I am not only a single parent of my two toddlers, but I am their only parent. I finance everything for the three of us and our sweet thirteen-year-old rescue poodle, Pebbles. My kids are two and three years old. They are easily the best parts of me. Previous to having children, I was defined by being an emergency room nurse and flight nurse. Critical care was my wheelhouse, and I thrived being defined by it. There was no better feeling than saving someone’s life, until I created two little lives. While being an only parent has created many challenges in my life, I still chose to return to school to obtain my Family Nurse Practitioner certificate so that I am able to provide a better life for my children. I grew up in a family where money was tight most of the time and I was not able to do or have the things I wanted. I always had what I needed, and I am forever grateful for that. I can now also understand the devastation that my parents had to experience not being able to give me and my sisters more opportunities when we were younger due to finances. The most challenging part of being an only parent and returning to school is missing time with my children. Looking into their little round faces, holding their pudgy toddler hands and telling them that they are going to the babysitter’s house again because mom has to go to class now in addition to working full time is soul-crushing. The disappointment on their faces and their voices begging me to stay home with them is almost enough to make me want to drop out entirely, but I know that finishing this program and obtaining that new license will put us all in a better place financially. We’ll be able to go on family vacations, participate in extracurricular activities, and take more time off together if I am able to complete this program. Coming up with the money to complete this program has been tough. I am working extra hours and finding odd jobs to help pay for school, all of which takes more time away from my children. This scholarship would help me pave the way for my future by giving me less stress and affording me the opportunity to focus on my schoolwork instead of how I am going to pay for it. This scholarship will pave the way for my children by allowing me, as their mother, to complete my program without taking out more debt. My goal is to try my best to avoid taking out loans to pay for school. I want to be able to start out in this new career with a fresh slate, not thousands of dollars in student debt. I am hoping that I can give my entire family a better life together through furthering this education. I am hoping and praying with everything that I have that this will all be worth the time away from my children in the end. Because in the end, I am doing all this for them. They deserve the world, and I am trying my best to give it to them.

Nothing competes with the chaos of emergency medicine, or so I thought. I worked the first twelve years of my nursing career in the emergency department and in the back of a helicopter. The quiet moments on shift were rare, while the moments spent with screaming families, wearing fluids that did not belong to me, and running around were plentiful. For a very long time, the thing that defined me the most was being an emergency medicine nurse. Then I gave birth to two babies in two years and learned a whole different level of chaos. No one prepared me to be a single mother or for what life looks like with two under two. I had to take a step back from emergency medicine to a job in urgent care. I had to take on a new, less stressful role as a nurse to offset the new level of stress being a single mom to two toddlers. Not only am I a single parent to my kids, but I am their only parent. I do not share custody or receive financial support. I am doing my best to do it all. I grew up in a family who always had what we needed, but certainly did not have money for the things I wanted. My parents worked for every dime they had and as an adult, I realize that they did absolutely everything they could to provide for me and my two sisters and am so grateful for it. But as a mother myself now, I want more for my children. I don’t want to spoil them, but I do want to have extra money to do fun activities. I want them to have book fair money, treat money, and field trip money. I want them to be able to choose to go away to summer camp when the time comes if they want to go. And financially, I can’t provide those things right now. I have chosen to return to school for a post master’s Family Nurse Practitioner certificate. Working as a provider will increase my financial earning potential and also allow me a better schedule to be present with my children. I want to be able to attend all of their activities and special events. I can vividly remember my parents having to miss my activities because they had to work, and I don’t want that same experience with my children. My children are the best part of me, and I am willing to sacrifice time, sleep and sanity for the next two years to complete this program to give us all a better life together. This first semester back to school has been rough for both me and the kids. To create a better balance for us all, I am going to be returning to work in the emergency department on a weekend program. I will work every single weekend to create more time with my children during the week to get me through this program. As an adult, I am certain that my parents did the best that they could for themselves, my sisters and me. When my children are adults, I want them to feel about me as I feel about my parents, and have no questions that I did everything that I could to give us all the best life possible.

Have you ever cut open a human being’s chest at three thousand feet in the air in the dark using night vision googles? I have. I have been working as a nurse for the last thirteen years, the majority of my career has been spent in the emergency room and the helicopter as a flight nurse. Working in settings where I have people’s lives in my hands and can influence whether they continue living or may die has driven my passion to continue lifelong education as long as I’m working in healthcare. I have worked as a staff nurse, a traveler, a charge nurse, a triage nurse, and an educator. In every role that I have worked in, I have been driven to gain as much knowledge as possible so that I can provide the best care that I can to patients. My passion is driven to provide better care to each and every patient that I come into contact with. I am expanding my role in healthcare to become a nurse practitioner. I will now be the one responsible for making the medical decisions and plans of care for patients. This expansion in my role in healthcare was motivated by my children. They are my personal reasons for wanting to increase my skills and knowledge so that I can grow into the provider role. I hope to provide them with adventures and opportunities that my parents could never afford for me when I was growing up. I am so proud of my parents that they did their very best and that was absolutely enough for us, always. I am hoping, as well as my parents are hoping, that I’ll be able to provide even more for my own children. So while I’m increasing my skills to take care of other people’s children and family members from a healthcare standpoint, I am simultaneously going to be able to take better care of my own children.

