When you spend 430 days in the hospital, you get to know the people around you. That’s how long Lora Mills waited for a heart transplant at UF Health Shands Hospital.

Members of the UF Health Shands Hospital Patient Transportation team presented patient Lora Mills with a framed card. Pictured with Mills are (from left) Nathan Nelson, transportation attendant; Kelynetta Alston, transportation attendant; Mills’ husband, Mike Mills; Thomas Weaver, patient flow coordinator; Lonnie Githens, transportation attendant; and Rita Williams, transportation attendant.

She finally received her new heart last summer.

“We transported her every day for over a year,” said Thomas Weaver, a UF Health Shands Hospital Patient Transportation patient flow coordinator. “We built routines and relationships with her.”

As Mills prepared to leave the hospital weeks after her transplant, the transportation team surprised her with flowers and a large, handmade card with the signatures of everyone who had transported her. She teared up when they presented her with the framed card that said, simply, “Congrats from Patient Transport,” and was covered with dozens of signatures from the people who escorted her around the hospital for tests, therapy, scans and sometimes just for some fresh air.

“They became like friends and family,” Mills said. “They all went over the top for me.”

Learn more about Mills’ story in April’s edition of News&Notes.