From Nurse to Novelist

I wanted to be a nurse since I was a little girl. I never wavered on that. But writing…that didn’t come until much later. Now, well into my forties, my articles have been featured in many national magazines and my debut novel, Found, has taken flight. Many people ask me what or who has influenced my writing? This can be a difficult answer, but for me, it’s quite simple: my nursing career has been the catalyst for my writing career.

When I first started nursing school I was exposed to so many new emotions. Death, dying, suffering, pain, and recovery. I remember shadowing the nurses in a nursing home and seeing the same little old lady day after day. We would bring her water, sit with her, and hold her hand, until one morning I was told she was actively dying. For the first time in my life I watched someone take her last breath right before my eyes.

What does a nursing student do with that? Sure, we all experience loss throughout life but how many people watch it happen? Family members can explain their sorrow based on the love they have for someone who is dying. But a nurse? We’re strangers, sharing only a few days with a patient. How do we deal with the loss? And the more nursing experience you have, the more callused you become to the pain of losing someone. It’s a defense mechanism.

I didn’t want to become hardened or jaded, using my repressed emotions to get through each twelve-hour shift.

So I began to write.

The words I write down stare back at me in a non-judgmental, non-biased manner. I can say whatever I want, feel whatever it is I’m feeling, and when I write it down, there is no argument. I’m not told, “Toughen up, buttercup,” or “Come on, get over it. You’re a nurse, this is your job.”

Writing is my catharsis.

If I’ve bonded with a patient who has changed me or made me grow somehow, then I write a story about it. If I take care of a patient that caused conflict in me, such as, caring for a skinhead or a child abuser, I write it down.

I like to think of my writing as raw emotion. There is no filter. What you see is what you get, which, is actually how people often describe my personality. My stories put readers in a nurse’s shoes, and allow them to experience what we deal with on a regular basis. It also prevents me from harboring the pain, suffering, and sadness of others while at the same time honoring those that have changed me as woman, a mom, and a human being.

My favorite writer, Mitch Albom, weaves his theory of humanity and interconnection throughout all his stories. He feels that we all touch people and can change people, sometimes without even knowing them. Throughout my time in the ICU, I grew not only as a nurse but also as a person. There are some patients that leave a lasting impression, giving you the means to better yourself or to change your life. Most of the time, nurses never see those patients again.

I wanted to keep them and their lessons with me, which is why I use so many medical cases in my writing. Of course, names, places, and diagnoses are changed but the permanent impact that remained with me is the same. Hopefully, my readers can learn something from them too and apply it to their own lives.

Will all my future novels have a nurse as the heroine of the story? Yes, I believe they will. It is so much of who I am I fear the writer in me would be lost without it. It also gives me an opportunity to honor my profession and those whom I’ve worked with over the years.

I consider myself very lucky to have had a career I am so passionate about and proud of. My anecdotes offer an intimate view into the world of nursing and reveal that there is much more to us than changing beds and giving shots.

Now that I am a Nurse Practitioner and share my own practice with my husband, a physician, I have more time to focus on writing. I spend mornings at the office and am home in the afternoon to write and take care of our son. As my next stage in life moves from nurse to novelist,

I’m not ready to leave my first profession behind. I can relive the days in the ICU and bring some people back to life that I had lost. Writing is and will always be my emotional playground where a pair of scrubs becomes a symbol of the woman, and writer, I have become.

—

Tags: featured

Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Writing