By Hannah Arabella Gabling
The world of tennis awaits Relu Wiegner.
Having been a nurse at UHN for nearly 30 years, Relu is taking a well-deserved step back from the health care environment, retiring on Aug. 30, 2024.
His first order of business: a trip to Europe to watch a tennis tournament with his son.
Although tennis holds a special place in his heart, Relu has spent a greater chunk of his life playing a different game — stroke's race against time.
Relu graduated with degrees in psychology and geriatrics, but he was especially fascinated with the brain. Going down the path of stroke was no surprise.
"Here I am after 28 years — I've never thought about doing anything else."
The evolution of stroke at UHN
Relu has been working with patients experiencing stroke since 1999, when UHN's Stroke Program was just a localized initiative led by a small team. He recounts how there were only a few beds dedicated for stroke patients at the time, and stroke was not yet considered an acute disease.
Stroke nurses like Relu played a crucial role as the definition and treatments for stroke evolved.
From simply monitoring patients, the stroke team began administering blood thinners and other treatments to prevent stroke. They responded to patients arriving at the Emergency Department, administered treatments with doctors and monitored the patients.
"That's how this on-call system developed; we became consultants to the Emergency triage nurses and doctors who would call us if a patient came after hours," Relu recalls.
"We're unique in a way, that the nurses are always the first line of communication."
Stroke kept Relu on his guard 24/7.
"You work in the daytime, then in the evening, you keep on working, and then the next day, you still have to come to work," he says.
Dr. Frank Silver, a stroke neurologist with UHN's Stroke Prevention Clinic at UHN's Krembil Brain Institute, always admired the dedication of Relu, his long-time colleague.
"Relu would see patients himself and take most of their history and physical exams," says Dr. Silver. "He was on the rotation of nurses that would come in at night to help us administer clot-busting drugs."
While being on-call was a stressful aspect of the job, Relu notes that these duties were shared and there were fewer patients to manage when he started out.
"I had, probably, more energy at the time," he jokes.
A master of all trades
Through his tenure as a clinical nurse specialist, Relu took on a variety of duties. He managed inpatient cases, coordinated research projects, and collected data for different stroke registries. He also organized UHN participation in Telestroke, a provincial program which virtually connects Emergency physicians with neurologists 24/7 to address acute stroke.
In more recent years, Relu has focused his attention on the Stroke Prevention Clinic, managing care for patients and for those who present with risk factors, such as high cholesterol or diabetes.
At the end of the day, Relu finds his work rewarding, especially as he often watches patients and families go through the extreme emotions resulting from experiencing a stroke, through the recovery. He recalls how miraculous it was to see a patient recover from hemiplegia — the paralysis of one side of the body – and then to be able to watch them move and speak, as they did prior to the medical event.
Still, Relu considers his greatest achievements as being a core part of UHN's pioneering Stroke Team and sharing his knowledge of stroke with patients. Since 2007, he has coordinated an education program to teach patients and the public how to recognize stroke symptoms and risk factors, and how to live a healthy lifestyle.
"It takes a lot of work and resilience to pull this program together over so many years, including organizing a yearly Stroke Awareness Month event," says Relu. "And it's still ongoing."
The mark he's made
"I hope people remember that I am a person who always has the best interests of my patients at heart, first and foremost," Relu says, when asked about what legacy he hopes to leave at UHN. "Also, as a colleague, I hope they will remember I was pleasant to work with, and if they needed my attention or knowledge, I was there to impart it."
Relu's colleagues certainly will remember him fondly.
"Right from the get-go, Relu was there — a constant source of information when it came to things like research trials, monitor visits, and patient files," says Anne Cayley, a stroke nurse practitioner who began working with Relu in 2006.
"He is respected for his work and is a great example of what it means to be a team player."
Dr. Silver adds that Relu "has been very reliable and dedicated to what he does for many, many years."
"He's been a great asset to our program. It's going to be sad to see him go, but we're happy for him to move on to the next phase of his life."
As Relu's excitement grows looking ahead at his next chapter, he says he'll miss the people, experiences and opportunities he's had in his career.
"The future awaits," Relu says. "After decades of rewarding moments at UHN, retirement is the next step — the first day of the rest of my life."
