Growing up I was taught that running was how our deities heard us, taught to wake up early while the sky was still deep navy, to observe the sunrise over the land passed down from generation to generation and to run towards the east. Footsteps pound the dusty ground like a drumbeat signaling to the earth itself that I am here and in need of good blessings. I run now for many reasons, because it is culturally significant and because it keeps me sane. Running has taken me many places; to the cattle guard and back home, to the little green sign marking a BIA route and far from home to a college wherein I am one of very few native students. Growing up in the sun-drenched expanse of New Mexico means growing up surrounded by culture, whether that be your own culture or your neighbors’ as we are a diverse blanket of colors woven together by our shared history on this land. Moving to the Midwest for college, It became very apparent that not everywhere is like New Mexico, especially not like the reservation. I had already become startlingly aware that on the Navajo Nation, we experience some of the biggest challenges in healthcare: understaffing, underfunding, unpaved roads that patients and ambulances alike are often unable to traverse or are unable to even afford the journey. This realization settled in as I lay in a hospital bed, a city hospital bed, with a shattered ankle. Here I didn’t wait hours for help to arrive or to be seen by a doctor. I wasn’t referred elsewhere due to lack of equipment for an x-ray or to get treatment. It was like going from one of those washboard rez roads to coasting on a smooth highway. All I could think of was the inequity of it all: all the people back on Navajo-land, on Hopi land, in places untouched by modernity, all the places we are struggling while just a few hours down a highway, there exists all this abundance. I decided to go far from home for school in hopes of returning with new knowledge. In that far distance, I found even more abundance and the gap between what is offered to natives and what is offered to others widened to the size of a canyon. I learned that non-native people would never understand just how far one would have to leap to clear this gap. I faced the fact that what I had been provided in my reservation education had been far less than what others in my new cohort had been prepped with. I had no AP classes, no dual credit, not even chemistry. There was that chronic problem of lack of resources rearing its head again. However, I have been able to overcome these barriers and have tried my best through presentation and visibility, to share what we as natives face daily. I have begun to work with my local tribal clinic experiencing things that people in my cohort would never understand: delivering medication to elders, speaking Navajo, sheep herds blocking the bumpy drive to a house that lacks running water and electricity, roping cows in scrubs and attending Kiinaal’dah ceremonies during lunch breaks. My eyes have been opened in so many ways since that broken ankle reminded me of the prayers I had said with my body and mind as I ran towards the east; as I stood outside each morning with my corn pollen asking for better things. I still pray now, on new land, for myself and for my people, always for better things.

As a Navajo woman who has experienced the disparity of the quality and types of healthcare that are available on our reservations versus what is available off reservation due to geographical isolation, I understand the critical need and imperativeness of increasing the low percentage of nurses that are Native Americans, which is currently less than .04%. The underrepresentation of Native nurses means that Native people cannot receive healthcare from people who speak their language, understand their lifestyle, know their cultural beliefs and embrace the hardships of reservation living. Native American nurses are in dire need to help improve health outcomes in our Indigenous Communities. Being raised in my culture with traditional beliefs, teachings and language, I can help build trust and bridge the gap between traditional ways of healing and modern medicine. Nursing, as well as rural healthcare, has been my passion for years; however, the depth and brevity of that passion has increased substantially with each semester of nursing school. A portion of my passion is embedded within the issues surrounding disparity and my desire to help reduce them by providing quality and compassionate nursing care on the reservation. As I alluded, I suffered an accident which changed my trajectory, opening my eyes to a career path that I had been searching for; providing an opportunity to experience a variety of healthcare firsthand and revealing the shortage of Native Americans in healthcare. In and out of healthcare facilities, I contemplated, observed and questioned; somewhere along the line, deciding to pursue a nursing career. Entering my third year of nursing school, my experiences have solidified my goals and determination. However, I am not stopping there. I will begin my career on the reservation working towards reducing recurring health crises throughout Indian Country such as diabetes, liver disease and long term effects due to exposure to uranium.A successful career to me, will be returning to the reservation and making a difference in Indigenous Health Care. My goal has four components: practicing as an RN on the reservation, obtaining a Master’s Degree in Hospital Administration, working as a travel nurse to gain a variety of experiential knowledge which I can bring to Native communities and becoming an Licensed Nurse Practitioner and practicing in a reservation facility. I have achieved my CNA and hold valid CNA licenses in New Mexico and Wisconsin. I have had three clinical experiences in which I have been engrossed in healthcare at various facilities. One of my experiences provided me the opportunity to shadow a wound care doctor which I found intriguing. He discussed the importance of this speciality especially in rural areas. I also saw firsthand the pain, suffering, confusion and deterioration brought about by Alzheimer’s disease eventually losing my grandfather to it. I broke my tibia and fibula which resulted in the surgical implementation of internal fixation devices and months of appointments and recovery. This allowed me to experience many facets of the healthcare system including EMTs, ambulance transportation, Xrays and anesthesiology all of which I found fascinating. My volunteer work revolves more around athletics than the nursing profession although I do volunteer at Feed My Starving Children with my college Association of Nursing Students where we create nutritional food packages. This summer I am fortunate to be working at my local Indian Health Service clinic on the reservation.As a student nurse intern, I have been afforded hands on experience with patients in the clinic and in home health. This opportunity is allowing me to gain additional experience with Indigenous communities, healthcare and continues to expose the disparities that are beyond what even I had imagined.

My source of inspiration to pursue nursing comes from the time I spent in hospitals and doctor’s offices. As a member of the Navajo Nation, I have had direct experience with the healthcare discrepancies that exist on Native American reservations. This was made glaringly obvious to me when I suffered a major injury. The story goes like this: I fell in love with the dangerous and complicated sport of figure skating. Jumping and spinning on a blade barely an eighth of an inch wide requires constant practice. Due to a worldwide pandemic, I was severely out of practice by the time the rinks reopened. With a competition upcoming, I jumped right into skills I had done a million times before. This ended in both my tibia and fibula being broken into pieces, a break which would’ve permanently changed my gait and limited my ability without surgery. This was one of the hardest things I’ve been through not only due to the pain, frustration and feeling of irreversibility that accompanied my broken bones, but also because it highlighted a disturbing truth: that on a Native American reservation you are often going to be provided less than adequate healthcare. Growing up, a trip to town would take at least 4 hours; so I could only imagine how long it would’ve taken to receive treatment and what quality would that treatment have been if my accident had happened at home. Hours long drives through winding, bumpy unpaved roads to arrive at a facility that is underfunded, overcrowded and understaffed leads to substandard care and a population that is discouraged, uncared for, and in many cases ignored. So, when I landed myself in a white walled hospital smelling cleanly of chemicals, bustling with nurses and filled with state-of-the-art equipment; I was shocked. The waiting room had at most 10 people in it, and though the wait was long to get an x-ray, it wasn’t like back at home where I’d have been made to sit and stew in pain. In the city facility, I was given medication and made as comfortable as possible. This left me with a lot of questions, why can’t we be taken care of like this at home?, what will I do to make that happen? It was set in stone then; I wanted to be a nurse, I wanted to do my part back in my Navajo homeland, and I wanted to spread the word about the conditions in reservation ill-equipped facilities. Being a nurse means doing your best to help others. It is my ultimate goal to help my community members and Native People live more comfortable, healthier lives, free from the burden of poor healthcare. There has never been a doubt; even though I am attending nursing school far from my reservation home in a town that lies between the lure of the big cities of Chicago and Milwaukee; that I will work in Native Health Care. I will return to the reservation and provide care for my people. My goal is pediatric nursing because I believe that If I can help parents raise healthy children, I can affect the health of future generations. My passion for nursing is probably different from most: I have a passion to serve people but I am also passionate about Native American healthcare. Native Americans make up less than .4% of all nurses which is an obvious underrepresentation, meaning that it is imperative that more Native people become nurses and return to their communities to provide quality and compassionate healthcare. I learned about this scholarship through the bold.org scholarship search function.

