By Karen L. Madsen, MSN, APRN-BC

I will not let this happen to me . . . I will not be on welfare . . . I will not let this happen to me.
These determined thoughts were why I began nursing school. Mine is not one of those pretty, wishful, Cherry Ames stories. I was never one of those little girls who wanted to be Florence. Nursing was not on my horizons at all when I was a child. No white uniforms and caps for me! I was going to be a great writer like Louisa May Alcott or my heroine, Laura Ingalls Wilder. But somehow in the growing up process, that dream got put on the shelf and I dreamed other dreams of a home, husband, and children of my own. I was well into the process of achieving that dream when the life of one of my good friends crashed into my own.

We had many similarities; we both were about the same age and we both had very young children. Like me, she had postponed going to college or learning a trade; like me, she totally invested herself into her marriage and home. However, there our similarities mercifully ended. One night, my friend’s husband arrived home and informed her that he had “met” someone else and was very much in love with her. So much, in fact, that he was divorcing my friend ASAP and moving to another state. In one fell swoop, my friend lost her dream. She was left with a fistful of bills, a mortgage, two children under five, and no visible means of support. Gravely wounded emotionally, my friend was also gravely wounded financially. She had no training, no degree, and no way to support her bewildered, helpless children and herself.

I am ashamed to say that my first response to this news was not concern for my friend. That concern came several minutes later. My first response was fear, heart-pounding, white knuckle fear. If something like this could happen to her, who said it couldn’t or wouldn’t happen to me? What would I do? How could I support myself and more importantly, my children? However, somehow in those first, frantic moments, a steely determination began to pierce that fog of fear around my thoughts and emotions. “I will not let this happen to me . . . I will not be on welfare . . . I will not let this happen to me.”

My husband and I had a very candid conversation that evening. Let me stop my story and make one thing very clear before we go on. I did not foresee that he would ever leave me or the children, for any reason. He was and is, a very good and decent man. But we had begun to recognize that it would take two incomes to support our growing family and for a variety of reasons, I needed a job. With the Sunday paper spread out on our kitchen table, we quickly narrowed the field down to two types of jobs in our area: truck driving and nursing. Our paper was full of jobs in both areas. With a little research, we jointly decided that nursing seemed to be the best fit for me personally and for our family.

All that happened nearly sixteen years ago. Nursing and I began a journey that has had many twists and turns. Along the way I graduated from an associate degree nursing program, took boards, passed boards, had another baby, began my career in the well baby nursery, migrated a few years later to my great love and true home, labor and delivery, kept raising kids, had a patient try to kick me in the face one night, blew my knee out, became partially disabled, became internationally certified as a breastfeeding consultant, had my job eliminated, tried to learn to love the emergency room, learned that some areas (the emergency room) are heaven for some and hell for me, went back to school, earned my bachelor’s degree, kept going to school, earned a master’s degree, became nationally certified as an advanced practice nurse, applied on a whim to an area nursing school renowned for excellence, got hired by said school, was mentored and nurtured as a new faculty member, began teaching online classes, and at long last, dusted off my childhood dream and began to write again. Whew!! What a ride so far!!

I have been given a very unique opportunity to write about my life for this forum. I envision this column to become part “Dear Abby” and part “True Confessions” with a little “Discovery Channel” thrown in for good measure! I hope you will write to me and ask questions about your career and your life. I hope you’ll consider me sort of a big sister; certainly not someone who knows everything, but just someone who’s a little further down the path than you are right now. A good big sister watches out for you, lets you know what’s going on and cares for you and it’s my hope that eventually, that’s what I’ll become to some of you. I’m not an expert on everything by any stretch of the imagination but I DO know some things. I know what it is to be afraid, to be poor, to love my kids, to fight for my marriage, to work hard, to go without sleep and hate my job, to go without sleep and love my job. If I don’t know the answer to your question, I’ll find someone who does and we’ll all learn something.

I’m continuing on my journey. My life’s journey is one full of questions, full of learning, full of passion and dreams and sweat and frustration and joy. It is the journey of nursing. I’m traveling on . . . will you join me?

Editor’s note: As you can see, we don’t yet have a name for Karen’s column, which will appear on a bi-weekly basis. So we’re having another contest! Send your ideas for a column name to mbriddon@hcpro.com. The winner will receive a Stressed Out Nurses T-shirt! The deadline is February 18.

And, you can also send questions to be answered in the column to mbriddon@hcpro.com.