Syracuse, N.Y. — As Brandon Lessun tearfully told stories about the love of his life surrounded by family and friends Friday, his four-year-old son came to hug him and tell him everything was going to be okay.
“That is all her,” Brandon said about his son’s compassion. It all came from his wife, he said.
Stephanie Lessun was hit by a car as she was walking across Harrison Street in Syracuse around 3:43 p.m. Wednesday after work. She had crossed the 4-lane city street countless times.
The Upstate University Hospital social worker was rushed to the same emergency room where she often worked. She was declared dead there. Her family said they were told she had hit her head.
Stephanie, 35, was a “proud peacock mom”, a “fearless warrior” for her patients and so much more, her family, friends and colleagues told Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard Friday.
The Central New York native lived in Warners with her husband and two kids, both under 5 years old. She graduated from LeMoyne College with a near-perfect GPA before getting her master’s degree in social work from Syracuse University.
Stephanie, who first went to work for the Salvation Army, worked in Upstate’s ER and the hospital’s ALS center as a social worker.
In both roles at Upstate, she was a fierce advocate for the patients and helped to revolutionize the ALC clinic, said Dr. Eufrosina Young, director of the ALS Research and Treatment Center.
Young told Stephanie’s family that before Stephanie left the clinic for the last time on Wednesday, she reminded Young to look over the agenda for a “summit” she organized to help the clinic communicate with hospice centers and other agencies that provide care for people in the late stages of ALS.
Young said the clinic has been struggling for years to figure out how to prevent the quality of care for ALS patients from declining as their disease and needs progressed.
Stephanie came up with the solution of getting all the interested parties in a room to talk…
Read the full article here
Leave a Reply