We’ve heard about take your daughter to work days. My first for today was to join my daughter at work! And since my youngest child works the night shift, I visited her after 12:30 am.
Adriel is a nurse tech at Freeman Hospital. It was such a joy to visit her and surprise her with a cupcake from Liz. We chatted while she took a “lunch” break at 1:00am and then I got to tour her floor and her wing, meeting some of her co-workers, nurses and other techs that she enjoys working with. It was obvious how fond they are of her.
I’m very proud of my girl. This has been a long journey for her, beginning when she was 14 years old and she started as a volunteer at Freeman. Once she knew she wanted to be a nurse, she took off down that path and has not looked back. She has persevered through years of going to college part time to get her prerequisites out of the way. This year, she is in her second year of nursing school and will graduate in December.
Adriel is a beautiful, slender young woman with a sparkle in her eyes. She may be slight in size, but she knows how to handle patients, whether through charm or with a no nonsense approach, whichever method works the best. She’s told me stories of middle of the night situations she’s dealt with that brings tears to my eyes. And some of her stories make me laugh. All of them amaze me because this child, when she was a little girl, would literally gag if you even said the word “snot”. And if someone sneezed in her presence or a baby had a dirty diaper, she did more than gag! I am astounded that this same girl now does even the most difficult tasks, that I could never have imagined her doing, with expertise, confidence and kindness.
Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing, said, “Nursing is an art: and if it is to be made an art, it requires an exclusive devotion as hard a preparation as any painter’s or sculptor’s work; for what is the having to do with dead canvas or dead marble, compared with having to do with the living body, the temple of God’s spirit? It is one of the Fine Arts: I had almost said, the finest of Fine Arts.” Adriel’s ‘exclusive devotion and hard preparation’ are evident in what she does. Way to go, sweetheart!