My source of inspiration to pursue nursing comes from the time I spent in hospitals and doctor’s offices. As a member of the Navajo Nation, I have had direct experience with the healthcare discrepancies that exist on Native American reservations. This was made glaringly obvious to me when I suffered a major injury. The story goes like this: I fell in love with the dangerous and complicated sport of figure skating. Jumping and spinning on a blade barely an eighth of an inch wide requires constant practice. Due to a worldwide pandemic, I was severely out of practice by the time the rinks reopened. With a competition upcoming, I jumped right into skills I had done a million times before. This ended in both my tibia and fibula being broken into pieces, a break which would’ve permanently changed my gait and limited my ability without surgery. This was one of the hardest things I’ve been through not only due to the pain, frustration and feeling of irreversibility that accompanied my broken bones, but also because it highlighted a disturbing truth: that on a Native American reservation you are often going to be provided less than adequate healthcare. Growing up, a trip to town would take at least 4 hours; so I could only imagine how long it would’ve taken to receive treatment and what quality would that treatment have been if my accident had happened at home. Hours long drives through winding, bumpy unpaved roads to arrive at a facility that is underfunded, overcrowded and understaffed leads to substandard care and a population that is discouraged, uncared for, and in many cases ignored. So, when I landed myself in a white walled hospital smelling cleanly of chemicals, bustling with nurses and filled with state-of-the-art equipment; I was shocked. The waiting room had at most 10 people in it, and though the wait was long to get an x-ray, it wasn’t like back at home where I’d have been made to sit and stew in pain. In the city facility, I was given medication and made as comfortable as possible. This left me with a lot of questions, why can’t we be taken care of like this at home?, what will I do to make that happen? It was set in stone then; I wanted to be a nurse, I wanted to do my part back in my Navajo homeland, and I wanted to spread the word about the conditions in reservation ill-equipped facilities. Being a nurse means doing your best to help others. It is my ultimate goal to help my community members and Native People live more comfortable, healthier lives, free from the burden of poor healthcare. There has never been a doubt; even though I am attending nursing school far from my reservation home in a town that lies between the lure of the big cities of Chicago and Milwaukee; that I will work in Native Health Care. I will return to the reservation and provide care for my people. My goal is pediatric nursing because I believe that If I can help parents raise healthy children, I can affect the health of future generations. My passion for nursing is probably different from most: I have a passion to serve people but I am also passionate about Native American healthcare. Native Americans make up less than .4% of all nurses which is an obvious underrepresentation, meaning that it is imperative that more Native people become nurses and return to their communities to provide quality and compassionate healthcare.

My source of inspiration to pursue nursing comes from the time I spent in hospitals and doctor’s offices. As a member of the Navajo Nation, I have had direct experience with the healthcare discrepancies that exist on Native American reservations. This was made glaringly obvious to me when I suffered a major injury. The story goes like this: I fell in love with the dangerous and complicated sport of figure skating. Jumping and spinning on a blade barely an eighth of an inch wide requires constant practice. Due to a worldwide pandemic, I was severely out of practice by the time the rinks reopened. With a competition upcoming, I jumped right into skills I had done a million times before. This ended in both my tibia and fibula being broken into pieces, a break which would’ve permanently changed my gait and limited my ability without surgery. This was one of the hardest things I’ve been through not only due to the pain, frustration and feeling of irreversibility that accompanied my broken bones, but also because it highlighted a disturbing truth: that on a Native American reservation you are often going to be provided less than adequate healthcare. Growing up, a trip to town would take at least 4 hours; so I could only imagine how long it would’ve taken to receive treatment and what quality would that treatment have been if my accident had happened at home. Hours long drives through winding, bumpy unpaved roads to arrive at a facility that is underfunded, overcrowded and understaffed leads to substandard care and a population that is discouraged, uncared for, and in many cases ignored. So, when I landed myself in a white walled hospital smelling cleanly of chemicals, bustling with nurses and filled with state-of-the-art equipment; I was shocked. The waiting room had at most 10 people in it, and though the wait was long to get an x-ray, it wasn’t like back at home where I’d have been made to sit and stew in pain. In the city facility, I was given medication and made as comfortable as possible. This left me with a lot of questions, why can’t we be taken care of like this at home?, what will I do to make that happen? It was set in stone then; I wanted to be a nurse, I wanted to do my part back in my Navajo homeland, and I wanted to spread the word about the conditions in reservation ill-equipped facilities. Being a nurse means doing your best to help others. It is my ultimate goal to help my community members and Native People live more comfortable, healthier lives, free from the burden of poor healthcare. There has never been a doubt; even though I am attending nursing school far from my reservation home in a town that lies between the lure of the big cities of Chicago and Milwaukee; that I will work in Native Health Care. I will return to the reservation and provide care for my people. My goal is pediatric nursing because I believe that If I can help parents raise healthy children, I can affect the health of future generations. My passion for nursing is probably different from most: I have a passion to serve people but I am also passionate about Native American healthcare. Native Americans make up less than .4% of all nurses which is an obvious underrepresentation, meaning that it is imperative that more Native people become nurses and return to their communities to provide quality and compassionate healthcare. I learned about this scholarship through the bold.org scholarship search function.

