Renovations to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at the James and Connie Maynard Children’s Hospital, known as the PICU, provided a special way to honor some of the bravest patients.
“I’ve had families who their child has spent a significant amount of time in the PICU and asked, ‘How can we leave my child’s legacy on the unit?’” said Child Life Specialist Chelse Cudmore. “And I saw a picture of a wave and I was like, you know, a wave really represents patient and families stays while in the ICU as well as represents grief.”
One ECU Health nurse, Lacey Boldyrev, knows firsthand the journey of a family in the PICU. Her son Thaddeus was transferred to Maynard Children’s Hospital shortly after his birth.
“He was born in Jacksonville at Onslow Memorial Hospital,” said Boldyrev. “We had had just the normal pregnancy, normal ultrasounds, nothing special. I went to go get him and they told me that I couldn’t pick him up and I had to go back to my room and that the doctor would call me there. So I went back to the room and I waited. And the pediatrician that was in the hospital that day, she called and she said, ‘Your son has congenital heart disease and we’re going to send him to Greenville.’ He passed away on Christmas Day, December 2015. And I just felt like after he was gone, that there was that big empty hole.”
In the year that followed. Lacey felt called to serve the medical field and to care for patients just like her son. Her first choice upon graduating from nursing school was the PICU at Maynard Children’s Hospital. The admiration is mutual with the child life team honoring Lacey and choosing Thaddeus’ legacy to represent those who came before.
Cudmore reflected on the wave wall selection process.
“As we were talking about, how could we make this a significant thing? And Lacey, having a child who spent a significant amount of time and would have absolutely qualified for the wall and then him passing as well, and then her that kind of motivating her to want to be a nurse and our PICU. I mean it was really no question about it,” Cudmore said.
“I was asked by the child life team if I would want to put that on the wall,” said Boldyrev. “And I was completely honored to do that. It’s just a little bubble that it means a whole lot to me.”
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