Four pudgy little hands reaching out for me that belong to two tearful toddlers, begging me to stay home with them is almost enough to drop out of school immediately. I am the single mother of two toddlers, aged two and three years old. I work full time as a nurse and now I additionally go to school part time to become a family nurse practitioner. I have worked as a nurse and a nurse educator for the last thirteen years. I have spent the majority of my career working in the emergency department and the helicopter as a flight nurse. After having my babies back-to-back, I have been working in an urgent care setting so I can save my energy and chaos for home instead of work. My kids have been my priority since I had them, and they are certainly my inspiration for returning to school. There are so many things that I want to be able to do with my children: experiences, vacations, and adventures. Unfortunately, a lot of the things I would love for my children to be able to experience come at a financial cost and time away from work. While I feel like I am able to get by as a single mom with no financial help, that’s all I’m doing, just getting by. It is not allowing me to give myself and my children the time off from work that I’d like to have with them because I can’t afford to do so. I jumped in with both feet to the family nurse practitioner program at Illinois State University. I am in my first semester there and it has been more difficult with my children than I hoped for. Some days, most days if I am being really honest, the mom guilt of choosing to spend the extra time away from them to attend class could swallow me whole. I have cried several times over the last few weeks during drop offs at the babysitter’s house. Another difficult factor is finding and paying for additional childcare to attend class. The cost of class is implied when returning to school, but as a single mom, the additional cost of childcare to be able to attend class has been overwhelming. I am extremely lucky that my mom has been able to help out sometimes with watching my children so I can get to class. I feel like I am finally hitting a routine with my kids now that I’m mid-semester. I have learned that homework can be done, the kids and I can be taken care of, or the house can be cleaned, but never all three at the same time. I have learned to ask for help more than I ever thought I would be able to swallow. Most importantly, I have learned how to prioritize my time with my kids to make it intentional and well-spent, even though there may not be as much of it. We are cuddling more than ever and taking the small adventures when we can. I know that I’ll make it through my program because I would do anything to give my kids the opportunities that they deserve. I just am trying to get through it with the least amount of debt and tears.

My biggest life passion has changed a thousand times over, and I am certain that it will change a thousand more times before I die. I am perfectly comfortable with that idea. I have been a nurse for going on fourteen years now. For a long time, that was my biggest passion, nursing. I was fueled by the passion for nursing, and it took a large part of my identity. I thrived in that part of my identity. While I still love nursing, being a mother is a huge passion in my life right now. While it is definitely the hardest thing I’ve ever done, being a single mother has shown me my strengths as well as my weaknesses. My children, ages two and three, are tiny parts of myself with my mannerisms and attitudes all rolled into each of them. I have also been passionate as an educator teaching undergraduate nursing, passionate with my time spent with friends nurturing those relationships, passionate in creating different writing pieces or paintings, and passionate in taking care of my body. Like all passions and hobbies, there are ebbs and flows. As a member of the LGBTQIA community and a healthcare worker, I have seen firsthand the disparities in healthcare for this community. I have shied away from seeing my own healthcare provider or wanting to tell the truth about some of my history while in medical offices for fear of biases affecting my care. Coco Chanel was all about advocating for safe spaced for our community and the ability to feel safe and valued. She empowered people of our community to stand in their authenticity and be their true selves. It is a scary thing to do that when you may face repercussions such as medical biases that impact the care you might receive. I am returning to school to become a nurse practitioner. I want to be able to provide safe care for the LGBTQIA community and all people for that matter. I want to be a beacon in my own community where all people feel welcome and accepted so they will be honest with their medical and social histories and in return can get appropriate care. I want people to feel that they can truly stand in their authenticity and be able to receive appropriate treatment. It has been a long time coming in our community that we people of the LGBTQIA community can feel well cared for by our healthcare providers. I want to be one small piece of my local community that can fulfil this. May this be my next passion.

The TikTok of the subway in New York with the woman dancing alone to hot to go while the other side of the subway has hundreds of women dancing and singing it back to her is the true togetherness that Chappell Roan has created. Her music speaks to me on a very personal level as a woman of the LGBTQIA community, but more than that, she has brought a mass of people together that share her love of music. The biggest turnout in Chicago’s La La Palooza history at one stage was for Chappell Roan. She has created this community and brings us all together through it. They did not prepare for that type of turnout for Chappell’s show at La La Palooza. At the last minute, Kesha gave up her bigger stage for Chappell to accommodate her huge turnout, and I think that it is the perfect example of the girlhood that Chappell brings out in people. She creates relatable music that hits you in the gut and can be screamed at the top of your lungs in a crowded club at two in the morning, in the shower alone, or at the park with friends. I support any woman who can create that type of shared experience for people, but especially for women.

