The Day I Became a Nurse
Have you ever looked back and realized that your purpose in life started long before you were old enough to understand it? I didn’t choose nursing. I didn’t even know what nursing was. But before I was eight years old, I became one.
My father was diabetic, so in our household, insulin was not mysterious or complicated; it was simply a part of our daily life. I remember a device that held the syringe and had a lever for an automatic injector. Throughout my years in nursing, I never encountered one of these devices. Recently, I did some research, and although it wasn’t easy to find, it does resemble one that I used as that little girl.
What was unusual was who gave the shots. It wasn’t a doctor, or a nurse, or even my mother. On occasions ...It was me. A little red-headed girl with tiny hands, and a responsibility much larger than anything I should have carried at that age. My father died when I was eight years old, and that loss had a profound impact on my life.
People today can hardly imagine, and I cannot believe that I could do it at such a young age. Obviously, my father trusted me. And somehow, in that innocence and seriousness that children have, I trusted myself.
Nursing began formally, as a licensed profession, but it really started at home with an insulin syringe and an eight-year-old determined to help.
That early “aha moment,” if you can call it that, was quiet. There was no lightning flash. It was a steady glow, a clarity that helping people, calming them, supporting them, being steady when they were scared, was simply part of who I was.
And all these years later, whether in real estate, on my radio show, with my clients, my friends, or my Divas, that little-girl nurse still guides me. The purpose never left. It just kept growing.
ActiveRain December challenge hosted by Lew Corcoran and Patricia Feager
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