking to him like he was six months old. Just genuine, respectful interaction. They did the medical stuff they needed to do, and then they just… hung out for a minute. Talked to him, talked to us, treated all of us like actual people.
They both walked away thinking Harrison didn’t like them. They even turned it into a little competition to see who could get the first smile or get him to like them more.
They had no idea they were already in his upper tier.
He fussed when they came in because he knew they were going to check something or move something, and he did not want to be bothered. But if you know Harrison, you could tell he was cool with both of them. He wasn’t giving them any obvious wins, but he wasn’t shutting them out either.
My quiet test for medical people
I’m not shy about the fact that how you interact with my kid is your make-or-break moment with me.
You can be the most brilliant doctor in the world, the most skilled nurse on the floor, but if I don’t like how you are with my son, I’m done. There is no coming back from that.
I judge character very quickly based on how people act when no one is telling them what to do. I sit back and let them be themselves. If you give people room to be natural, you see who they really are.
Once you point something out, people will adjust. They’ll correct their language or their tone because you asked them to. That’s fine, but your first instinct is what I remember. That first natural reaction is where my trust either starts or stops.
I’ve been that way since the day Harrison was born, when he was lying on a table, and a doctor sat in front of me rattling off words I had never heard before. Every medical person since has been filtered through that lens.
Cassie and Caroline passed that test in the first few minutes.
From the start, I knew we were good. I knew Harrison was in safe hands. I trusted them enough that if they came in while Jenna and I were napping to check on him, I didn’t feel the need to pop up and monitor every move. That is rare for me.
Cassie especially stood out the first time she came into the room when she openly questioned the way Harrison’s equipment was set up. It wasn’t combative, but thoughtful with a dose of common sense and awareness. She noticed that the setup didn’t really make sense for his body and/or his age, and questioned it aloud. (Something a certain nursing student also noticed simply from pictures.)
The fact that she saw it immediately, knew he had AMC and what that translates into, and did all this while talking to us, set the tone and told me all I needed to know.
That is the kind of thing that earns my trust quickly. That is someone paying attention, not just following a chart.
Seeing us, not just the chart
Another reason these two stood out was the way they treated Jenna and me.
Not everyone does.
There have been hospital stays where I dreaded certain nurses walking in. Not because they were bad at their jobs, but because of how they interacted with Harrison or how they treated us. Cold, clipped, all business, no humanity.
Cassie and Caroline were the opposite.
They talked to us. They joked with us. They stayed in the room for a few minutes just to chat when things were calm. They let us be ourselves.
If you haven’t spent a lot of time around Jenna and me together, you may not have seen that side of us. We are not naturally loud or over-the-top people, but once we’re comfortable, we both lean into a more laid-back, sarcastic, “cut up a little” mode.
My mom got a front row seat to that and looked completely thrown.
She drove all the way down to Greenville to help for a day or two and happened to be there during a shift change. Cassie was handing off to Caroline, and the four of us were going back and forth, joking and talking. Mom was over by Harrison’s bed, watching the whole thing play out, and you could see it on her face: “Who are these people?”
The truth is, that is exactly how Jenna and I have always been. We take Harrison’s situation seriously, but we also know we’re interacting with experts. We want them to feel as relaxed and clear-headed as possible, not like they’re walking into a tension fog every time they crack the door open.
If that means we’re more laid-back than some people expect, so be it.
The catch is that this only works if the people on the other side meet us there. Cassie and Caroline did. They gave it right back. Smart comments, easy laughs, real conversations. At one point, Cassie and Jenna had what was basically the Step Brothers “Did we just become best friends?” scene over favorite bands.
That stuff matters more than it might sound like.
When you’re spending days in a hospital room, those small human moments are what make it survivable. They help you feel a little less alone.
Raising Awareness
One more moment from that stay doesn’t happen often, but it stuck with me.