Previous to booktok, my reading lists held a lot of romance novels. I primarily shared books with my mom and grandma. While I still love a good romance novel, and I truly enjoy sharing books with my mom and grandma, my reading list has gotten so much more interesting since booktok has drawn me in. I have stumbled down the Sarah J. Maas rabbit hole thanks to booktok. The Throne of Glass series is where I started in my booktok journey, and nothing could have prepared me. It took me months to finish the series, and I cried throughout it. The most crying occurred when I finished the last book in the series, Kingdom of Ash. This series was a punch in the gut and woke up the childlike reader that was still inside me, the one I thought I had lost. This series was and is a whole craze across booktok. There are millions of readers obsessed with this series and all of us gather together on booktok to discuss the books in this series and ones like it. From there, I have read the ACOTAR series, Fourth Wing, Slewfoot, and many other titles that I have loved. This has brought that child-like magic back into my life. I am enjoying what I am reading and getting lost in it now. I constantly return to booktok when I am looking for my next reads and have yet to be disappointed. I found the best recommendations when I look at creators who have similar book interests as I do. I then find their other liked books that I have not yet read, and those books go on my to be read list. Booktok has the magical feel of a children’s book club for adults. I am into my dark academia period of reading and the recommendations are endless. There are now so many “blind date with a book” options now on booktok as well to buy a book from a creator that you love with a random book that they recommend. It includes so many book accessories and fun reading items that I would have otherwise never even thought to purchase. I am a student again for the first time in a very long time and my life is generally consumed with working full time, going to school, and also raising two toddlers as a single mother. Booktok has created the perfect magical escape for me to mentally get away and I am so grateful for it.

I ran through the doors of the urgent care into the waiting room to the teenager laying on the floor seizing. I knew nothing about her; not her age, name, or why she was even in the building, but someone has to take care of her. She stopped breathing from the seizure and needed to have assisted ventilation until an ambulance could arrive and take her to the emergency department for further care. This was the second incident in our outpatient building in the last month where an emergency had occurred, and no one knew who was responsible for the patient. In this instance, the patient was in the building to have outpatient labs drawn. I am a nurse that works for the urgent care. This young girl was not even a patient in my own work area, but someone needed to step in and provide care, so I did. Moving forward, I decided that I did not want these issues to keep happening and that we needed a plan. I took it upon myself, with the permission of my supervisor, to create a policy for rapid responses within our building to get patients, staff or visitors the care they needed when having an emergent medical event. In our building we have the urgent care where I work, family medicine, pediatrics, behavioral health, outpatient lab, outpatient radiology, and a slew of other services. With the large number of people we have moving into and out of the building every day, it seemed appropriate to have a set plan for when emergency events occur. I utilized the clinical ladder program for professional development to create this new rapid response policy. I worked with the quality management team from the hospital where they have an established rapid response policy already, the medical director in my building, the leadership team for the urgent care staff where I work who is the personnel that will be responsible for running these rapid responses, and our educator. With this team of people, I was able to write the rapid response policy that is now published and in practice for our building. This has made a safer environment for all patients, staff, and visitors alike. We have a trained team of people to respond for any and all emergency medical events that occur while in the building to get people the resources and care that they require. My organization is now looking into adapting my policy for all other outpatient areas within the organization. This has demonstrated the hunger that I have to continue growing in my profession. I constantly see what is going on in our workplace and strive to improve it, while also growing professionally. I am returning to school to become a nurse practitioner and continue growing professionally. My professional goal in any role that I am in is to keep that hunger for growth.

I ran through the doors of the urgent care into the waiting room to the teenager laying on the floor seizing. I knew nothing about her; not her age, name, or why she was even in the building, but someone has to take care of her. She stopped breathing from the seizure and needed to have assisted ventilation until an ambulance could arrive and take her to the emergency department for further care. This was the second incident in our outpatient building in the last month where an emergency had occurred, and no one knew who was responsible for the patient. In this instance, the patient was in the building to have outpatient labs drawn. I am a nurse that works for the urgent care. This young girl was not even a patient in my own work area, but someone needed to step in and provide care, so I did. Moving forward, I decided that I did not want these issues to keep happening and that we needed a plan. I took it upon myself, with the permission of my supervisor, to create a policy for rapid responses within our building to get patients, staff or visitors the care they needed when having an emergent medical event. In our building we have the urgent care where I work, family medicine, pediatrics, behavioral health, outpatient lab, outpatient radiology, and a slew of other services. With the large number of people we have moving into and out of the building every day, it seemed appropriate to have a set plan for when emergency events occur. I utilized the clinical ladder program for professional development to create this new rapid response policy. I worked with the quality management team from the hospital where they have an established rapid response policy already, the medical director in my building, the leadership team for the urgent care staff where I work who is the personnel that will be responsible for running these rapid responses, and our educator. With this team of people, I was able to write the rapid response policy that is now published and in practice for our building. This has made a safer environment for all patients, staff, and visitors alike. We have a trained team of people to respond for any and all emergency medical events that occur while in the building to get people the resources and care that they require. My organization is now looking into adapting my policy for all other outpatient areas within the organization. This has demonstrated the hunger that I have to continue growing in my profession. I constantly see what is going on in our workplace and strive to improve it, while also growing professionally. I am returning to school to become a nurse practitioner and continue growing professionally. My professional goal in any role that I am in is to keep that hunger for growth.