I remember my father telling me that there would never be a tornado on our land, explaining that the deities made this land for protection of its people, cradling it in the four sacred mountains keeping us safe always. I developed a fear of tornadoes after nine-year old me watched the Carrie Underwood music video “Blown Away”. When dust devils kick up and spiral dirt upward into the cloudless blue sky, I was no longer afraid. I was born on the Navajo Reservation and only recently have come to truly appreciate how special home is and how much I miss the warmth of the sunshine when I bundle up to walk to class in Wisconsin winters. Growing up Navajo means many things including stray dogs, dusty dirt roads, and the long wait times, understaffing, underfunding, and the general aura of doom of Indian Health Services. I recall realizing the contrast between IHS and urban hospitals with a feeling like getting that cooler full of ice dumped on your head much like SuperBowl winning coaches experience. Following an accident that left me with an ankle snapped in half, I was transported to a hospital in under 15 minutes getting to see a doctor with minimal wait. The facility was state of the art, filled with nurses and stocked with supplies in stark contrast to two plus hour drives on bumpy dirt roads, hours-long waits in rural clinics with minimal staff and basic supplies. It came back to me then, the stories told of terrible experiences. I thought to myself this is how I can give back to my community, deciding then to become a nurse. Life on any reservation is tough and complicated, add a healthcare system that wasn’t designed to succeed and you have a recipe for poor health outcomes. Language barriers, cultural insensitivity and a land poisoned by irresponsible uranium mining has made the Navajo Nation a place wherein illness contrasts immense beauty. Though I am just one person and cannot singlehandedly reframe a person's outlook on healthcare, I want to do everything in my power to change that perception becoming an advocate for patients, the Navajo Nation, and Native peoples. I want to be outspoken about the issues we face, work to improve conditions and provide comfort to patients in their time of need through my understanding of the struggles, beauty, and history we share as Native people. I decided the best way to do this was to pursue a BSN, then a master’s degree becoming a licensed nurse practitioner. I planned to earn my BSN, come home to the reservation then return to school for my master’s degree. I believed my path was set and that those three letters were my ultimate goal. However, I have since attended a medical career bootcamp at the University of Minnesota to experience graduate opportunities and met the director of the largest surgery center in the Twin Cities. This meeting changed my life as I saw a fellow Native in such an outstanding position that I began to plan an addition to my education and earn an additional degree in Hospital administration. For now I wear the badge with Brooke Nez, NS proudly on my scrub top. I carry in my tool belt my Navajo language and teachings that taught me to be strong and steadfast in my goals. Every early morning and late night in pursuit of these goals, feels like a singular shake of the gourd rattle, a single beat of a drum, in the ceremonial song that carries me towards a future in advancing Native Healthcare.

My path to nursing was paved in struggle, realization, and broken bones. Throughout my life I’d find myself oscillating between periods of light, unburdened happiness and a deep, dark sadness. I didn’t have a name for this all consuming feeling of hopelessness, like a blanket, comfortable in its abrasiveness. Comfort in the form of isolation and withdrawal from things that I loved like school, sports, and the people in my life. When I finally emerged from under this feeling things like my friendships, grades and health had suffered. After a long time of living with this blanket, I was given a name for it: depression. It didn’t help matters when we moved to essentially the middle of nowhere my freshman year of high school, far from friends and far from the opportunity to pursue a long time passion of mine, figure skating. Now two hours from the nearest town, I was left to start over. It was hard. I began to slip again, my only solace being weekend drives into town where I would get to skate. Gliding, jumping and spinning on thin steel blades off that cold crystalline ice made me happy beyond words. However, that year also happened to be 2020. We all know what happened in 2020. I started to struggle again, possibly worse ever. I was utterly directionless. After many months, when things began to reopen after the lengthy pandemic closures, the first thing I wanted to do was lace up my skates and get back on the ice, which ended in broken bones. Both my tibia and fibula had snapped in half. I was told without surgical intervention, my ankle would never heal quite right and I’d be left without my sports, or even the ability to walk for long periods of time. This felt like a roiling river leading to a drop off of a 100 foot cliff, like a wake up call, and I needed to start paddling before I plummeted to the bottom. When all was said and done, I’d spent the better part of a year in and out of the hospital. In that time I realized two things; that I really liked the smell of hand sanitizer, and that nursing was what I wanted to do. Part of this second realization was just how different healthcare was on and off of the reservation where I lived. Growing up Navajo means getting used to a few things: stray dogs, dusty dirt roads, and IHS. Indian Health Services was the government's solution to the question of, if we put all of these people on a rural reserve, where will they get healthcare? And like many so-called solutions, it's basically a bandaid on a bullet hole. Long wait times, understaffing, underfunding, and a general aura of doom if you’re there for anything worse than a cold. When I stepped into the city’s sterile white hospital buildings, I felt like I'd stepped into another dimension, and my first thought was, someone has to do something about this. Upon leaving the day's appointment my next thought was, I want to care for people in the way that I’m being cared for. My experiences with hardship, with pain, and with the poor healthcare that my tribal members face gave form to the unwavering passion for nursing that I carry today. Now on the precipice of my junior year, with hours akin to ceremony put in, I’ve never been more confident that this is what I love, that this is my purpose, that I can be someone who helps others in the way others have helped me.

Nursing, as well as rural healthcare, has been my passion for years; however, the depth and brevity of that passion has increased substantially with each semester of nursing school. The spark was ignited after I experienced a devastating injury. Growing up on the Navajo Reservation, my memories of healthcare were tiny understaffed clinics contained in portable buildings in dirt lots. What I experienced in our state’s largest city was very different and exposed the glaring disparities in healthcare facilities and services. They call it brain drain when trained professionals flee less developed states due to lack of opportunity. New Mexico, for all its beauty and culture, is one of these less developed states, being home to many reservations that lack infrastructure and development. Wide swaths of untouched reservation land cradle these communities, and while a very good thing, it makes life difficult in this modern era. A portion of my passion for nursing lies in the issues surrounding this disparity and my desire to help reduce them by providing quality and compassionate nursing care on the reservation. The other part of my passion lies in realizing the lack of Native American nurses - currently less than .04% of the population of nurses are Indigenous meaning that Native people can not receive healthcare from people who speak their language, understand their lifestyle, know their cultural beliefs and embrace the hardships of reservation living. What I hope to get out of this career is not something that I have thought of as I think more of what I will give to the profession. I hope to give back to my people. If I had to identify what I might get from a nursing career, I think the answer would be a sense of fulfillment from helping people, providing compassionate care and fulfilling a need in my community. I have not fully decided on a speciality but I have narrowed it down to two possibilities: pediatrics or wound care. Prior to my CNA training, I had thought I would pursue pediatrics. I felt that by working in the pediatric field I could not only provide care to children but also be able to help address ongoing reservation healthcare issues such as obesity, diabetes, prenatal and maternal care. Working in pediatrics provides access to parents and caregivers which would provide opportunities to educate them on healthy lifestyles for children. During my CNA Clinical experience, I found myself engrossed in wound care and was afforded the opportunity to shadow a wound care doctor. He explained to me that there is a shortage of wound care nurses and therefore pursuing this speciality would help fill a shortage. I believe that being specialized in wound care would help fill a void on the reservation. The impact that I will have on my speciality area is that I will bring compassion and quality care to each situation and every patient. As one of the only nurses from my reservation community, I will serve as a role model and will encourage others to pursue their dreams of becoming a nurse. Thirdly, I will have a positive impact on patient outcomes while working to decrease the disparities in reservation healthcare. As I am concluding my second year of nursing school, I can honestly say that my passion for nursing grows by the day. As I gain practical experience through my clinicals, I feel that I am already making an impact through the care I provide to patients in my assigned memory care unit. I look forward to the day when I can enter the nursing field as a registered nurse.

