Growing up, I was a four-sport athlete. My parents were constantly shuttling my brother and me to our practices and games. It wasn’t until I was fourteen that injuries started to become a problem. It was halftime during my soccer game when I sat down on the freshly mowed grass to listen to the coach. When I got up to resume my midfield position, I felt a great pain in my right hip. My teammate laughed as I limped onto the field, calling me an old lady with a hip problem. Little did we know within two years, I would never play soccer again. At the age of sixteen, I underwent hip surgery to repair a labral tear and shave down my femur. The road of recovery was long and draining, as I felt I was making little to no progress. I was on crutches for nearly four months before being allowed to start learning how to walk again by myself. It was difficult, yet it showed me what I wanted to do with my life. After this experience, I knew I wanted to enter into pediatric nursing to help other adolescents go through their difficulties just as many healthcare professionals did for me. I was surrounded by a team that motivated me every day to be patient and resilient. They encouraged me when I thought I hadn’t made any progress, and took my first steps alongside me. This experience has driven me through the rigor of graduate school. Once I am a nurse, I will be able to give back the support and care I received six years ago. I want to be able to be a positive role model and outlet for adolescents when they feel helpless and hopeless throughout their health-related complications, just as I felt. My nurses and nurse practitioners were the ones who spent hours listening to my thoughts and ensured I was progressing forward both physically, mentally, and emotionally. Education allows me to learn the science and workings of the human body, but my personal experiences will give me the empathy and understanding necessary to serve patients. Nurses are not only responsible for treating and caring for patients but advocating for our patients and their rights. I see myself continuing to be a vocal advocate for underserved communities. As a student nurse, I volunteer at weekly health clinics that serve low-income housing and senior-living communities. We provide residents with the option to receive vaccinations, covid testing, and other screenings all within the convenience of their community centers. As a nurse, I will continue to serve these communities that greatly suffer from social determinants of health and work to bridge the gap within our healthcare system. By advocating and serving these communities, I will be able to holistically treat patients on all levels rather than just the symptoms they present in the clinic. I am excited for my career in nursing; to see the much-needed changes in our healthcare system one step at a time.

Growing up, I was a four-sport athlete. My parents were constantly shuttling my brother and me to our practices and games. It wasn’t until I was fourteen that injuries started to become a problem. It was halftime during my soccer game, where I sat down on the freshly mowed grass to listen to the coach. When I got up to resume my midfield position, I felt a great pain in my right hip. My teammate laughed as I limped onto the field, calling me an old lady with a hip problem. Little did we know within two years, I would never play soccer again. At the age of sixteen, I underwent hip surgery to repair a labral tear and shave down my femur. The road of recovery was long and draining, as I felt I was making little to no progress. I was on crutches for nearly four months before being allowed to start learning how to walk again by myself. It was a difficult situation, yet it showed me what I wanted to do with my life. After this experience, I knew I wanted to enter into pediatrics sports medicine or family medicine to help other young individuals go through their injuries and aliments, just as many healthcare professionals did for me. Through my experience, I was fortunate to be with a team of nurses, nurse practitioners, and physical therapists who motivated me every day to be patient and resilient. They encouraged me when I thought I hadn’t made any progress; took my first steps post-operation alongside me. This experience demonstrated how impactful family and healthcare professionals are to patients. My older brother, a Marine Corps veteran turned nurse, has been my role model since we were playing catch in the backyard together. Now, he paves the way and demonstrates how to be a good nurse and even better person. He encourages me when I am bogged down by school, and he often reminds me, “remember why you are here and what you want to accomplish." His simple remember is a memento that I will surely take with me every single day. By pursuing nursing, I will be able to learn how to be a supportive, knowledgeable, and resilient nurse. After completing my gaining bedside experience, I will work on becoming a family nurse practitioner. I aim to one day walking alongside adolescents, just as my medical team did with me only six years ago. Nursing allows me to impact others’ lives and pay forward all the love and support I have received over the years.