My mother was diagnosed with Hodkin’s Lymphoma prior to giving birth to me. I think most people would think that it wouldn’t affect me since it was before I was born. While Hodgkin’s is very treatable now, in the 1980’s, it was not so easily treated. Luckily, my family lived near Rush University Medical Center where my mother received excellent care. She was told that due to her treatments, she would never have children again. During her treatment, she found out that she was pregnant with me. Because she was undergoing chemotherapy, her doctors suggested she abort her pregnancy, but my mother refused. I was born without all the potential problems that her doctors were worried about. She went into remission and continued raising me and my sisters with my father. When I was age five, my mom thought I had shaved all the hair off of my body. When I finally convinced her I hadn’t, she took me to the doctor. They could not find any reason why the hair on my body seemed to all fall out apart from my eyebrows, eyelashes and the hair on my head. I went on through life completely normally until age twenty-seven when the hair on my head started falling out. Now I am age thirty-five and I have shaved the little hair on my head off, my eyebrows and eyelashes have all fallen out and I wish I had the hair in my nose to trap dust particles back. My mother’s cancer has certainly affected how I walk through life. Initially, I was devastated when the long curly hair on my head started to fall out, but now I am confident in who I am as a person both with and without hair. My children see me confident with my bald head and confident in the wigs I wear, when I choose to wear them. I have so much more empathy for people who undergo cancer treatments and lose their hair and those who are diagnosed with alopecia, an autoimmune disease where the hair falls out. I feel empowered to connect with patients who may look different than everyone else. I have noticed that many patients connect with me more easily because they find me to be coming from a place of understanding and vulnerability. I want to continue my education to become a family nurse practitioner and connect with patients on this deeper level. I have been accepted to the Family Nurse Practitioner program at Illinois State University and hope to be able to find the financing to help me help cancer and alopecia patients in my community.

The number of hands that I have held as their lives have fallen apart are countless. I spent the majority of my nursing career working in the emergency department. Many people are in the emergency department on the worst day of their life, whether as a patient, family member, or support person. I have been the healthcare professional, a stand in support person, and a simple comfort for many people. The amount of mental health patients that the emergency departments have seen have steadily increased over the timespan of my career. I have continued to meet people during those worst times and on the hardest days. I cannot describe the ways in which I have helped those people because it has varied from hugging a loved one while they are sobbing in a heap on the hospital floor to talking someone out of ending their life. Those people have changed my life in just as many ways. I am returning to school to become a nurse practitioner so I can further help people on the worst days of their lives. It is a hard and sometimes crippling job, but the reward of seeing people change their lives, is worth the heartbreak, I promise.

The number of hands I’ve held as their lives have fallen apart are countless. I spent the majority of my nursing career working in the emergency department. Many people are there on the worst day of their life, whether as a patient, family member, or support person. I have been the healthcare professional, a stand in support person, and a simple comfort for many people. The amount of mental health patients that the emergency departments have seen have steadily increased over the timespan of my career. I’ve continued to meet people during those worst times and on the hardest days. I can’t describe the ways in which I’ve helped those people because it has varied from hugging a loved one while they’re sobbing in a heap to talking someone out of ending their life. Those people have changed my life in just as many ways. I am returning to school to become a nurse practitioner so I can further help people on the worst days of their lives. It is a hard and sometimes crippling job, but the reward of seeing people change their lives, is worth the heartbreak, I promise.

My mental health has changed dramatically in the last four years. I had two children in two years and remain in that long three-year postpartum period still. As a single mom, I have struggled with postpartum depression and even more so, postpartum anxiety. I have been a nurse for going on fourteen years in high stress settings such as the emergency department and the helicopter and have never experienced anxiety in the way I am since I’ve had my children. Initially, I let my mental health get the best of me and really control my day-to-day life. After realizing that I was having postpartum mental health struggles, I have re-prioritized my life. I make sure that I am making mental health my priority now. To do that, I prioritize sleep, alone time, and self-care any time that I am able. I know that seems very miniscule in the grand scheme of things, but being alone with two toddlers constantly can make taking basic care of yourself very difficult. Adding returning to school as a graduate student at the same time my three-year-old daughter is starting preschool is adding another level of stress. I spent a lot of time deciding if this was the best choice for our family for me to return to school at this time, knowing that it is another added stress. However, starting school now means that I will have completed my family nurse practitioner program before my oldest child starts kindergarten. I am motivated to further my career and be able to increase my earning potential. Being able to make more money will allow me to do all of the things with my children and for our family that I want to do. My mental health affects my personal life more than it affects my academic performance, or at least so I think. Regardless of my stress or depression, I am fueled to get done whatever I need to get done for school. The offset of that is that I let my mental health affect my personal life more than it should. I take all of the stress of school home to my family instead. I have a bad habit of letting the house get extremely cluttered when I’m overwhelmed. Unfortunately, I am someone that is extremely bothered by clutter. Having a cluttered house equals having a cluttered mind. While I am in school, I am going to strive to keep my house and car clean spaces to decrease the anxiety that I experience at home. I am dedicated to maintaining a calm and stable space for my children even though I am increasing my stress by attending school. Hopefully I will continue to learn to balance life as a single mom with two toddlers, working full-time hours, and going to school. I am doing my best for my family to squeak by unscathed from this added stress to be able to provide a better life for us all.

