A dying veteran felt ignored. A nurse 'made it right.'

IONIA - In the 11 months between Michael Welsh's liver cancer diagnosis and his late-night meeting with Adam Dobbrastine at his hospital bedside, Kim Johnson watched her father's strength fade away.  

By the time Welsh, 69, was admitted to Sparrow Ionia Hospital in November, chemotherapy and radiation had made eating and swallowing difficult. He was dying.

"It's just so hard to see somebody you love suffer so much," Johnson said.

It made his disappointment on one particular day even harder to bear, she said.

It was the day before Veteran's Day.

A proud veteran of the U.S. Navy who served during the Vietnam War, Welsh had donned a ball cap that read "Vietnam veteran" in his hospital bed.

He'd worn the hat countless times over the years, but, when Johnson came to visit him that afternoon, Welsh sighed, took it off and laid it in his lap.

"I wore my hat all day, and nobody ever said 'Thank you for your service,'" he told her.

Johnson tried to reassure him that the thanks would come with the national holiday tomorrow, but the look on his face nearly broke her heart.

"I felt so bad," Johnson said. "All he wanted was for someone to say something."

She simply couldn't let go of the sound of defeat in her father's voice, but, when Johnson wrote about their exchange on Facebook, she wasn't trying to reach out to anyone in particular.

Adam Dobbrastine's visit to Welsh's hospital room later that night was unexpected, a powerful encounter for both men, but Dobbrastine said he simply saw "a brother" in need.

"Someone had to go make it right," he said.

'what needed to be done'

Dobbrastine, 36, is an emergency department nurse. The compassion and care of a nurse at McLaren Greater Lansing led him into the profession.

After six years in the Army and Army National Guard, he'd gone to school to become a paramedic. Then tragedy changed his perspective. 

On Oct. 6, 2010, Dobbrastine and his wife Amber, who live in Lansing, lost their daughter Elena to stillbirth. 

"We don't know what happened," Dobbrastine said. 

The devastation was so great that putting the loss into words is still too difficult.

At the hospital, the couple drew comfort from a nurse. She helped them through it, Dobbrastine said, and that was "everything."

"She was a total stranger," Dobbrastine said. "And she was a comfort. She knew what to say and when to say it."

Following in her footsteps made sense, he said. Today, Dobbrastine and his wife have three daughters, ages 2 to 5.

He's been working at Sparrow Ionia Hospital's emergency department for four years.

Dobbrastine had never met Welsh, but he was working in the emergency department the evening of Nov. 10, when he overheard a co-worker discussing Johnson's Facebook post about her father.

It didn't sit well with him, a fellow veteran feeling unappreciated.

"I just left the floor and went up to see him," Dobbrastine said. "That's what needed to be done."

Welsh called Johnson from his hospital room later that night in tears.

A nurse had come to see him, he told her. He was a veteran too.

"He told me Adam said, 'I didn't want another day to go by without saying thank you for your service,'" Johnson said.

The two men spent half an hour talking about their time in the military and about Welsh's love for fishing.

"I asked him if he believed in God," Dobbrastine said. "I prayed with him. He cried and he thanked me. It was powerful."

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'Above and beyond'

Johnson said Dobbrastine's time with her father did him a world of good.

The next day, she and her sister Becky Lake brought Welsh an American Flag. They displayed it in his room.

"That day, everybody who came in saluted the flag, and they saluted him," she said. "Adam's visit meant a lot to him. It was totally what my dad needed."

Welsh died on Nov. 26 at his home in Ionia. He would have been 70 this month.

The flag his daughters displayed in his hospital room hung in Welsh's home until after his death.

Now, it's at Dobbrastine's home in Lansing.

Welsh's family presented it to him in December during a ceremony at the hospital honoring  Dobbrastine with a DAISY Award. Johnson and Lake nominated Dobbrastine for the national recognition, which singles out nurses who show extraordinary compassion.

Welsh's sister Jan Carrol of Ionia said his gesture mattered to the entire family.

"My brother was a very, very proud veteran," she said. "He kept a lot of what happened in the war to himself. Adam went above and beyond to comfort my brother."

Tara Lanz, Sparrow Ionia's emergency department manager, said Dobbrastine exhibits that kind of compassion daily at work, taking time to talk over concerns with patients and their families.

"He makes people feel a little more at ease," Lanz said. "He's very compassionate."

The praise has been hard for Dobbrastine to except.

"There are things people should just do, and this was something someone should have done," he said.

But Johnson said Dobbrastine's moment with her father gives her hope.

"There's just so many people out in the world filled with hatred toward people," she said. "There aren't that many people who would do that. I know he's done it for other people too, not just my dad, but it was something beautiful."

Contact Reporter Rachel Greco at (517) 528-2075 or rgreco@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @GrecoatLSJ.