Hi Judy--glad to know that all is well with Robert, and that you want to show appreciation for the often thankless job the nurses do. Money is not acceptable and would jeopardize their jobs if accepted. Gift certificates to restaurants would be a good idea. Also, the OR crews often send out to neighboring fast food places for lunch, as lunch hour is erratic depending on what is going on, and eating is often done on the run. Keep up the good work, Robert.

Judy--I meant to type ER, not OR.

When I was a clerk in the ER, a gift from a patient that is still strong in my memory (it's been 21 years) is a fabulous dinner brought in for us to enjoy. I worked graveyard shift and the food that was available to us at 3:00 a.m. sucked, to say the least. I can't remember the specifics, but he arranged for someone to come in with a delicious catered meal. We were fortunate that it was really slow that night and we had time to eat it.

Times have changed, though. Hospitals are so busy and frantic these days that a gift card or cash would be much easier to execute and greatly appreciated. Working in the ER is a tough and often times thankless job. Most of the feedback employees get from patients and families is in the form of complaints. I'm sure that whatever you decide to do will bring a smile and reinforce to them why they chose the profession they did. ER people are a special breed that deserve all the kudos they get!

Laurie

Cash is tacky. ;)...maybe give them a gift certificate for a nice dinner for two somewhere or a gift card like you thought.
(Target or Best Buy..something like that)

Thank goodness you had such a remarkable staff in charge of someone you love..

Clint

I don't think that cash is tacky, especially if you don't know what the person may be into. Cash is good anywhere! Food, clothes, the fuel bill... (sometimes paying off a bill is the best present!).

Do you have local malls that have gift certificates for the entire mall? We have MySimon (or something like that) so that a gift certificate there is like a cash card good at every place in the mall.

Or, I just redeemed a gift certificate from "giftcertificates.com" where you an redeem the 'Card' as you wish at I think hundreds of stores (I chose llbean, for example). Now, you may have to pay a service fee here for them to do this (mine was a bonus from work), but it was very easy, and they emailed me the gift cert # for llbean. I honestly don't know what it takes to be the original buyer.

The mall idea (or cash) is probably the better of the ideas.

So happy that you and DH made it through such an ordeal!

Carolyn

i forget where i read it but i think an acceptable thank you would be a thank you card and i thnk maybe some flowers. like i said im not sure but i know it was written sme where under "thank you ettiquet"

thx, everyone, we're visiting the hospital Wed. am, a month from when he was there, gift cards galore, but I know the man, and he'll tuck the cash in their pockets, he does it with young people who are studying or trying to keep their first job, I'm sure he'll do it with these people.. I told him it was tacky but he just laughed at that.

So, what finally happened? I am just so curious but I am sure it all went well...

well, he's okay now but has had one episode after another with high blood pressure, kept 'almost' fainting time and again in the doctor's office the other afternoon, had the first problem the morning we were going downtown ( I thought, at first, it was anxiety from going back down there), but it's all to do with him being taken completely off his pre-heart attack meds and put on new 'aggressive' ones since we've been home, he's had terrible days of feeling flushed, lethargic, we've been shifting times he takes the meds, plus his chest felt to him like something was broken, rib or collarbone, but surgeon said that he probably separated the cartliage going in to operate, that's keeping him from raising his arms only about halfway up, hurts when he coughs, sounds terrible but he's improving slowly from it all.. and he's really better the last day or so..

sooooo I've got the gift cards and we'll go, hopefully, one morning next week. I've got all their first names and I called about visiting the ER to do that and was told it was fine, to stay out of the way and make it short. (duh;-)

(thank u for your concern; I printed out val's prayer request and he really liked reading that.. he's gotten 58 get well cards, so far.)