Becoming a registered nurse fulfills childhood dream

I’m happy to tell you Emilie graduated from Schoolcraft College’s nursing program in May and passed her state licensing boards three weeks later. She is officially a Registered Nurse.

Cue the applause!

I don’t even know how to explain adequately what I feel about her achievement. I am proud, happy and, frankly, relieved.

Getting into and surviving a nursing program is not easy. There’s the minimum grade point average requirement and the wait for your turn to begin the program. Emilie is smart as a whip, but she had to up her game to get the grades. She took pharmacology twice to get a passing grade, requiring her to wait a full year to get back into the program’s rotation of classes, which turned out to be just two weeks after her dad died.

The volume of material covered is daunting. Study time leaves little room for much else and the anxiety before exams designed to develop critical thinking skills is often overwhelming. Though she enjoyed the opportunity to practice hands-on patient care in clinicals, she had her fair share of panic as she felt the weight of patients’ lives in her hands.

There were times when she wondered if she’d made the right career choice, but she persevered for five years to achieve her life-long dream.

A dream that began as a nightmare when she was seven years old.

There’s monster in my head

Emilie was 7 years old in late fall 2001 when she began suffering with headaches, then nausea and vomiting. Visits to the pediatrician led to x-rays that showed nothing unusual and to medications to minimize the stomach upsets and the pain in her head. When the symptoms continued into the new year, I was referred to a pediatric neurologist, whose first available appointment was three months out.

In the meantime, I noticed Emilie was holding a blanket over one eye while she watched TV. She said if she didn’t cover her eye, she saw double of everything. Naively, I figured the headaches, and now this double vision, signaled the need for glasses. I made an appointment with a pediatric ophthalmologist that week.

More than we bargained for

You can imagine my shock when the doctor came out of the exam room to tell me her vision was fine. The double vision stemmed from increased brain fluid pressing on the optic nerve in her right eye. He’d already consulted the neurologist that I’d been waiting to see, who ordered her immediate admission to the hospital.

My first thought was a brain tumor, but he encouraged me to remain calm. For some reason, he felt sure that whatever was causing the fluid backup wasn’t life-threatening.

An MRI that evening revealed a blood clot in the right transverse sinus vein in her brain. How it got there was anyone’s best guess, including the team of physicians assigned to her care. They tested her for blood clotting disorders, but those came up negative. Infectious disease doctors suspected a previous ear infection had spread to the mastoid bone, causing the clot, although the chief Ear, Nose and Throat physician later disputed that. They ordered heavy doses of antibiotics which had to be administered via IV, while the hematologist placed her on blood thinners to help dissolve the clot. The neurologist considered spinal taps to remove the excess fluid and brain surgery to remove the clot, but both were determined too risky.

The hospital became our home away from home. Paul and I took turns spending the night in the most uncomfortable chair imaginable. After three long weeks, the clot had shrunk enough for us to bring her home.

Made for this

How all that chaos affected our family is a story for another time. For Emilie, the experience left a lasting impression. As young as she was, she seemed to recognize the value of her medical team’s care in her healing. The warm smiles and soothing words of nurses made six blood draws a day more tolerable.

From that time on, she wanted to be a nurse. She wanted to care for patients in the same way she’d been treated during that hospital stay.

Eyes on the goal

For most of us, our childhood dreams around “what we will be when we grow up” change over the years. Emilie’s never did. She used to enjoy watching reality TV shows of actual surgeries (while I closed my eyes or ran out of the room). Even when well-meaning, retired nurses warned her of the back-breaking, often unappreciated work she’d be doing, she held onto her goal. As she often says, she never had a backup plan.

It’s as if she was born to be a nurse.

Dream come true

A few weeks ago, Emilie called to tell me she got the job she’d applied for as an orthopedic nurse at a local hospital. Had I not been shopping at Target at the time, I would have woot-wooted louder than I did.

I hung up and stood there to get my bearings in what felt like a dream sequence. Before moving on, I said out loud, “Well, Pauli, she did it. She really did it.”

And we did it, I thought, as tears welled up in my eyes. We did a good job of raising the sweet baby girl who we welcomed just days before Christmas — bringing her home and placing her under the tree as our gift from God that year.  The role we played has helped her to become the accomplished, caring, compassionate and funny young woman she is today. I’m proud of us, too!

I’ve been savoring the sense of accomplishment ever since.

Putting it into practice

Emilie just completed her third week of training and first week of actual patient care. Her preceptor tells her she’s catching on very quickly, and her manager has already applauded her performance.

A few days ago, she called on her way home to say what a great day she’d had. “I really love what I’m doing, Mom.”

It doesn’t get much better than that for a parent.