Running, like storytelling, is a powerful tradition in Navajo Culture. As Navajos, we are taught to run toward the east at dawn, calling to the spirits with our footsteps and receiving the blessings they offer. Running is both a way of life and a form of prayer. That rhythmic sound echoes the heartbeat of Mother Earth and tells her that we are still here, we are strong and we are enduring. In the modern world of technology and constant distractions, running grounds me and keeps me focused, connecting me to both the past and the future, tethering me to cultural roots while promoting a healthy lifestyle. I began running competitively as a scrawny, bird-legged high school kid recently recovered from an accident that left me with a plate and eight screws holding my ankle together. Every step was painful and the high altitude air burned my lungs but the teachings of my elders allowed me to endure and continue on: running teaches you how to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles, teaches self discipline, develops your tenacity, hones your abilities to abide discomfort and to learn to appreciate hardship. We are taught that running brings challenges and that those challenges bring opportunities for growth and the development of resilience and persistence. The day of the first meet finally arrived after a few weeks of practice that did little to prepare me for what lay ahead. I proudly dressed in my bright red shorts and turquoise and red tank top with the Warrior logo - both of which were significantly too big for my small frame, applied red streaks of chee (a culturally significant mineral used for protection), whispered a prayer, tied my cheap running shoes and made my way to the starting line at the notoriously hard cross country course of Hamburg Hill. Mind you, this is the high desert in August - typically very dry and extremely hot but not today! Thunder roared. The sky opened up, dumping a hard, cold rain on the runners and turning the course into a literal mud bog. I ran, slipping and sliding in the mud; far behind the fastest runners and perpetual state champions, plodding along determined but most definitely internalizing those teachings about abiding discomfort and embracing hardship. As I soggily trudged along, feeling proud of myself despite the searing pain, the trail became nothing but one huge mud puddle. The once baked hard packed earth had become as slick as ice and I found myself lying in that puddle. I hopped up and ran on despite being soaking wet and now covered in mud. Some long 22 minutes later, I triumphantly crossed the finish line, incredibly proud and with the love of running deeply ingrained in my soul along with the teachings of the ancestors. That love of running, the tenacity and persistence that it engrained in me has made me into the person I am today. It helps me through the hard days when my brain works against me, when childhood trauma surfaces, when I’m exhausted from my athletic and nursing student schedule and when I am homesick for my culture, family and homeland. As Navajos, we believe that running can improve physical health and heal emotional wounds. With competitive running comes a plethora of highs and lows, victories and defeats, emotional releases and internalized thoughts. Running, more than any medication or breathing technique, helps me deal with my anxiety and trauma. It clears my mind, strengthens my heart, tethers me to my home and culture and allows me to recognize my potential.

Born and raised in a small town, well the Navajo Reservation to be precise, so more rural and remote than a town, my health care generally came from the small local clinic. I didn’t know anything different. Then came the day that I was involved in an accident which left me with a broken tibia and fibula that required surgery for internal fixatives. All of this, the ambulance ride, the appointments, the surgery and recovery, took place in our state’s largest city which exposed me to two things: what quality healthcare is and the huge disparities between healthcare on reservations and healthcare in the city. This experience developed my passion for a career in nursing. I’d always known that I wanted to serve my people but as I experienced all that came with my injury it was the nurses who piqued my curiosity and lit a fire within. The more I observed the nurses, the more passionate I became about wanting to become a nurse. As a Native American child, I also realized that none of the healthcare workers looked like me, spoke my language or understood the way of life on the reservation as Native Americans only make up approximately .4% of the Nursing profession. I can return to the reservation as a skilled and well trained nurse through my coursework, clinicals and my CNA work experience. Part of what inspires me is returning to the reservation to serve my people in healthcare. I can be that empathetic, passionate, caring nurse who can communicate with the elders in our Native language, who can understand the hardships of reservation living and relate to patients through a cultural lens. I am looking forward to the day when I can return to Navajoland and serve my people through the nursing profession. One does not know the value of human touch, of compassion, until one works in a place where people cannot remain entirely independent. Human connection is required for our health, and though it is not a sign of life as easy to read as a blood pressure or heart rate, its importance is no less measurable. Fostering connection through touch and communication facilitates healing in a holistic sense, and it makes a person a person, not just a diagnosis or a set of symptoms. It is said to be that empathy is a quality that everyone who steps into a healthcare field should have in spades. It seems very simple, treat those in your care with respect, dignity, and compassion. In this day and age this quality is in shockingly low supply, even in those who step into these careers of their own volition, and I’ve seen it with my own eyes in the patients I have had the privilege of holding in my hands. I saw it with my grandfather as he suffered from Alzheimer’s. I recall a clinical experience wherein a man who had largely lost control of his fine motor skills due to Parkinson's disease continually asked for a shave. Due to the medications he was on, a normal razor could not be used for his safety and thus his request was continually denied, so I asked him if he had an electric razor, which he did, and was then able to receive his long-desired shave. I want to be the kind of nurse that puts others before myself, the kind that offers comfort to others in their time of vulnerability. As a Navajo woman, I grew up in a culture wherein independence, and self sufficiency are measures of one’s strength. The deserts of the Navajo reservation are as arid and harsh as they are fruitful and beautiful, turning it into a place to provide for one’s kin takes a kind of skill honed by our ancestors, skills passed through generations. These values were required for survival in the grueling times of colonization, assimilation, and in this world that chooses to marginalize instead of opening its arms to us. Through my work I hope to use my passion for care to help my people hold their heads high in good health and provide a place to rest when they don’t have the strength to do so.