Nothing competes with the chaos of emergency medicine, or so I thought. I worked the first twelve years of my nursing career in the emergency department and in the back of a helicopter. The quiet moments on shift were rare, while the moments spent with screaming families, wearing fluids that did not belong to me, and running around were plentiful. For a very long time, the thing that defined me the most was being a emergency medicine nurse. Then I gave birth to two babies in two years and learned a whole different level of chaos. No one prepared me to be a single mother or for what life looks like with two under two. I had to take a step back from emergency medicine to a job in urgent care. I had to take on a new, less stressful role as a nurse to offset the new level of stress being a single mom to two toddlers. Luckily, I had completed my first master’s degree while working twenty-four hour shifts as a flight nurse before I had my children. This allowed me to work extra hours teaching undergraduate nursing while working full time in urgent care. I grew up in a family who always had what we needed, but certainly did not have money for the things I wanted. My parents worked for every dime they had and as an adult, I realize that they did absolutely everything they could to provide for me and my two sisters and am so grateful for it. But as a mother myself now, I want more for my children. I don’t want to spoil them, but I do want to have extra money to do fun activities. I want them to have book fair money, treat money, and field trip money. I want them to be able to choose to go away to summer camp when the time comes if they want to go. And financially, I can’t provide those things right now. I have chosen to return to school for a post master’s Family Nurse Practitioner certificate. Working as a provider will increase my financial earning potential and also allow me a better schedule to be present with my children. I want to be able to attend all of their activities and special events. I can vividly remember my parents having to miss my activities because they had to work, and I don’t want that same experience with my children. My children are the best part of me, and they are so much better than me. I am willing to sacrifice time, sleep and sanity for the next two years to complete this program to give us all a better life together. As an adult, I am certain that my parents did the best that they could for themselves, my sisters and me. When my children are adults, I want them to feel as I feel about my parents, and have no questions that I did everything that I could to give us all the best life possible.

I’m not sure that I chose nursing as much as the nursing path chose me. At eighteen I did not know what career path I wanted to take. I can vividly remember sitting at the dinner table with my sister and brother-in-law while they motivated me to choose a career path. After what seemed like countless suggestions, my sister said, “what about nursing?” And the rest is history. While I don’t have a heart wrenching story of why I chose nursing, my career has been fueled by passion. I started out as a new graduate nurse in the emergency department. The chaos of the department made me buzz with adrenaline. Every shift that I clocked in for, I was hitting the ground running, consuming knowledge and performing new skills. I drank it all in and quickly moved up the chain becoming a triage nurse, trauma nurse, and charge nurse. I was looked at as a resource within our department and started precepting new graduate nurses as well. After six years spent in the emergency department, I became a flight nurse. This took my career to new heights, literally and metaphorically. The education that I received while working as a flight provider was endless. During this time, I also completed my first master’s in nursing education so I could start sharing my skills to undergraduate students. I could never be more grateful for the opportunities that I received while flying. The scope of practice that I was able to utilize while flying was larger than any role that I could ever have as a nurse within a hospital setting. This is what has driven me to continue my education once again to become a Family Nurse Practitioner. I want to be able to maintain that larger scope of practice as a practitioner that will give me the ability to have a greater impact on the patients that I see and treat. I’ve been a nurse for going on fourteen years and I am still fueled by passion for this career. I am dedicated to helping others live their best lives while I navigate the opportunities to give my own family our best life. Having additional financial support to return to school to complete my Family Nurse Practitioner would help take off some of the stress of returning to school as a single mom with two toddlers.

From the moment I was old enough to remember, I have wanted to be a caretaker of others. I’m not sure if it’s the Virgo in me or my love of people that led me to a career of public service. I have been working as a nurse now for going on fourteen years. In those fourteen years, I have been using my education and skills to serve my community. I spent the first twelve years of my career working in the emergency department and the helicopter as a flight nurse. I have carried the people of my community and their family members through some of the worst days of their lives. My shoulders have held their tears and the weight of their grief. I have seen horrific things that no one should ever see. I have held the hands of my community members through their hardest times, but I have also been there in triumph. I have delivered new lives into this world, cheered when we’ve brought the dead back to life, and cried tears of relief when scans have come back clean after years of disease. I had two babies in two years which demanded a step back from the stress of the emergency department and helicopter. I have spent the last two years working in urgent care serving my community for what I thought would be its lesser needs. However, I have been surprised at how many patients show up to an urgent care with an emergency that needs to be re-directed to the emergency department. In those moments, my coworkers have been glad to have my skill set there to handle the emergency until they could get to definitive care at the emergency department. Amidst working full-time as a nurse, I also teach clinical for the local university in my community for their undergraduate nursing program. I strive to help educate the future nurses for our community and share my knowledge with them. I want to help build up our nursing services in our community so that everyone can receive the care they need whether they are seen in an office or in the hospital. I have applied for and been accepted into the Family Nurse Practitioner program at Illinois State University. It is through this program that I will build my skills and knowledge up over again to be able to provide care to our community at a higher level. With this new level of education, I will be able to be a leader in our community for excellent health care and giving back to the community.

