I got into nursing after taking care of my mother when I was 17 years old. She died from lung cancer a month before I graduated from high school. I was the youngest of five kids, and previously had no life-experience in care-taking, not even baby-sitting. After floundering for a few lost years after she died, I entered nursing school, never expecting to finish. Somehow, I "grew up", finished school and boards, and have never stopped being amazed at the diverse opportunities I have found in nursing, and still marvel at the compassion and maturity I had buried away from that early exposure to illness.