Giving thanks all year long for those who serve each and every day

To the editor:
    This letter is to give thanks to our Creator, not just at this special time of the year, but the whole year long for the wonderful people at Houlton Regional Hospital.
    Over the past months and years I have heard many different opinions about HRH – some about certain doctors or nurses or some about a staff member. Most of them have been positive, but some negative opinions or in some cases facts should have been kept to oneself. Most of the time when someone says something bad, whether intended or not, it hurts us all – especially the hospital in our community.
    This past spring I was in HRH for two and a half weeks for knee surgery. I am happy to report that it was a success, as has been the case with all my other surgeries in the past. My wife Dot and I have been so busy at our Wildlife Conservation Center and Refuge that we have not been able to give our thanks and publicly say we are sorry to all those dedicated men and women for not getting this letter out to them sooner. Those dedicated nurses work so very hard with many working extra shifts to cover for others and many having to keep their sanity while helping us cope with ours. Some of them have to put up with our crap literally while our family members might not be able to.
    Let me tell you there are a lot of outstanding individuals at our hospital. I personally have been in 23 different hospitals and have had 28 different doctors and specialists since 1970 from three states – several known as the best in the Northeast. I still place our own Houlton Regional Hospital number one in patient care.
    We have some great doctors like Dr. Chet Husted, Dr. Ted Sussman, and Ted Pettengill and other doctors who may have helped. They were behind the scenes in helping to make all of our recoveries go so well.
    We would also like to give special praise to A.S.U., OR (operating room), Med Surge upon recovery, Progressive Care and finally to the unsung sweethearts of the physical therapy staff. You can’t stop there. We must also include the lab technicians who take our blood and temp every single day in spite of how we look when we first wake up.
    We cannot forget the people in the kitchen – Helena and the other staff members – who helped me and others get fit by preparing the foods that we may not think is the greatest at the time, but with their knowledge is the best for us in our particular situation. In my case, I would have preferred fried chicken, steak, shrimp, or ployes, but that would not have been the best for my diabetes. They prepared the proper foods that helped to keep my blood sugar under control. I have lost weight naturally without pills or fad diets.
    The bottom line is we should all be grateful to those tireless dedicated men and women who give of themselves every day. Please remember that some of us make mistakes, but God our Creator sees them. Let’s not judge others, but have compassion and love for them and give thanks that we can live another day because of their efforts.
Art Howell Jr.
Amity