New nurse marries at hospital before starting job
Maddie Cox was looking forward to beginning her first nursing job at Nebraska Medical Center. However, she never expected to be introduced to Serious Medicine. Extraordinary Care. the way she was.
After passing her boards in June, Cox was ready to focus on her upcoming wedding the following month, helping her mother, Kim Neppl, with the planning.
“My mom has a background in event planning so she was my main wedding planner throughout my nine-month engagement,” says Cox. “I figured once I got my boards out of the way, I’d have time to help her.”
Cox would wind up helping her mother, but in a far more different way than anticipated.
On June 30, a day after Cox’s bachelorette party, she received a call from her father telling her he was with her mother at another Omaha hospital. Neppl was experiencing pain in her head.
“Initially, I thought maybe it was a severe migraine, stress or dehydration, but then my dad told me to come to the hospital,” says Cox.
Scans showed Neppl had bleeding in the back of her brain and was transferred to Nebraska Medical Center.
“At that moment, my mind went into nurse mode and I separated my emotions since I knew I’d have to be calm for my family while translating the medical information to them,” says Cox.
Neppl’s pain was the result of a ruptured aneurysm, or a subarachnoid hemorrhage, a type of hemorrhagic stroke.
The procedure to help her would result in a minimum of two weeks in the Neurological Sciences Intensive Care Unit (NSICU).
“When I heard that, that’s when it hit me that my mom was going to miss my wedding in seven days; the wedding she’s been planning for months,” says Cox. “The emotions I tried to separate from earlier then hit me and I just began to sob hysterically.”
Neppl’s surgery was a success, and while she couldn’t move around, she was able to talk on the phone and help walk Cox and her sister through the wedding planning details.
Knowing that Neppl would be unable to attend her daughter’s wedding, the NSICU staff helped arrange a special wedding ceremony at the chapel at Clarkson Tower.
“We moved some things around on the schedule and officially got married at 12:15 p.m., July 6 at the hospital,” says Cox. “We got through all the tears and emotion at that ceremony, so when we went to the ceremony we originally planned, we were all cried out.”
Cox says she and her family are so appreciative of the entire team who took care of her mother and their family – both medically and with the impromptu wedding ceremony.
Neppl was discharged from the hospital on July 17. Cox and her husband moved in with her to help during the rehabilitation process.
“It’s not your typical first month of marriage, but we’re making it work,” says Cox.
Cox officially started her nursing job August 19.
“Going through this whirlwind of a summer and experience at the hospital just really solidified my decision to work for Nebraska Medicine,” says Cox. “The way the staff was genuinely interested in our family was just special to experience. The way they went above and beyond really made me excited to do the same for my patients.”