Like Joseph was, I am in the middle of my career and choosing to return to school to become a nurse practitioner. I have been accepted to Illinois State University and will start my program this month. A lot has happened in my career to lead me to this point. I started out as a new grad nurse in the emergency department. I loved it and drank in every moment of chaos, death, celebration, and triumph. Being in the emergency department fueled me to continue my education. I wanted every leadership role, certification, or advancement that was available to me. After a year, I was allowed to triage and direct the flow of care. I became a charge nurse and a resource in the department. I chaired our unit council and drove our department in the direction of education. After two years there, I was offered the opportunity to go to trauma school and become certified as a trauma nurse specialist. This was a huge step forward for me in my career. It made me marketable and skilled in a way that I hadn’t previously been. I started orienting new grad nurses and paramedic students. I loved to teach. When the opportunities ran out for me at the facility that I’d spent the first four years of my career at, I got a job in the emergency department across town. There I had a whole new challenge and new staff to learn from. I spent two more years there before I was offered the opportunity to test and interview as a flight nurse. I had never previously even considered flight nursing, but an old friend reached out about an opening at their base. The next day I was at their base going on a test flight. I tested for the job, interviewed and was on a flight to Denver Colorado two weeks later for new hire orientation. I worked for AirMethods, one of the largest air ambulance companies in the world. Flying gave me the education that I always wanted as a nurse. After six years spent in the emergency department, I felt like I was hitting a ceiling in the education area. Flying gave me the biggest scope of practice anyone working as a nurse could possibly have. I learned skills that are usually only practiced by physicians and also learned the intricacies of aviation. I learned what it truly meant to be a provider, and I wanted to share those skills. During my twenty-four-hour shifts, I completed a master’s in nursing education so I could teach undergraduate nursing and share my knowledge. I wanted to help shape the future of nursing and I did just that. I teach clinical for undergraduate nursing at Illinois State University, where I will return as a graduate student this month. While nervous to start the program, I know this is the right next step for my career. I am the single mom of two toddlers aged two and three. I will be able to complete this program in two years, so I will be done before my oldest starts kindergarten. This new role as a nurse practitioner will give my family the financial support that we need to have the opportunities I want for my children. I am doing the best I can to make our finances work for me to return to school but could sure use some help to ease the burden on myself and my children. Thanks for your consideration.

My mother was diagnosed with Hodkin’s Lymphoma prior to giving birth to me. I think most people would think that it wouldn’t affect me since it was before I was born. While Hodgkin’s is very treatable now, in the 1980’s, it was not so easily treated. Luckily, my family lived near Rush University Medical Center where my mother received excellent care. She was told that due to her treatments, she would never have children again. During her treatment, she found out that she was pregnant with me. Because she was undergoing chemotherapy, her doctors suggested she abort her pregnancy, but my mother refused. I was born without all the potential problems that her doctors were worried about. She went into remission and continued raising me and my sisters with my father. When I was age five, my mom thought I had shaved all the hair off of my body. When I finally convinced her I hadn’t, she took me to the doctor. They could not find any reason why the hair on my body seemed to all fall out apart from my eyebrows, eyelashes and the hair on my head. I went on through life completely normally until age twenty-seven when the hair on my head started falling out. Now I am age thirty-five and I have shaved the little hair on my head off, my eyebrows and eye lashes have all fallen out and I wish I had the hair in my nose to trap dust particles back. My mother’s cancer has certainly affected how I walk through life. Initially I was devastated when the long curly hair on my head started to fall out, but now I am confident in who I am as a person both with and without hair. My children see me confident with my bald head and confident in the wigs I wear, when I choose to wear them. I have so much more empathy for people who undergo cancer treatments and lose their hair and those who are diagnosed with alopecia, an autoimmune disease where the hair falls out. I feel empowered to connect with patients who may look different than everyone else. I have noticed that many patients connect with me more easily because they find me to be coming from a place of understanding and vulnerability. I want to continue my education to became a family nurse practitioner and connect with patients on this deeper level. I have been accepted to the Family Nurse Practitioner program at Illinois State University and hope to be able to find the financing to help me help cancer and alopecia patients in my community.

The first concert that I went to was Bare Naked Ladies. I was ten years old, and I went with my parents. It was my mom’s favorite band, but I liked them too. I was drumming with excitement to attend my first concert. A few months prior, my sisters, who are nine and eleven years older than me, attended a Dave Matthews Band concert that I for sure thought would take me to go with them. Turns out, they took one of their friends instead of their baby sister. I had felt slighted since that happened. When my mom realized how sad I was about missing out of a concert with my sisters, she got us tickets to see Bare Naked Ladies. I put on what I thought was my cutest and grow up outfit to go to the show. We went to dinner before the concert, and I couldn’t sit still at the table while trying to eat. When we arrived at the venue downtown Chicago, I had no idea what to expect. When there were opening acts, I was shocked that you got to experience additional bands before the main event. It was an added bonus that I’ll never forget being shocked existed. My mom and I stood the entire show dancing and singing along while my dad sat back and watched us enjoying the moment. I zonked out and slept the entire drive home after all of the excitement. I knew then that live music would play an important role in my life. Live music seems to have this emotional way of connecting friends, family, and strangers alike. It creates a bond of this brilliant experience that you have all gone through together. I have been searching for that same feeling at every live show that I’ve attended since then and I’ve always found it. It is horribly difficult to choose a favorite concert, so I’m going to choose my first music festival. On a whim, one of my friends wasn’t able to attend a music festival that she had bought tickets for, and I was able to go in her place. I had just finished working a night shift from seven pm to seven am, when I ran home, grabbed a bag and was picked up by friends to drive up to Somerset Wisconsin for Summerset music festival. It was my first EDM music festival. The energy was palpable. I don’t think that I could ever describe enough details about this musical experience for anyone to understand the power it holds in my brain. It was magical to say the least. The crowds full of people caring for each other and looking out for each other, the lack of judgment from anyone around us, and the music connecting everyone together on another level seems unreal when I think back on it. I have experienced that same feeling when at other music festivals, but nothing can compete with that first experience. I fully understand why people commit their lives to traveling to music festivals and music events. That connection between the music and the people is unlike any other. The photo attached is of me at that first festival I attended.