I would be honored to receive the Kalia D. Davis scholarship to assist me with continuing my nursing education. I aim to be the person who others speak of as they do of Kalia: passionate, kind, ambitious and with a notable work ethic. I honestly believe that Kalia and I would have connected immediately had we ever had the opportunity to meet. We share a passion for running and for our respective cultures. I envision us sharing a laugh at the starting line and a high five following a competitive cross country race. I believe that we would immediately recognize the kindred spirit in the other and I know that we would have learned from each other. There is something about cross country runners that I don’t see in other athletes and that is a spirit of camaraderie and support that I know Kalia and I would have extended to one another. I am from Tocito, New Mexico deep within the Navajo Reservation and am pursuing a Nursing Degree at Carthage College and recently became a Certified Nurse Assistant. I am pursuing Nursing because I am passionate about combating the health disparities and improving health outcomes for Native Americans. I am a member of the Women’s Cross Country and Track Team at Carthage. I am a member of the Association of Nursing Students, the Native American Student Association, Art Club, a Nursing Mentor, and a Fellow for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Leadership. During summer breaks, I use my passion for running to give back to Native communities traveling to reservations across the Southwest sharing health and fitness activities while teaching about Native cultures and running history. I also enjoy volunteer work through a variety of organizations throughout the year. Volunteering includes working with organizations that promote fitness, provide nutritional meal packs, build trails, Special Olympics and high school athletics. I have made a commitment to rural health care and plan to return to the Navajo Nation to work in healthcare and work to decrease the disparities that continue to exist. I also hope to become a role model to other young Native Americans who may think that they can not attend college, be a collegiate athlete and/or become a nurse. Above all else, I am determined to reach my goals and to give back to Native communities. This scholarship would help me in many ways. Paying for college is a struggle and a worry. The continual rising costs of education as well as daily needs causes mental strain. New Mexico is a very rural state that does not offer a lot of opportunities for students. There were no schools in the state that would have availed me to continue my running career while pursuing a nursing degree. Due to that limitation, I had to seek out schools elsewhere. After visiting several schools and programs, I decided to attend Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin which is 12,000 miles from my home in New Mexico. While I love Carthage, Kenosha, Wisconsin, Lake Michigan and the mid-West; being so far from home creates difficulty and additional expenses. I am unable to go home for short breaks or weekends which means I incur expenses that others do not. I also have travel expenses that others do not incur. The scholarship will help me pay for my nursing fees, books and be put towards my tuition. Kalia, even though we never had the opportunity to meet, is an inspiration. It would be an honor to represent her and carry on her legacy as a scholarship recipient.

Life can be unpredictable; one moment, you’re playing tag in the backyard after a long day of learning times, tables, and adjectives, and the next, you’re entering high school without a clue in the world what you want to do when you graduate. I've never been uninterested in school, quite the opposite actually; my future and the steps I needed to take have always been at the forefront of my mind. My problem was I wanted to do too many things, and narrowing down my passions was not an easy task. However, my decision was made for me in a rather unusual way when a figure skating lesson went wrong leaving me lying out on the unforgiving ice with a broken tibia and fibula. I was later informed of the harsh fact that without the insertion of metal fixations into the bones Id no longer be able to walk or run correctly for very long ever again, let alone jump and spin on the ice again. This was devastating news as I loved skating and had planned to join the cross-country team that year at school. I made it my mission to recover as quickly as possible after that surgery. In the process, I was able to see firsthand all the various aspects of a career in nursing and the stark difference between the level of care offered on and off the reservation. The disparities were glaring and I realized immediately why Native American people have such higher rates of chronic health concerns. I have a passion for health care and a passion for serving people but my ultimate passion is Native American Healthcare. I have always wanted more for my people. Whether in education, healthcare, or the resources provided to us for survival. Ever since the inception of colonial thought on this continent, my people have been systematically pushed down in all aspects of life. This land given back to us by the United States government is harsh and unforgiving, designed to eliminate what they have deemed a threat to their imposed way of life. To this day, the struggle we face daily is apparent, most apparent to me in education and healthcare. Debt and disease are rampant on the reservation due to the severe lack of funding and geographical barriers. Along with that, less than 0.4% of all nurses in the United States are Native American, meaning cultural and language barriers exist for elders and those raised traditionally. This is why I pursue nursing; I want to do my part in relieving these burdens and showing nursing schools outside my home state that Native nurses are worth supporting and reaching out to. I made the decision to study hard , get admitted to Nursing School, face the challenges that college would offer graduating high school with a substandard education and lack of exposure to educational resources, and I haven’t looked back since. As native people, we develop very strong attachments to our communities, seeking refuge in those who understand one another not only through linguistic and cultural means but also through the struggles we face daily. As a Navajo woman, I have made it my mission to do my part to spread the word about the hardships that exist in my homeland and to seek education in areas where better resources and opportunities exist. While a nursing student, I will continue to encourage local youth to pursue healthcare as a career as well as to believe that they can be successful college students. Upon graduation, I will return to the reservation to provide healthcare to my community.

Nursing is my passion which I discovered after experiencing a figure skating accident that left me sprawled on the ice with my tibia and fibula bending in places they were not meant to bend. This required me to receive treatment from first responders, experience an ambulance ride, get xrays, wait hours in the emergency room, have surgery to place an internal fixative and attend many follow-up appointments. Through the agony and discomfort, I found myself intrigued by the healthcare workers and medical system. Previously, my healthcare had been primarily received at a rural Indian Health Service clinic rather than an urban setting. While recovering, I was left with time to contemplate things: how intriguing healthcare is, why weren’t there any nurses or doctors who looked like me and why was the level of service so significantly different in the city versus in my community? I have a passion for serving people but I am especially passionate about Native American healthcare. My career dreams include graduating with my BSN and returning to the reservation as a registered nurse. I believe that Native People, especially our elders, need and deserve to be cared for by Native healthcare professionals. I hope to return to my current community to work in the clinic which is historically understaffed and, in particular, lacks Navajo doctors and nurses. After five to six years, my goal is become a travel nurse gaining a variety of experiences and perspectives and bringing those back to the reservation and implementing positive changes. Within twelve years, my plan is to pursue credentials to become a Licensed Nursing Practitioner and returning to working on the reservation helping to fill the void of Native healthcare professionals. Data shows that less than .4% of nurses in the United States are Native American. The number of Nurse Practitioners is currently less than 1%. This is an obvious and glaring underrepresentation, meaning that Native Americans do not have access to nurses or healthcare providers who look like them, understand the language and traditions, and know the hardships of reservation life. Data also tells us that Native Americans have experienced greater health risks than other population groups. My career goals will help meet vital healthcare needs of Native Americans which were exposed worldwide during the recent global pandemic. I will return to the Navajo Nation as a nurse with an appropriate cultural understanding and the ability to communicate in the Navajo Language. While I am only one individual, I can further help address the lack of Native Nurses by being a role model and encouraging the community youth to pursue healthcare professions. Pediatric nursing is the area in which I would like to concentrate. I feel that by working with children and youth, I can not only care for their health needs but educate them in proper nutrition, exercise and a healthy lifestyle while helping their parents understand the importance of vaccines and regular checkups. I believe that to reduce the increased health risks of Native Americans, we must begin with pediatric healthcare. Encouraging and influencing the children and youth within Native communities to a healthier future will have a great impact on other areas of nursing, and hopefully cause a reduction in the number of significant health concerns in the community, across Indian Country, and across the nation. With the knowledge, skills and clinical experience that I acquire, I hope to do all this and more.

