The places that life takes you can sometimes be surprising. I have tried out many different careers in my time. Some were very interesting choices, some were to help out a friend or family member and some were strictly for fun. When people hear of some of the things that I have done in my life they are always amazed. As I was cleaning out my closet this morning I found many mementos from my time in the medical field. Have you ever had the opportunity to wear a set of scrubs? They are the most comfortable clothes ever. It’s like wearing pajamas in public. I started out working on the ambulance as an EMT but that job is for the young. It is hard on your body, your mind and your emotions. There are so many stories that I can tell of life, death and danger. Things like getting shot at when you pull up to the scene of an emergency that isn’t safe. Tales of crazy people doing crazy things that would take me years to cover them all.
After Tate was born I knew it was time to leave the EMS…it is too hard working 24 hours at a time with young children at home and my back was constantly screaming at me to give it a break so I decided to go to work in a pediatric Doctors office as a nurse. I loved getting to wear the cute nursing scrubs with all the fun prints after wearing BDU’s and medical scrubs for years. I enjoyed being around children and working to make them healthier and happier but I knew that wasn’t where I would stay. Don’t get me wrong, nursing was challenging in many ways and I have nothing but the utmost respect for all of the nurses out there, but I needed a different type of challenge.
So, I went into Medical Research. Yep, where new medications and vaccines are tested on human subjects. Wanna know what the best part of that job was? Getting to wear a lab coat. Seriously. Talking to parents who are at their wits end with medications for their sick child then asking them to try out a new experimental drug that no one has any idea if it will work or what type of side-effects it may have is draining and it is scary. Asking parents who have a healthy child to try out a new experimental vaccine is even worse.
So, I left the medical field completely after that and decided to go to work and help out a friend of mine in her nursery. It was a very different kind of nursery though. One where your charges don’t talk back. They didn’t cry. They just bloomed and grew to their full potential under your care…but that my friends is another story for another day.
