Suzanne Bedichek is looking back on one of the worst — and best — years of her life. Learning that her 16-year-old daughter, Taylor, had Hodgkin’s lymphoma was devastating. With a full-time job, a younger daughter to raise, and a husband who survived brain cancer but still had side effects, the nurse had no idea how she would be able to stay at her daughter’s side through six months of chemotherapy and radiation treatment.
What Bedichek didn’t count on was the help and support she would get from her supervisor, colleagues and other staff at Doctors Hospital in Augusta.
“I knew that I’d never be able to stay out of work that long without help,” said Bedichek, LPN, a night ER nurse. “When my boss told me that I could take off as long as I needed, that other nurses had donated their vacation time and would work in my place, I was overwhelmed. If there was ever an example of friendship in the workplace, this is it.”
In August 2010, Bedichek noticed a lump on Taylor’s neck. The varsity softball pitcher had been complaining of numbness in her arm but hadn’t told her mother she was having trouble breathing at night. Taylor thought it was just a sinus infection.
“We left the restaurant without eating the meal we had ordered. I was that scared,” Bedichek said.
She wasn’t able to get an appointment with Taylor’s pediatrician so Bedichek took her daughter to the emergency room at Doctors Hospital, where the doctors knew her. Before becoming a nurse four years ago, Bedichek had worked in the ER as a patient technician for seven years.
“They did a CT scan and discovered that a huge tumor was pushing against the airway in her throat. Another tumor had displaced the apex of her right lung and others were around her heart,” Bedichek said. “The doctors diagnosed Hodgkin’s lymphoma, only one characteristic short of being Stage 3.”
Because Taylor’s airway was about to be compromised, the ER doctors called a surgeon.
“We got the findings from the last X-ray at about 2:30 a.m., and four hours later she was in surgery,” Bedichek said. “Dr. Kauffman sat down on the bed and talked to her about everything. We couldn’t have asked for more wonderful doctors or nurses in the hospital.”
Acts of kindness
Once Taylor started chemotherapy for 12 hours a day, four days a week, the acts of kindness multiplied. At first, ER nurses volunteered to work Bedichek’s hours, but as word spread through manager’s meetings, other nurses stepped in to help.
“They won’t even tell me everyone who volunteered, and there’s no way I can ever repay them enough,” Bedichek said.
Her co-workers brought meals — careful to cook food that Taylor could tolerate and Morgan, her 9-year-old sister, would like. They picked up Morgan from school and drove her to extracurricular activities.
Doctors and nurses passed the hat to help pay for Taylor’s Neopogen shots, which cost $337 each.
People also got creative with fundraisers. One nurse organized a Trims for Taylor day at a local salon, where people could get free haircuts, face-painting, food and make donations. The event raised more than $7,000.
Another nurse sold Krispy Kreme donuts at a restaurant where hunters gathered on Saturday mornings. Taylor’s softball team held fundraisers and her church organized help.
To Bedichek, it seemed that the whole city of Augusta pitched in.
“One morning I went to a gas station and saw my daughter’s picture on a collection can and [I] just started crying,” she said. “At first it was because I was seeing her face on a can, but then because it was so sweet that someone had thought to do that.”
A ER nurse who had worked at Doctors Hospital knows country singer Luke Bryan and helped make Taylor’s day.
“She arranged for him to call her on her cellphone during the first day of chemo, and it was the perfect time because the nurses had just explained that all her hair would fall out,” Bedichek said. “She didn’t believe it was him, so he sang to her. She was thrilled.”
The ER staff adopted the family for Christmas and bought presents for everyone. Another colleague spent her lunch hour with Suzanne and Taylor on the days she had chemo treatment.
“They were there for me in every way. When I called my co-workers in the middle of the night, because Taylor was in so much pain and throwing up, they’d cry with me,” Bedichek said.
‘We’re family’
It wasn’t the first time the ER department has pitched in to help a nurse or doctor in need, said Martha Garner, RN, CEN, director of emergency services at Doctors Hospital.
“We’re family and doing things for family is what we do, and Suzanne has always been a part of that,” Garner said. “People care about their patients and their co-workers here. I don’t think people even know what all was done. This was such a huge outpouring of love.”
Bedichek went back to work in January, but her co-workers still pick up the slack on bad days.
“It’s easy to help Suzanne. She’s the kind of person everyone loves,” Garner said. “She might cry in the nursing station after hearing a bad report, but then she’d say, ‘You know, it could be worse, I’m gonna be fine,’ and go back to work.”
Bedichek has become known around the hospital as Taylor’s mother, and that’s fine with her. Her daughter’s condition is stable enough for her to start her senior year of high school this month.
Bedichek is thankful for such a strong support system.
“I work with the most wonderful group of people,” she said. “They’re more like family than co-workers. Anything that needed to be done, or would just be nice to do, they did it. They went over and beyond.”
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