We met in the chaos of the emergency department. It was halfway through Tierney’s intern year as an emergency medicine resident. Jordan was working as a critical care nurse while slugging away to complete nurse practitioner school. She was on her ICU rotation and found herself down in the ED for a patient consult. He was just outside the room, scouring charts.

Our paths continued to cross during shifts, at simulation exercises, and then on the Sepsis Committee. Jordan had long been running the committee when Tierney was voluntold to join. The work was serious, tedious, and not as glamorous as TV depictions, but their mutual presence made being there all the better.

One evening, the night before Tierney would take one of her residency exams, Jordan sent her a text wishing her good luck. It was a small, but meaningful, to them both.

As Jordan neared the end of school, he asked Tierney if she would be willing to help by playing the role of a standardized patient. She said yes, and he offered to take her out as a gesture of appreciation. If you ask Jordan, it was their first date. Meanwhile, Tierney thought she was just helping her coworker. She didn’t realize it was a date until much later, discounting her family’s assurance that it was.

From there, the relationship continued to grow. What started as hallway conversations and committee notes eventually turned into shared meals, shared plans, and ultimately a shared life. They didn’t expect to find love buried in a sepsis protocol, but ultimately, their culture continues to grow more than 120 hours later.