Editor's Note: This is part of an occasional series on Sutter Auburn Faith Hospital

Sutter Auburn Faith nurse Diane Stevenson has witnessed a lot of procedures during her time in the Cardiac Catheterization/Vascular Lab — known as the cath lab — but one case particularly stands out.

“A young man came into the ER and then into the cath lab with severe sudden onset of pain in his feet and legs,” she said recently. “The arteries to his legs were both clotted. So we did a procedure to open the arteries and save his legs. That was really an amazing thing to me.”

Stevenson has worked at Auburn Faith for 15 years, most of that time in the Intensive Care Unit. She transferred to the cath lab about a year ago. One of the things she enjoys most is giving advice.

“I love the part in the cath lab where I get to teach the patients about their heart, arteries and lifestyle changes they could make that would change the quality of their life for the rest of their life,’ Stevenson said.

Many who visit the lab are facing serious medical conditions.

“People will come to the hospital with chest pain,” Stevenson explained. “(Chances are) they’ve never even thought about those things until they have the severe pain. That gets your attention.”

It’s not uncommon for patients to make subsequent visits.

“Often if you have an arterial problem in one area, you’ll have it in another part,” she said. “So, often we see that for the other leg or arm or carotid.”

But other times, visitors come back with good news.

“Sometimes they tell us, ‘I had these terrible symptoms and (the doctor) did an angioplasty and the symptoms are gone. Now I’m walking and not smoking’ or ‘I’ve lost 20 pounds,’” Stevenson said.

One of the patients who has made several visits is Cool resident Earl “Wayne” Chapman. Chapman said he has had nearly a dozen procedures during the course of three or four visits.

“She is just so friendly,” he said about Stevenson. “She just treats like you’re an old friend every time you come in. … It isn’t like anything I’ve every experienced. I’ve been in the hospital a few times and I’ve never had anyone treat me so nice.”

As much as she loves working in medicine now, Stevenson didn’t discover nursing until she was in her 30s.

“It had a lot to do with the economy,” she said. “ In 1982, the economy in the Midwest went to pot. I came to California on an adventure, then stayed and went to school and that eventually led to nursing.”

When she was offered the opportunity to work in ICU, it turned out to be her ideal job.

“I liked ICU because you have a lot of autonomy and you work closely with the doctors,” she said. “You get to know all the aspects of the patient’s medical problems and really feel like you make a difference, including dealing with their families and all the doctors involved.”

During her years at the hospital, she has become known for her “bedside manner.”

“I’m sort of famous for getting my patients out of bed,” she said. “If they are supposed to get up or should get up, I get them up and get them outside of the bed and have them marching.”

Some balk, but Stevenson is persistent.

“(I tell them), you’ll be able to go home sooner if you get out of bed this afternoon,” she said. “The other nurses laugh because I always get my patients up and moving.”

The Gold Run resident’s dedication shines through in other ways, too, including during one particularly heavy snowstorm.

“I was scheduled to work in the ICU that day and I said, ‘I wonder if I can get a ride to work,’” she related.

As she walked two miles through 8-inch deep snow to get to the highway, Stevenson called the California Highway Patrol to see if a patrolman could drive her to work.

“They said they didn’t normally do that, but to keep walking and they’d get back to me,” she said. “By the time I got to the overpass, they were able to do it.”

She was greeted with a warm welcome when she arrived at the hospital.

“They were grateful because those nurses had already worked all night and would have had to work all day,” Stevenson said.

She credits joy in her career, in part, to being a people person.

“I’ve always enjoyed talking with older folks,” she said. “It just seems like that part of my personality comes out a lot in this. I really like people and I really like my job. It doesn’t feel like a job sometimes.”

She definitely does have a way with people, according to Bill Colditz, manager of the cath lab.

“She treats all her patients as if they were family,” Colditz said. “(She has) just a high degree of knowledge of the patient’s cardiac history and understanding of possible complications. She’s just a really nice nurse.”

Former patient Carlotta Bahlke of Roseville agrees.

Bahlke, who has been to the cath lab a number of times, including for angioplasty and dialysis graphs, finds Stevenson to be a comforting presence.

“She always greets you. She always acts as if you’re the only one there,” Bahlke said. “She always comes in to see me when I come into the ambulatory section. She always gives me warm blankets and is just generally attentive in the lab when the surgery is going on.”

The Journal’s Gloria Young can be reached at gloriay@goldcountrymedia.com or comment at Auburnjournal.com