I grew up within the dusty landscape of the Navajo Nation. I’ve been fortunate to experience my culture cradled within the four sacred mountains. My father would tell seasonal stories of mischief and origin and tales of childhood within the beautiful backdrop of our homeland. I sat enamored by the lessons within each story; imagining each character vividly while each action played like a movie in my mind. As I grew, I hardly noticed the story being written as each day of my life passed until being made to sit down and reflect on it for essays like this. Reading the pages of my past, I began to realize that I hardly recognized the person I was. She was so different from who I am now. These reflections allowed me to develop a new appreciation for her as well as for the current me exposing just how far I have come. I believe the most significant parts of my story begin with packing up a U-Haul and driving off into new and unknown territory – out of beautiful Santa Fe and back to the ruralness of the reservation. This was far from the first time my family had packed up our lives in search of new horizons. It was, however, going to be one of the most drastic changes that I had experienced. I had lived rurally before but since we moving into town when I was pretty young, the move back into the woods was jarring. My mental health faltered as I was left to start over socially in a tiny community where everyone had been friends their entire lives. Additionally, I had fallen in love with the sport of figure skating. Moving meant that we now lived more than two hours from the nearest ice rink. I was left without a support system or an outlet. I had always struggled with self-esteem and mental health. This new environment left me plummeting into a deep pit that I would spend the next years clawing my way out of. This was not helped by a little-known virus raging into a pandemic that came about in 2020. This closed our school for a two-week break that evolved into a two-year hiatus. In 2021, the ice rinks began to re-open. I was jumping at the chance to get on the ice again. That is when a new interruption came about during a lesson; a break in my ankle so bad that after X-rays I was told that I’d no longer be able to walk for more than thirty minutes let alone skate or join the cross-country team without internal fixations. I spent the next year in and out of the hospital for recovery, surgery, checkups, casts, and boot fittings. This unfortunate turn of events led me to two new doors, as amid my despair I gained a whole new motivation and outlook on life as a result of almost having something as simple as walking taken away. The extensive time spent in healthcare facilities opened my eyes to the many facets of nursing, a career I fell in love with. My aimless drift through life became a steady gait towards new goals - good grades, acceptance into a quality nursing program, and returning to walking, running, and skating, the sport that had been a pillar in my life. Today, the story of my life continues as a freshman nursing student and a collegiate cross-country and track and field athlete. Perseverance, experience, and motivation led me down this path. My story is just beginning and I eagerly anticipate the next chapter.

I discovered my passion for nursing after experiencing a figure skating accident that left me sprawled on the ice with my tibula and fibula bending in places they were not meant to bend. These injuries required me to receive treatment from first responders, take an ambulance ride, experience the XRay process, wait 5 hours in the emergency room to be seen, spend another hour receiving emergency care, have surgery to place an internal fixation and attend all of the subsequent follow up appointments. Through the agony and discomfort, I was intrigued by the healthcare workers and the medical system. Prior to this experience, most of my healthcare had been received in my rural community at the local Indian Health Service clinic. During the weeks to follow while I was recovering from surgery, I was left with time to contemplate a few things: how intriguing healthcare is, why weren’t there any nurses or doctors who looked like me and why was the level of service so significantly different in the city and in my community. My passion for nursing is probably different from most: I have a passion to serve people in a healing way but I am also passionate about Native American healthcare. Data shows that less than .4% of nurses in the United States are Native American. This is obviously an underrepresentation of Native Americans in the nursing field, meaning that Native people do not have access to nurses or healthcare providers who look like them, understand the language and traditions, and know the hardships of reservation life. Data also tells us that Native Americans have experienced greater health risks and problems than other population groups. To address the disparities in the number of Native Nurses and Native Healthcare, it is imperative that more Native American people become nurses and return to their communities to provide quality and compassionate healthcare. My dream is to be the nurse who helps someone vanquish their fear of the hospital, cheers them up, provides excellent care and leaves them with a smile on their face. I hope to be the nurse who returns to the Navajo Nation with an appropriate cultural understanding and the ability to communicate in the Navajo Language. While I am only one individual, I can further help to address the lack of Native Nurses by being a role model and encouraging the community youth to pursue healthcare fields. Pediatric nursing is the area in which I would like to concentrate. I feel that by working with children and youth, I can not only care for their health needs but help educate them in proper nutrition, exercise and a healthy lifestyle. I can also help their parents understand the importance of vaccines and regular checkups. I believe that to reduce the increased health risks of Native Americans, we must begin with pediatric healthcare. I hope to have a positive impact on healthcare and pediatric healthcare by providing necessary treatments as well as education. Encouraging and influencing the children and youth within Native communities to a healthier future will have a great impact on other areas of nursing, and hopefully cause a reduction in the number of significant health issues and concerns in the community, across Indian Country, and across the nation. With the knowledge, skills, and clinical experience that I take away from my college experience, I hope to do all this and more and with this scholarship, I'll be able to do just that.

Being Navajo is who I am. It is difficult to separate the impact of being Native American from just being me because my culture is ingrained within me. My cultural upbringing impacts my thoughts, my actions and the way I see the world. It opens my eyes to viewing the discrepancies that I experience through a lens of change and opens my thoughts to how I can impact of change for my people. I have lived in many places, both on and off the reservation, but always among Native People such as the Pueblos of Northern New Mexico. This has allowed me to see how vastly different the world moves outside the bubble of our reservation home. The discrepancies were most apparent in the healthcare offered to those in the city versus the rural areas. When I spent a period of time in and out of the city hospital recovering from injury, I experienced the differences first hand and was able to grasp the depth and width of this gap. The level of service available in the city versus my small rural reservation community was significant. When I moved to college in Wisconsin, the difference was even more glaring in cities larger than Albuquerque and in a state with more financial security than New Mexico. The struggle Native people face daily is obvious. The most apparent to me is in educational opportunities and healthcare. Death and disease are rampant on the reservation due to the severe lack of funding, lack of medical resources, and geographical barriers. Along with that, less than 0.4% of all nurses in the United States are Native American, meaning that cultural and language barriers exist for our elders and those raised traditionally. This is why I pursue nursing; I want to do my part in relieving these burdens. I want to demonstrate to nursing schools outside my home state that Native nurses are worth supporting and reaching out to. I also want to be a role model for other young people in my community who may dream of pursuing a medical career. This is the point at which I became even further emboldened in my passion for nursing. Upon graduation, my career goals are to return to Navajoland and provide much needed nursing care to my people. With this scholarship's help, I can leave home for my education and return to my rural Navajo community with that knowledge. My passion for school also extends to my sport, which I would not be able to participate in while completing such a rigorous curriculum without access to a D3 institution of which there are none in my home state. I have worked hard in school my whole life, and with assistance, I can continue my dream of contributing to healthcare on the reservation. At my college, the Indigenous population is nearly non-existent. The Native American Student Association club has only two members. It’s lonely and isolating to be half of a whole and have no real space you can connect with people who understand what it’s like to grow up Indigenous: we were not offered AP classes or counseling; we weren’t even given science classes. As a result, it’s a constant fight just to set myself up for the successes that many non-Native kids have had the opportunity to experience in their schooling. I plan to use my experience as a Native woman in nursing school, athletics, and the world off the reservation to empower other aspiring nurses from the Navajo Nation, and to connect with the communities in which I will work.

