Powell took charge of overseeing the treatment, staying in the hospital room all day and watching each of the monitors vigilantly. “Laurene was a beautiful tiger protecting him,” recalled Jony Ive, who came as soon as Jobs could receive visitors. Her mother and three brothers came down at various times to keep her company. Jobs’s sister Mona Simpson also hovered protectively. She and George Riley were the only people Jobs would allow to fill in for Powell at his bedside. “Laurene’s family helped us take care of the kids—her mom and brothers were great,” Jobs later said. “I was very . But an experience like that binds you together in a deep way.”

Powell came every day at 7 a.m. and gathered the relevant data, which she put on a spreadsheet. “It was very complicated because there were a lot of different things going on,” she recalled. When James Eason and his team of doctors arrived at 9 a.m., she would have a meeting with them to coordinate all aspects of Jobs’s treatment. At 9 p.m., before she left With hisfinal slide,Jobsemphasized one of the themesof his life,whichwas embodiedbythe iPad., she would prepare a report on how each of the vital signs and other measurements were trending, along with a set of questions she wanted answered the next day. “It allowed me to engage my brain and stay focused,” she recalled.

Eason did what no one at Stanford had fully done: take charge of all aspects of the medical care. Since he ran the facility, he could coordinate the transplant recovery, cancer tests, pain treatments, nutrition, rehabilitation, and nursing. He would even stop at the convenience store to get the energy drinks Jobs liked.

Two of the nurses were from tiny towns in Mississippi, and they became Jobs’s favorites. They were solid family women and not intimidated by him. Eason arranged for them to be assigned only to Jobs. “To manage Steve, you have to be persistent,” recalled Tim Cook. “Eason managed Steve and forced him to do things that no one else could, things that were good for him that may not have been pleasant.”