My name is Emily Ruedi. I am a thirty-five-year-old single mother of two toddlers, aged two and three years old. I have been a nurse for going on fourteen years now, with the majority of those years spent working in the chaos of the emergency department and the back of a helicopter as a flight nurse. I have always had a drive in me to achieve. I am not sure if this comes from the way that I was raised, in which I was taught that you work hard for everything that you have or if it was something that I was born with as a type A Virgo personality. I grew up in the wealthy suburbs of Chicago but did not come from a wealthy family. My parents scraped by each of them working multiple jobs to put me and my two sisters through private schooling. I was always surrounded mostly by friends who came from wealthy families. To have to learn why I could not afford the same things or opportunities as the friends I grew up with was difficult. As I’ve grown older, I have come to appreciate the tenacity in which my parents fought with to get us the opportunities that we did have growing up. Seeing my parents work so hard to support our family is what has given me the sense of accountability that I have. I have had a job since I was fourteen years old because I knew that if I wanted additional things, that I had to work for them myself. Nothing was handed to me, and while it was frustrating at the time, I appreciate it now. I have the values for hard work and money because of my parents. For my undergraduate program, I applied endlessly for scholarships and worked as many hours as I could to save for school. I graduated without having to take out student loans, which helped me tremendously as a new graduate nurse not having to worry about paying money back. I have been motivated to continue on that path of financial responsibility. I have worked my way through various roles in nursing that have helped me progress professionally and financially. I have participated in every clinical ladder, every promotion, and every opportunity that was available to me. I am held accountable by my upbringing. The values that my parents instilled in me that hard work makes a difference and pays off. Now that I have two children of my own that I support without financial support, I want to be able to give them the same opportunities and more that I was given. My values have shifted slightly to hold me accountable not only for myself but for my children. As toddlers, they are currently reaping the rewards of my hard work, just as I did from the hard work of my parents. I want to raise them with the same values instilled in me by my parents. I can only hope that by taking this next step in my career to become a Family Nurse Practitioner through the program to which I’ve been accepted to at Illinois State University will further demonstrate my commitment to education, the nursing profession, and my financial goals for myself and my children.

My hands were shaking as I prepared to do my first intubation on a scene flight. I had just gotten off of orientation as a flight nurse and had yet to use this skill. The patient was a sixteen-year-old girl, also named Emily. She had been ejected from a vehicle that crashed out on some country road in the middle of nowhere. By the time ground emergency services called for the flight team, the patient’s father had arrived on scene. He was wringing his hands and had eyes on me like a hawk. My paramedic partner’s calm presence behind me reassured me that I was going to make it through this call. And I did indeed make it through that call and hundreds more just like it. I’ve been a nurse for fourteen years now and while I have worked the majority of my career in the emergency department, the very wide scope of practice that I was allowed while practicing as a flight nurse motivated me to return to school to advance my career further. I applied and have been accepted into the Family Nurse Practitioner program at Illinois State University. This will be the next step in my career towards having the ability to be the team leader and make a deeper impact with patients in their care plans. I have always worked hard as a member of the team to create positive changes in the patients’ care plans, but becoming a provider will allow me to help at the next level. I am a single mom to two toddlers aged two and three years old. I am their sole provider and do not get any financial help. Returning to school comes at a great cost, both financially and physically. Financially, I am unsure as to how I am going to pay for the two additional years of schooling. However, I find it harder to come to terms with being away from my children physically for more time than I already am. I work full-time hours as a nurse to support myself, my children, and our thirteen-year-old rescue dog, Pebbles. Going back to school means additional hours away from them when I need to be in class and completing clinical hours. Emotionally it is hard to dedicate that time to school instead of my children, but I also have the additional cost of childcare to have them well-cared for while I am in class or clinical. I know that going back to school is the best choice that I can make for both me and my children to give us the opportunities that we have not previously had. I am taking a leap of faith that I will figure out the financial side of this to give us all a better life, and in turn, be able to truly give the patients I care for a better life at the highest level that I can practice.

You are going to need more than a weekend to binge this series. Grey’s Anatomy has been a constant in my life since it initially aired in two thousand and five. There are now twenty seasons containing hours upon hours of content. While the cast has changed over the many years since it aired, there are a few constant characters who pull on the heartstrings. The writer and creator Shonda Rhimes has a knack for developing characters into family, friends, and foe alike. She brings out the best and the worst of all of the characters in the most realistic ways, which makes it relatable. At the time the first season came out, I was a junior in high school. Every Thursday night after cheer practice, I would go over to my best friend’s house to watch it together. We would have snacks and sit with our bodies squished up into balls with excitement for what was going on during the episode. We’d wait in anticipation during the week to get to that Thursday night new episode. It didn’t change any when we went to college. That same friend and I lived together for eight years after high school. And every Thursday was Grey’s night. We’d make dinner and watch it together. Even if we were going out after, we’d finish watching the new episode and then make our way out for the night. Our other friends always knew that’s what we’d be doing first. Now as adults with our own children, we still watch the new episodes, but more so, we re-watch the first four seasons over and over. I don’t know if it’s because those seasons are truly our favorite or because we watched them during what felt like the best time frame in our lives. We were young, single, and childless, much like the characters on the show. Oddly enough, I also ended up working in healthcare, which felt familiar after watching Grey’s Anatomy for so many years leading up to me working professionally. I worked the first twelve years of my professional career as a nurse in the emergency department and in the back of a helicopter. The chaos and trauma of Grey’s Anatomy felt very much like the chaos and trauma that I was experiencing in real life at work. It takes a very special person to create a show that depicts such rawness and real emotion surrounding a topic as delicate and as rough as healthcare, but Shonda Rhimes did it beautifully with Grey’s Anatomy. There is no show that I would recommend before this one. I think it has had more of an effect on me than I ever realized…my son is named Grey.