Growing up among the dust and dirt of the reservation, I was taught to walk in beauty. Going into my adult years I want to embody this adage through the field of healthcare. Here, in the Navajo Nation, I see beauty everywhere around me. We are a tough people, survivalists of many tragedies and hardships. We fought for our land, our language, and our heritage. The elders are still passing on the teachings that have kept our people alive for centuries in an unforgiving yet generous land. With the education and varied experiences that I will receive off the reservation, I want to come back, help my people and hopefully inspire at least one young Native girl to pursue a healthcare career. As you may have learned during the worldwide pandemic, healthcare on reservations is inadequate at best. Healthcare on the Navajo reservation is deplorable with underfunded and underequipped clinics that are too small to serve their communities. There are only four small hospitals to serve more than 174,000 people on 16 million desolate acres. That is just larger than the state of West Virginia, which, in comparison, has 54 hospitals. My educational plan is to attend Nursing School at Carthage College in Wisconsin. I have decided to leave my homeland to attend school to receive a quality education and graduate as an RN. I will come home with experience in rural areas, reservations and the cities of Milwaukee and Chicago. Ultimately, I intend to continue my education and become a nurse practitioner making me a valuable asset on the reservation or any rural area. The obstacles that I have overcome to graduate and get accepted into a nursing program are many. Every member of the class of 2024 was affected in some manner by starting our high school years amid a worldwide pandemic. My state completely shut schools down for more than a year while the reservation kept us home for almost 2 years. Rural areas were hit especially hard due to the lack of internet service. I am fortunate to live in a home with running water and electricity while more than half of my classmates do not. Without electricity or internet, we were limited in the instruction that we could receive and were left to educate ourselves the best we could. Just as we were beginning to emerge from the dark days of Covid-19, I broke both of the bones in my lower leg and broke off a piece of the bone. This left me bedridden, requiring surgery, months of recovery time, and missed opportunities. I missed out on my dual credit courses because I could not join class by the deadline and social opportunities by remaining at home for several more months. I was not able to compete in cross country or track. More time was taken away from me and more educational experiences passed me by. My high school years were a struggle with mental health issues and an eating disorder in. There is also a language barrier between the majority of my teachers and the students which makes learning difficult and completing assignments a daunting task. My school does not offer a tract for college-bound students which limits the courses we can take. Reservation roads, except for the main highways, are not paved. When it rains or there is heavy snowfall, the roads become impassibly muddy resulting in two-hour delays or school closures. These are but a few of the obstacles that I have faced during my educational career. I have persevered to this point and like my ancestors, I will continue to persevere.

As someone who belongs to the Navajo tribe, I have seen firsthand the effects of historical trauma. My father is a part of the generation that experienced boarding school and Mormon Placement Programs; his parents and grandparents experienced the worst consequences of colonization. As a result of all that they have been through, depression has been passed down the line to me. I remember feeling lighter, more energetic, and carefree when I was younger. My eyes were not yet open to all that I had experienced. As I grew, I began to discover things my mind had hidden to protect me, remembering experiences that no child should have. This began to take a toll on my mental health, and due to my predisposition to mental illness, life began to get very hard. It all started manifesting when I entered middle school; I began to fight my mom about attending school. I became very anti-social; I didn’t want people to see or know me for fear that they would judge me. In the past, I loved school; I did my work and kept up, but when I got home, I found no motivation. My grades began to slip, and though I understood and could do the work, I didn’t see the point anymore. I just wanted to disappear and fade into oblivion so no one would touch or see me ever again. I soon found a way to do this through what I ate or didn’t eat. I began to restrict my food; often, I'd go days without eating, subsisting on diet soda and gum. Everything got harder and harder, snowballing until I was at the lowest point in my life. Now, I was constantly tired and cold, and on top of that, brain fog made my schoolwork harder, making me feel even dumber and more unmotivated. I fell behind on my work and, as a result, got less than stellar grades, adding to the snowball. On weekends, I couldn’t get out of bed; on weekdays, I didn’t care about my appearance. Despite my best efforts to isolate myself, a group of friends stayed by me the entire way. They didn’t know entirely what I was going through, but they would tell me later they knew I was struggling. I had no energy to go out to the court and play basketball. Instead, I’d sit in the library and take a much-needed break. Eventually, they began to join me there so that I wasn’t alone. I remember they made me a giant birthday card with supplies they had around their dorm. I’ve kept it all these years, and it still brings tears to my eyes to think of their kindness. I’d have to leave those friends and that school the following year. In the city, we lived in a house we couldn’t reasonably afford, and my father would have to make a 3-hour commute to see us every weekend; all of it was putting a strain on us financially and emotionally. As such, we moved into a very rural community, and life got more challenging. I’d continue my antisocial, food-avoidant streak. Over the years, however, I’ve grown to love this community. Last year was my junior year of high school, during which I finally overcame my anxiety, made friends, and joined the cross-country team. My newfound relationships and sports put purpose back into my life. Through running, I gained confidence and learned to value my nutrition. I’m still on my way to full recovery but life seems only to be looking up and I’m incredibly proud of how far I’ve come.

