I was at work one day when I received an urgent phone call from the ER telling me to come down "stat". My mind was racing. Was a loved one of mine injured? When I got there, the ER doctor introduced me to a 50 year old patient who barely spoke English, but was fluent in Hungarian, my first language. They needed me to translate for him. During the months that he was our patient, I found out that he was living in a local motel with his mother, who spoke only Hungarian. With her husband and brother deceased, and her son ill for many, many months and now in the hospital, she began a life of begging on the streets of Thousand Oaks as a way of supporting herself. As soon as I found out about this poor woman, I rushed over to the motel, only to learn from the motel manager that she was sleeping in her car because she could no longer afford the motel room. Since she was no where to be found, I left my phone number on the windshield. I worried about her all night long, and could hardly sleep. At 7:00 a.m. the phone rang. It was her! She explained in Hungarian that she was begging all day and by the time she got back to the car it was very dark and she didn’t see my note. When she read it the next morning she said that she felt like an angel had come to save her. My heart just about broke. I arranged to take her to the Adult Protective Services office to get her some help, but before she agreed to go she wanted to see her son. It brought tears to my eyes to see mother and son reunited. When the nurses in the department heard of their problems, they took up a collection and presented it to her. In a trembling voice she said in Hungarian, "I’ve never seen this many angels around me." I’m pleased to say that Adult Protective Services and I worked very

hard to find an assisted living facility for this dear sweet lady to live. After her son was discharged from the hospital, we found appropriate housing for him in a nursing home. When he accidentally wandered away from the nursing home, the sheriff’s department found my phone number in his pocket; true to his word when he told me he would always keep my phone number with him. To this day, I keep in touch with both mother and son. Occasionally I receive their mail at my home, and they call me weekly as they continue their healing process. We all know that the nursing profession is changing so rapidly that at times it feels overwhelming to be able to overcome all the obstacles. Knowing that I am able to make a difference in these peoples’ lives gives me such a reward and a true sense of a noble cause that I am able to continue doing what I am doing. And that is being a proud nurse at Los Robles Hospital.