Why I Want to be a Nurse

I was always interested in choosing the career of nursing due to the influence of my grandmother. Whenever I would visit her in Sweden, she would always have this nursing box of bandages, first aid supplies, and stethoscopes, and she would help me play nurse on all my "sick" family members. Even when someone in the family was actually sick, I would watch as she always knew exactly what to do to care for them and make them feel better, without even thinking about the right steps to take, it was just her instinct. Watching my grandma be so confident in being able to help people unconditionally is what made me want to be able to help people in the same way that she did, and have those instincts along with the knowledge of professional nursing in my own head.

My grandma was the ultimate superwoman at helping people with anything medical as she always had a remedy for everything, and she is the type of nurse that I aspire to be. Scratch that statement, I think if Super Woman could have seen her she would have written an article about my grandma too. Even when she abruptly became diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, a terrible disease that I now know so much more about since graduating nursing school, she still continued caring for my grandpa and everyone else in my family as best as she could.

I can still remember the last time we visited Sweden when she was alive, the abrupt and terminal effects of the cancer had already kicked in and I saw my grandma in a way I had never seen her before. The woman who had lunch and dinner prepared before we had all gotten out of our beds for breakfast, the woman who would halt her day and plans just to make sure her neighbor was handling their cough from their minor cold, was now, heartbreakingly, not capable of much.

It was Christmas time so the family was all gathered to make this one the best of them all, but it was hard to shake the feeling that nothing was the same. Not only could my grandma save someone's life via CPR, she could just as easily take every last breath you have away with her amazing cooking and baking. The family tried to make all of her specialties for the holiday while she rested in bed in their cozy Scandinavian home, but I think we can all relate to the feeling of knowing a meal was not made by who it is always made by.

That New Years Eve under the blasting fireworks and smoky air of residue, my entire family popped more bottles of Champaign than ever before, as we were celebrating the last New Years with the woman who taught us so much, in every aspect. As many of our patients do when the end is near, my grandma held out till all of the final festivities were over, she saw all of her loved ones together for the last time, and that was all she needed to let go. Days after returning home to America, she was gone.

My grandma's devotion to her career, even when she was not on the job, which for her consisted of caring for hundreds of patients in a mental health asylum in the 40's in Sweden, is what has influenced me to continue in her path. The thought of my 4'9,110-pound grandma holding all of the keys to the rooms in the asylum is a sight I wish I could have seen. There was no challenge she was not up for, even if it meant she could help even just one individual that was in need. I will not feel complete till I have grandkids that look up to my nursing professionalism and aspire to be like me, just as I did to her.

Upon graduating nursing school 5 years after her passing, I have begun to think increasingly about the effect that she has had on not only this chapter of my life but its entirety. Nursing is not a job offer you accept because "it'll do for now" or "it'll get me to the next job that will be better", nursing is the beginning and the destination. Graduating with my RN has not only made me feel accomplished and proud of myself, but it is a tangible, day to day memory, of the woman who introduced me to not only the career but the life of being a nurse. When my parents gave me the graduation gift of my grandmother's pearl earrings, it suddenly felt like the clouds had broken and rain was pouring down onto my feet, but as you can imagine it was just me sobbing. Although my grandma did not witness me graduating from nursing school, in a way, I would not have even attended without her.