I am definitely a Starbucks girlie. I grew up with a mother that worked at Starbucks. I think it is because my mom worked there the majority of my upbringing that Starbucks always felt like home to me. I’d walk in and smell that strong coffee and it reminded me of the smell on my mom’s skin when she would get home from work after running around for long hours all day. It was lost on me at that young age that she was working there to be able to help provide for me and my sisters. My dad was already working multiple jobs, so when I became school age, my mother got a job at Starbucks. She worked her way up to becoming the manager, which she remained the entire time she worked there. I thought it was the coolest thing that after school, my friends and I would walk to Starbucks and my mom would make us all free drinks. We felt fancy and like we belonged there amongst the adult crowd because she worked there. As I’ve gotten older, I realize the sacrifices she made working there. She was awake long before the sun and worked endlessly long hours on her feet. She dealt with rude and demanding customers. But she also had wonderful regulars and always spoke about her job like she loved it. She would bring me home the newest tumblers, T-shirts and those old-school stuffed animal bears wearing seasonal outfits that changed for every holiday. She made a sacrifice into something that felt like a home away from home for me. I didn’t really become an actual coffee drinker until college. Initially, the chai tea latte was the star of the show for me. When I began working night shift and then also gave birth to two children, I needed more caffeine. I am now a cold brew drinker. I go to Starbucks daily. It is my treat of the day, every single day. My favorite cold brew is their pumpkin cream cold brew. The fall seasonal cold brew. Although it is a cold drink, it feels like the warm hug of a day that I would walk into the Starbucks where my mom worked years ago. The pumpkin cream cold brew feels like I’m ten years old, curled up in a big armchair in Starbucks doing my homework while waiting for my mom to get off shift. Starbucks will always feel like home to me.

The year is nineteen ninety-five and the soundtrack is a Disney CD playing through the entertainment center in my parents living room. In my sister’s hands is an original Nintendo controller ferociously being slammed on as my cousins and I cheer her on. Mario Brothers was and is our favorite game. We would take turns between playing the game and being a part of the cheering section. It took the whole team of us to advance through the different levels. We swore that muting the music that went with the game and playing the Disney CD made us beat the different levels. The music in the game on the more difficult levels was “scary” and we would be goners for sure with that music playing. However, the Disney CDs blasting their cheerful melodies in the background helped us stay calm and advance onwards through the levels. We played sitting in two cheers from the dining room table set up in front of the television and there were always snacks galore to keep us fueled on our missions. There are many things that make me think about my sisters and cousins, but Nintendo and Disney music are two of my absolute favorite. I will forever be seven years old making my way through the Mario Brothers.

Success is working to live and not living to work. My answer to this question would’ve looked very different just a few years ago. I spent the first twelve years of my nursing career working in the emergency department and in the back of the helicopter as a flight nurse. I thrived on the chaos of critical care, and I poured myself into work. Being a nurse is what defined me as a person for a very long time. Being a nurse is definitely still a strong piece of what defines me as a person, but that’s just it, it is now only a piece. I am a single mother to two toddlers, aged two and three. They are the best thing that I have ever done and by far, require the most work and energy. I love that they are able to see me working and being successful professionally. But I also want them to see me succeed as a mother, as a family member, as a sister, a daughter, and a friend to the important people in our lives. I want them to see me be able to be there for them and for others as we navigate life. I want them to know I am there no matter what, for the important moments and for the insignificant laughs or tears after a long day. I am no longer defined by my career and yet, my career is what made me who I am. I don’t think that there is anyone who has worked in critical care for any period of time who can say that they were not affected in other areas of their life. Critical care shows you time and time again that life is short, and you should live it to its fullest capacity of your choosing. For the first twelve years of my career, I chose to thrive in the chaos and put my career first before anything else in my life. I have no regrets doing that. I immersed myself in knowledge and any available classes, I worked overtime to make the money that I wanted, and I advanced my career up the chain. While I loved being able to put my career first, I am no longer choosing that. I am now choosing to put my children first. I am choosing to put my family and friends first. I am honestly choosing myself first. For the first time in a long time, I am choosing myself first. For me, that entails returning to school to become a nurse practitioner. I have been accepted to the Family Nurse Practitioner program at Illinois State University. The program will take me two years to complete since I can only return part time in order to continue working full time to provide for my children. I do not receive any financial support for my children, and I manage on my own. Becoming a nurse practitioner will help me to increase my earning potential and give myself and my children the life and opportunities that I want. Being successful will look like me working a job that I love to be able to come home and spend the meaningful, important time in my life with the meaningful people to me. This scholarship will help me to pay for school so I can continue focusing on my children as their sole provider and parent. This scholarship would make a difference in me being able to spend more time with my children instead of working extra shifts to pay for school. This scholarship for me could be life changing. I appreciate your consideration.