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‘The best reward’
Joann Thorpe, RNC, became a neonatal nurse 27 years ago, a few years
after her youngest daughter, Jodie, was born with respiratory distress,
which made a stay in the NICU necessary. She remembers the terror and
uncertainty; she knows well how hard it can be to understand the medical
terminology. A nurse helped her understand, and she paid it forward.
She’s now a grandmother, and admits to thinking about retiring.
But she can’t imagine not caring for babies and not being an advo-
cate for the parents.
“Every day when I go to the hospital, there’s another family, an-
other crisis,” she says. “Another baby to help. That’s why I do what
I do.”
It’s also why Thorpe is a natural recipient of the third annual
NICU Heroes Award, sponsored by Hand to Hold, a national
NICU parent support organization, and Mead Johnson Nutrition
Company, a leader in pediatric nutrition. Thorpe elected to have
her $2,500 award go to Mercy Foundation North to purchase
rocker devices that can help soothe drug-exposed infants in
Mercy Medical Center Redding’s NICU.
“I am so unbelievably honored to be recognized,” she says. “Helping
babies and their families, becoming part of their lives forever, is truly
the best reward.”
Thorpe’s daughter Jodie is now 31 and has two daughters, Shannon
and Reagann. When Reagann turned 4, Chelsea and Joseph Arledge;
Travis; and his little sister, Ava, were all at the birthday party.
There’s a special connection between Travis Arledge and Joann Thorpe, RNC.
Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU)
at Mercy Medical Center Redding,
often attended to by Thorpe.
“Travis was on the edge of viability,”
Thorpe explains. “But he fought for
life from the moment he was born.”
She also watched over Arledge and
her husband, Joseph, who was serv-
ing in Iraq at the time and had been
granted emergency leave. Thorpe
knew they all had a long road ahead.
When a baby is born prematurely, it
can tear a family apart. The fear and
stress of watching a child struggle
with every breath is overwhelming.
There are medical decisions to be
made, medical jargon to decipher.
“People need to know what’s ahead,
what the baby will go through,”
Thorpe says. “They also need to
know that there’s hope, especially
when dealing with the greatest
crisis of their lives.”
A very special connection
She encouraged the parents to take
pictures of Travis, to document
his life and his progress. At one
point, his dad’s wedding ring fit all
the way up Travis’ tiny arm. It was
44 days until his parents could hold
him, and by then he had been trans-
ferred to a highly specialized NICU
that could help his lungs develop
more. But it was Thorpe who helped
teach them how to change Travis’
diaper and helped them survive.
When Travis was finally released
from the hospital, he weighed
7 pounds, 4 ounces. Today, he’s 7
years old and is in the first grade.
Though still small for his age, and a
bit of a finicky eater, he’s healthy.
And his mom is paying the hope
forward, studying to be a neonatal
nurse. She wants to provide other
frightened parents with the sup-
port and love—the hope—she first
received one day in July 2008 from a
nurse named Joann Thorpe.
Close-knit: (front row, from left)
Ava and Travis Arledge, (back row,
from left) Joseph and Chelsea
Arledge, and Joann Thorpe, RNC.
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Dignity Health North State