One morning, while Cassie was in the room checking on Harrison, she mentioned there might be some students rotating through later and asked if we’d be okay with them coming by. Being people who are all for raising awareness, we were never going to say no.
Part of that goes back to the week Harrison was born. We spent days in the NICU, and only one nurse, the entire week, had ever even heard of Arthrogryposis. I don’t want other families walking into that same wall of confusion if we can help it.
In talking with Cassie, we learned she’s cared for kids with AMC before, along with plenty of other rare conditions. Because of that, she sees these moments as chances to teach, not just to “show off an interesting case.”
When she brought the students in, she explained Harrison’s condition, pointing out his wrists and arms, but she did it in a way that didn’t dehumanize him. She also highlighted to them and explained how to talk to a kid, just not a nonspeaking kid, but really, the advice boiled down to talking to a kid. She broke down and explained exactly what we had experienced. Never talking down to him, but simply to him. He wasn’t broken down into just a subject or an illustration. He was still a kid. A kid who may not look like your typical four-year-old, but a kid all the same. One who could help open eyes, educate, and bring a little more awareness into the room.
We’ve never shied away from students coming in, all the way back to the NICU and those first days of trying to figure out this version of parenthood. The mentality from day one has been: the more eyes that look and see Harrison, the better. More eyes mean more opportunities to spread awareness and knowledge. To open another set of eyes, not just to the condition, but to the possibilities within it.
Cassie took the time to make that happen. For her, it might have been a quick thought and a simple ask. For us, it was one more sign of who she is: someone who sees the bigger picture and uses her role to nudge the world a tiny bit in the right direction. Those are the kinds of moments that stand out, and they’re more appreciated than most people probably realize.
The follow-up day and the hallway “reunion”
After we were discharged, we spent a few more days at the hotel before going back for Harrison’s follow-up. He had to be put back under so Dr. Hyer could check how everything was healing and recast his legs for the next stretch.
That meant another pre-op morning, another round of happy juice, and our eleventh time on that same bed in that same room.
They wheeled him back, we did the walk to our assigned room, and as we came down the hallway pulling Harrison’s empty wagon, we heard it.
“Call security!”
It was Cassie and Caroline, both working that day.
They saw us coming and immediately slipped into that familiar joking tone. It wasn’t quite walking into Cheers, but it felt pretty close.
When Harrison was brought back out, starting to wake up from anesthesia and full of his usual post-op anger, both of them came to check on him. There was an ease to it on both sides. They knew us. We knew them. They knew we had it under control. We knew they were watching out for us.
They helped get us out of there as quickly and smoothly as possible. That kind of comfort level is priceless.
We even tried to get a photo of Harrison with them. We have never done that before. He was absolutely not interested, furious about being back in casts and groggy from anesthesia, but the fact that we even thought to ask says a lot.
In four and a half years, I have never written a blog post about a nurse, much less two. We have met some excellent doctors and staff along the way, but Cassie and Caroline were easily, hands down, two of the best we have ever had.
They set the bar very high.
Why this trip will shine a little brighter
Trip 31 was not easy.
I dreaded these casts. Harrison struggled with pain for a while, then muscle spasms, then the usual frustration that comes with being stuck and uncomfortable. The nights were long. The hospital stay was not smooth.
But years from now, I don’t think that’s what will stand out the most when we look back.
We’ll remember that his legs were straight for the first time. We’ll remember that we chose the right place in Greenville. We’ll remember the way Dr. Hyer fought for his future.
And we’ll remember two nurses who made a hard week lighter.
They didn’t erase the pain or the exhaustion. But they made it easier to carry. They turned “just another hospital stay” into something that felt human and kind and, at times, even a little fun.
I never expected to write a blog post dedicated to a pair of nurses as part of this journey.
I’m very glad they made it necessary.
You never know what surprises are waiting around the corner with all of this. There will always be hard ones. Whenever the good ones show up, I plan on grabbing them with both hands and writing them down so we don’t forget.