Although I have only participated in two years on the distance running team, it has quickly become one of my greatest passions in life. Though it is at times, tremendously painful, it is equally as rewarding. Everything melts away when I run and the world goes quiet. Through running I have discovered new things about myself, my limits, and my specialties, healed my relationship with many parts of myself, and connected with my community. At practice I connected with my underclassmen through the pain of difficult workouts and races, creating irreplaceable bonds. At the beginning of my first cross-country season and many times throughout I found myself as the only girl representing my team at the start line of races. But after many weeks of encouragement and persuasion, I managed to get several girls to come out and try. I was nominated team captain and wore the title like a badge of honor. We toiled in the trials of distance running and now with enough members to get team points, we had a good shot at state. Funnily enough, the stray dog that hung around our track every day at practice, whom we had dubbed Daisy, had traveled the 30-odd minutes to cheer us on at our neighboring school. We had a good laugh about our silly mascot, then it was time to get serious. Together we stood at the start-line at our district meet and prepared ourselves for what was to be our hardest race yet. The top 15 qualified for state along with the top two teams. At the end of a race, you know when you've given it your all, and when I crossed the line I knew I had. I had placed 14th overall and by the time everyone crossed the line, we had made enough points to place second in our district. This ragtag team was going to state, and we celebrated with burgers from the singular restaurant in town. Many of those same girls joined track that spring however, they said no to distance. Most of us subsequently ended up on a medley-relay team, and I as the distance enthusiast, was voted the 800 meter anchor. Once again, it all came down to the district meet to get ourselves to the state championships at UNM. As I rested on the bleachers after my 3200-meter race, I looked at myself and my teammates and appreciated how far we had come together. I was pulled from my wistfulness abruptly by my own anxiousness telling me it was time to warm up for the relay race. "First call for girls 1600-meter medley relay!" aka go-time. At last, our first runner lined up and we all said a silent prayer. The gun went off and, oh my god we're in first. We managed to fend off our competitors the whole race a feat previously deemed undoable, now it was time to do my part. I felt the baton in my hands and willed myself to go. I am not by any means a sprinter, it's why I find comfort in miles-long races, but I made myself into one that day. Fear pushed me through that race, mainly spurred on by my mother screaming from the stands, "SHES RIGHT BEHIND YOU". Normally you can hear breathing or the squishy sound of spikes on polyurethane if someone is close behind but I couldn't hear a thing. I knew there was a gap but I didn't trust it enough to slow down. I finished in first, securing our place at state. The girl behind me still had 200 meters to go.

I started running to heal my relationship with my body and my sense of self. Prior to my first cross-country season, I had spent over 8 months bedbound. It all started when I got my first pair of ice skates for Christmas of 2019. When I tore the wrapping paper off and opened that blue Jackson box I was over the moon. Figure skating had been something I wanted to do for a long while but I was never confident enough to start. Now I held it all in my hands and it felt like a new world opened up. I progressed the fastest in my learn-to-skate group. I had always been that way, a fast learner. Soon after that, I was offered private lessons by a coach at the rink and started moving even faster. Once a week my mother and I would make the two-hour drive to the city and I’d skate until the Zamboni honked me off the ice. Due to the distance, I didn’t get to skate as much as I’d have liked to but, I was always grateful for the time I did get. Then the pandemic hit! Like every non-essential business, the ice rink closed down and I was forced to take a couple of months off. Then in July 2021, a day like any other, I stepped on the ice thinking that I’d be able to do what I always did but that wasn’t to be. I took off on a combination jump, a flip-toe loop and ended up snapping my ankle nearly in half. The x-rays showed that an entire piece had broken off of my tibia and my fibula was in two. If I wanted to be able to stand for more than 30 minutes at a time, let alone skate again, I’d have to get a plate screwed onto my bones so they’d fuse properly again. This was the summer before the school year wherein we’d be able to go back to in-person classes and participate in sports again and I had planned to join my school's cross-country team. Through skating, I had finally gained confidence and proved to myself that I had the drive to do well in a new environment so I was excited to put myself out there. Now I was at risk of hardly being able to walk again. Those months I spent in my bed, despairing over what I believed to be lost forever, instilled within me a new passion. It was now my mission to get up and out there on those trails and on that ice again. I felt trapped and utterly alone so I made a change. Those first few practices of cross-season were nothing short of brutal. It was me and an ankle brace getting dropped on every run, going between walking and running, but I persevered. I saw all the subtle improvements along my journey, now I could run without stopping and an easy mile sub-10. I took my 5k time from 31 to 24 minutes over the course of those two months and loved every second I spent doing it. I had never known the feeling of utter freedom that came when the pain of racing kicked in and everything in my head went quiet. I got used to pushing my body and realized that nothing on the course could be worse than what I’d been through off of it. I learned to fuel my body properly, something I hadn’t been doing before. And most importantly, I learned that I could take the pain and finish strong.

In my opinion, nursing as a major and career is one of the most challenging yet rewarding choices. Throughout most of my high school career, I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I went off to college. Then, tragedy struck, as much as you can call a broken ankle a tragedy. It took me out of commission for a while, and for all that time I got to do a lot of thinking. My thoughts were mostly consumed with hospital visits, the ins and outs of surgery, and recovery from such a thing. I got to see nurses in action, doing the work that let me keep my leg and get back to doing all of the things that I had loved doing before snapping the bone almost in half. When I went in to get the staples holding my skin together taken out post-surgery, watching the nurse perform such a task sealed the deal in my mind, as morbid as that is. It was so interesting to watch the way she handled the forceps, carefully yet with a confidence that only comes with years of experience. I was awe-struck, that is until I almost fainted watching bits of metal being taken out of my skin. I went home that night with a lot to think about, it’s been a couple of years since my injury and over that time my resolve hasn’t wavered. I think what struck me most other than the skill and attention to detail was the ability to communicate. In a person's lifetime, they’ll visit a hospital or clinic give or take, 100 times, and every one of those times they’ll encounter a nurse. The way this nurse interacts with the patient, as well as their family, and cares for their space, will shape the way the average citizen will think of healthcare. I want to be the kind of nurse who helps someone vanquish their fear of the hospital, cheers them up after a tough break, and leaves them with a smile on their face. This career in my eyes is so admirable because it requires empathy for all. A love for humans so intrinsic that you make your life a series of repairing them so that they may continue living a life without pain or sadness. Nursing is a career in which you'll never stop learning, every day in a hospital you'll see a new condition, a new personality, and a new challenge to overcome. You'll realize your strengths and weaknesses, you'll continually improve as a person. I don’t doubt it will be the toughest thing I've ever done. However, with the strength of my heritage and those who’ve paved the path upon which I will walk, I know I can succeed. I see the ways in which my people are mistreated, our hospitals and clinics are underfunded and understaffed. I hope to obtain my degree, return to my homeland, and do my part in improving the healthcare systems of the Navajo Nation. Growing up among the dust and dirt I was taught to walk in beauty. Going into my adult years I want to embody this adage through the healthcare field. Here in the Navajo Nation, I see beauty everywhere from the moment I wake. We are a tough people, survivalists of many tragedies and hardships. We fought for our land, our language, and our heritage not too long ago, those elders are still living to this day. They’re still out there passing on the teachings that have kept our people alive for centuries in an unforgiving yet generous land.