Susan Kruse is a lifeline to patients receiving bone marrow transplants.
That’s why it’s not unusual for Kruse, a nurse case manager in UNMC’s Oncology/Hematology Department, to leave her pager on after hours if she thinks a patient might need a reassuring voice or have questions related to an evening CAT scan.
“I’m the person who makes them feel better,” Kruse said. “I’m the person who gets them through the next phase and to the next part of their life.”
The Council Bluffs native has three drawers full of patient files – roughly 75 adults in varying stages of disease — that she monitors for life, beginning with their diagnosis. For her work and dedication, Kruse has received the Chancellor’s Gold “U” Award for March.
“I don’t do the job alone,” Kruse says. “I just coordinate it and arrange to help patients work through the (transplant) system.”
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Care giving has always come naturally for Kruse, one of the youngest of 11 children. She was in her first year of nursing school when her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. “It made me a better nurse because I know what it’s like to be on the other side of things,” she said.
Although she always wanted to be a nurse, Kruse married and put her dreams on hold to help at her father’s Council Bluffs pharmacy, where she had worked since age 13. When the first of her three sons came along, she operated a home day care and then co-managed a Council Bluffs day care center with her sister. She began her nursing education when she was pregnant with her third son and became a licensed registered nurse in 1994 after a three-year program at Jennie Edmundson Hospital School of Nursing.
Despite a tight job market, Kruse landed a job at UNMC, where she served as a staff nurse in the bone marrow unit until November 1997, then moved to internal medicine-oncology/hematology, where she did research studies for leukemia patients until December 2002.
That’s when she assumed the nurse case manager position for leukemia and chronic graft versus host disease, a side effect of a transplant that occurs when the bone marrow recognizes the body as belonging to someone else. The disease is generally treated with steroids and immunosuppressant therapy so the body and bone marrow can live together.
“The allogeneic stem cell transplant patient population not only requires a great deal of medical care, but also patient education. Sue takes the time,” said her Gold “U’ nominator. “Her dedication to patients is as strong as her dedication to the program. She is a big advocate for her patients’ well being and their families.”
During the day, Kruse can be found teaching prospective patients and their families about peripheral stem cell transplantation, seeing patients in the clinic with a physician, calling in patient prescriptions and refills, scheduling patients for blood draws and biopsies, giving emotional support to family members, filing paperwork and answering lots of pagers and phone calls.
“Sometimes patients feel like I am their lifeline and I can get very close to them,” Kruse said. “I answer pages promptly because I hate to keep patients waiting, wondering and worrying. There’s a lot of waiting and worrying in oncology and cancer.”
There’s also great satisfaction, she said. “The patients and their families come with a sense of hope and are always glad for the help they get,” she said. “That’s gratifying.”
But, she missed the technical and hands-on aspect of nursing so in October she began working as an IV infusion specialist for Alegent Home Health one night a week and one weekend per month. “It keeps my skills honed and there’s a sense of gratification with it,” she said.
Kruse is president of the St. Albert’s Catholic School booster club and helps her husband, Dana, organize the annual Knights of Columbus wild game feed, which raised $20,000 last month. She also enjoys quilting and donating her works for fund-raising events.