About us
Made by a family that has been here.
In Their Corner did not start as a project. It started as a notebook, in a hospital room, during the hardest weeks of one family's life.
About us
In Their Corner did not start as a project. It started as a notebook, in a hospital room, during the hardest weeks of one family's life.
The story
My older brother spent weeks in an intensive care unit after a serious accident. My family learned that unit the hard way, one alarm and one shift change at a time. My siblings and I reacted in opposite ways. Some of us could not stay in the room. I could not leave it.
Rather than look away, I sat beside his bed with a notebook and recorded everything: the medications, the numbers, the small changes, the questions I was too afraid to ask out loud. That notebook gave me both a purpose and a lesson: every patient needs someone in their corner.
My brother is still working his way back, now in rehab, and the notebook is still going with him. This page is the story of those weeks. The rest of this site is what I built from them.
The founder
Caroline Woram founded In Their Corner after those weeks at her brother's bedside. She is a student from Rockville Centre, New York, and works in a physical therapy clinic, where she helps patients through the slow, unglamorous work of getting their bodies back. That is the same stage of recovery her brother is in now.
She runs every part of this project herself: the writing, the website, the printed guide, and the collaboration with Mount Sinai South Nassau, where more than ten ICU nurses and the head of the intensive care unit have reviewed the full guide. She answers every email that comes through this site personally.
A note from Caroline
People ask me why I keep working on this now that the worst weeks are over. The honest answer is that they are not over. My brother is in rehab, the notebook is on its third one, and every time I visit him I pass a waiting room full of families on day one. I recognize the look on their faces because it used to be mine.
A nurse told me something during those weeks that I have held onto: there is no wrong way to love someone through this. Some people sit at the bedside for twelve hours. Some people can only manage the hallway. Both of them are in that person's corner, and both of them deserve to understand what is happening.
So this site is me handing my notebook to the next family in that hallway. Use the tools, print the guide, ask the five questions, and go easier on yourself than I did. I hope you never need any of it. If you do, I hope it makes you feel less alone.
Caroline Woram
For additional information, you can reach her at carolineworam17@gmail.com.
How we got here
Caroline's older brother is admitted to an intensive care unit after a serious accident. Caroline starts a notebook at his bedside and records medications, numbers, and questions every day.
Her brother recovers. The family keeps the notebook. Caroline keeps thinking about the families in the waiting room who had no idea what the machines meant or who to ask.
Caroline turns the notebook into a printed trifold guide: what the monitors mean, who is on the care team, how to advocate, and support for siblings and caregivers. It is free for every family.
This site brings the guide online with interactive tools, so any family anywhere can use it. The project now works in official collaboration with Mount Sinai South Nassau, and the next step is the printed guide in that unit's waiting room, then more hospitals after that.
It means understanding what is happening and asking the right questions, wherever you are. This guide exists to help you do both.
Get the free guide