{"id":50580,"date":"2019-11-27T13:01:57","date_gmt":"2019-11-27T18:01:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/?p=50580"},"modified":"2020-09-22T15:01:46","modified_gmt":"2020-09-22T19:01:46","slug":"a-pivotal-moment-transformed-jeannettes-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/healthy-tomorrows\/a-pivotal-moment-transformed-jeannettes-life\/","title":{"rendered":"A pivotal moment transformed Jeannette\u2019s life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Jeannette Cheng became a registered nurse at The Ottawa Hospital after life-threatening car accident changed the trajectory of her life. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is often a moment\nin our lives that guides us down the path we\u2019re destined to explore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Jeannette\nCheng, that moment was a life-threatening car crash and the extraordinary care she\nreceived at The Ottawa Hospital.  In\nfact, Jeannette was so transformed by her experience that she became a nurse\nand returned to work at The Ottawa Hospital – the place that saved her life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Aug. 19, 2007,\nJeannette and a group of her friends, all fourth-year I.T. students at Carleton\nUniversity, were travelling to a whitewater rafting adventure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were driving\nthrough the Ottawa Valley when they were involved in a serious car crash. Three\ncrash victims were taken to a nearby hospital. Jeannette, however, had life-threatening\ninjuries, so she was airlifted to The Ottawa Hospital – home of the only trauma\nunit in Eastern Ontario. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeannette\u2019s body\nwas badly damaged. There was no time to waste. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, a\nspecialized trauma team operated to remove Jeannette\u2019s spleen. Next, she had\nsurgery to repair her fractured skull. \nFinally, she had surgery on her pelvis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The highly-skilled\nteam was piecing her back together to try to save her life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeannette finally\nwoke up two weeks after the crash. She was scared and disoriented, but the\nnurses compassionately and carefully explained everything to her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although she was\nconscious, she was not out of the woods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just a few days\nlater in the trauma unit, she started to bleed internally. Her medical team\nresponded quickly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her attending\nphysician, Dr. Giuseppe Pagliarello, came to see her right away. It was then\nthat Jeannette had her life-changing moment. But the moment had nothing to do\nwith her health and everything to do with which path she was going to follow in\nlife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Dr.\nPagliarello came to Jeannette\u2019s bedside, he held her hand and spoke to her and\nthe medical team about the next steps for her care. That small, simple gesture\n\u2013 holding her hand \u2013 and the confidence with which he spoke to the team, made Jeannette\nfeel more secure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was the healing\npower of kindness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeannette\u2019s vision\nfor her life become clear. In April 2018, Jeannette returned to the trauma unit\nat The Ottawa Hospital, but this time as a registered nurse. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was her turn to\nhelp transform the lives of the most critically-injured patients with the help\nof new technology and world-changing discoveries in research.  She knew she wanted to be a part of creating\na better tomorrow for our patients and our community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that\u2019s not the\nonly way Jeannette plans to give back. This year, she\u2019s participating in the I\nGive @ TOH Employee Giving Campaign, which supports patient care and\ntransformational research right here at The Ottawa Hospital.
\n
\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You, too, can\nsupport this important initiative by filling out a pledge form or donating online<\/a>\ntoday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A frightening car crash that caused life-threatening injuries altered Jeannette Cheng\u2019s life forever. Touched by the compassionate care she received at The Ottawa Hospital, she\u2019s giving back in a significant way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":50581,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[381,407],"class_list":["post-50580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-healthy-tomorrows","tag-patient-experience","tag-trauma-care"],"acf":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}