Posting this one not as myself..

I wanted to be a nurse for a long time.  The first spark came from childhood, when I read the Sue Barton series.  The actual decision came at age 14.  I had not seen the doctor since I was 8-9 years old, and had been quite healthy.  Then one day I noticed a lump on my knee.  I was immediately taken to 2 doctors, the second one was elected to remove that lump  Ohhhh he was handsome and I, the ever developing, dreaming teen that I was, fell in love with him.  My first teenage crush! LOL

But it wasn't until I had my surgery that i dedided I wanted to be  a nurse.  The nurse assigned to care for me was so wonderful!  I admired her!  When I went back the next week for my post-op checkup I had my parents drive by the hospital so I could thank her.   She was off that day and I never got to thank her.  If you worked in the Southport NC hospital back in 1987 under Dr Azzato, I thank you.  You were wonderful.   It was that woman that made my decision.   For the next two years I checked out every book I could possibly get my hands on about nursing.  Career guides, old student textbooks, romance novels...it didn't matter, as long as it was about nurses and nursing.  That year I went to high school and shortly later, met a girl who would become my best friend.  She did not have a high regard for nursing and encouraged me to want to become a doctor.  So, easily led as I was, I decided I was going to be a pediatrican.  Then she got me interested in another non-medical career, and that is what I went to college to be.  Failed at it too...but that was NOT her fault.  After I failed college (without actually failing anything - I was cut from a competitive program for not *wanting* to be there, ah, the folly of running after men you THINK you love), I wandered through some retail jobs, got married, became an admin assistant, had children and now...here I am. 

I took time off to become a SAHM.  My salary as an office assistant would in no way make daycare a wise choice, so I stayed home, much to my joy and satisfaction.  It has been almost 7 years since I last worked!  I always thought I would go back to work in retail, because I missed the customers.  I hated the office job.   But this past summer, my mother died from a situation that could have been prevented by a nursing team that actually cared.  She was in a full-time rehab center, supposedly to get back on her feet after having a stroke.  She could talk and eat and interact - but did need assistance to eat.  She complained to my sister that it hurt to pee.  My sister told the nurse.  He poopooed her and said it was because she had an yeast infection.  I asked the nurse to make sure her meals were put within reach, since she told me she didn't eat her breakfast because she couldn't reach it.  I asked the CNA to make sure her water had no ice in it, because she could not abide the coldness of ice water.  2 weeks later?  She was admitted to the ICU with severe malnutrition, dehydration, and you guessed it...UTI - that spread to the kidneys and then her blood...sepsis...she died one week later.  My neice, who had spent the entire summer with my parents went back home and changed her major to become a nurse.  I was affected the same way.  I am now on MY way to do what I always wanted to do.  Be a nurse.

Why this post, you might ask?  Because I have years of insecurities crowding me. I didn't finish college the first time.  I am squeamish at blood...or am I?  Is my squeamishness just a product of what I THOUGHT I was?  After all, at age 14-16, I didn't think anything of the blood thing.  Can I banish all the ghosts of past?   I do know one thing.  If I don't at least TRY, then I will die never knowing if my original career choice was the one that was always the one meant for me.

Remember the friend I mentioned in the paragraphs above?  Guess what?  She is now a nurse!