Growing up, I was a four-sport athlete. My parents were constantly shuttling my brother and me to our practices and games. It wasn’t until I was fourteen that injuries started to become a problem. It was halftime during my soccer game, where I sat down on the freshly mowed grass to listen to the coach. When I got up to resume my midfield position, I felt a great pain in my right hip. My teammate laughed as I limped onto the field, calling me an old lady with a hip problem. Little did we know within two years, I would never play soccer again. At the age of sixteen, I underwent hip surgery to repair a labral tear and shave down my femur. The road of recovery was long and draining, as I felt I was making little to no progress. I was on crutches for nearly four months before being allowed to start learning how to walk again by myself. It was challenging, yet it was when I took the time to appreciate games like chess. During my recovery, I dived into mentally challenging board games, like chess. Initially, chess made me frustrated as I couldn’t picture moves far enough in advance as I constantly lost against my father. I was a competitor that hated to lose, but losing is where I learned the most. Every loss, I learned a new lesson from being patient and not so aggressive and that sometimes moving backward is better than moving forward. These were the two biggest lessons I took away from my time playing chess. During my recovery, I had to be patient with results as I couldn’t push forward and skip crucial steps in physical therapy. Now, as a graduate student in a nursing program, I use the same mentality. Chess is a marathon, not a sprint, much like school. I have to learn new concepts gradually every day and be patient in the process. If I overindulge in a topic, I may fail to grasp onto others. Likewise, I must be patient with classmates in group projects and patients in clinical settings. Chess also taught me that moving backward is necessary. In life, we all want to push forward, and we fear stepping back. However, through adversities and changes, new opportunities are born. Before I played chess, I never wanted to take steps back as I thought it was putting up roadblocks in front of me. Yet, chess taught me that when you move pieces back, you may see more windows to utilize. Through chess and my injury, I have learned to embrace adversities rather than fear them. In school and clinicals, I can be more flexible when the plan doesn’t go as expected. I’m now able to see the more windows of opportunity that I wouldn’t have been able to see when I was merely trying to push forward. Chess has taught me crucial life lessons that I would have never learned if it wasn’t for my hip injury six years ago. The game of chess has taught me to slow down and be patient and be willing to move backward before moving forward. These lessons have played key roles in my college life already, and I plan to continue to utilize these lessons in graduate school and practice. During month-long quarantines, I started teaching my younger sister how to play chess. Now, she can begin to understand the many lessons that chess has taught me.

In March of 2020, the world stopped. Bars and restaurants closed, schools used virtual learning, and families were no longer allowed to see one another. Fear swept over our country; as we all locked our doors and waited. Now, looking back at the whirlwind year of 2020, I can say it was the best and most challenging year of my life that I would never change. When the pandemic hit, I was a junior in college while my little sister, Grace, was a fourth-grader. As our schools moved online only, we would do our homework together at the kitchen table, attended zoom lectures, and went outside to play when we couldn’t read another page. Both of my parents were essential workers, forcing me to become both a student and a teacher. I was responsible for making sure Grace attended her classes and finished assignments. We were a team with a set schedule to ensure we were both on task throughout the day. I learned a tremendous amount of patience, time management, and organizational skills during this time. I had to remember my sister was only 9-years-old, and concepts overly familiar to me were complex for her. I had to make schedules for both of us to use our time wisely. If I was in a zoom lecture, I ensured she had a task that she could complete independently and save more complicated worksheets for when I would be available to answer questions. Now, I can translate these skills into my school work and future career in the nursing field. As summer approached and no end of COVID-19 was in sight, our family had more time together. Our dinners became a focal point in our days because family dinners together before COVID-19 were seldom due to busy schedules. 2020 allowed my family to truly be with each other while cooking meals and eating around the same table. We played board games that were collecting dust in closets and watched movies that had been stacked away in drawers. Yet, we missed other family members. 2020 hindered seeing grandparents, extended family, and even my older brother, Justin. My brother worked on a COVID-19 ICU floor. We face-timed him often but it was not the same. Summer made me appreciate my family more. During typical summers, I would have worked and spent free time with friends. I realized how important family truly is to me, and how fortunate I was to have months of family dinners, game nights, and movie nights. If you ask Grace, 2020 was the best year, because we got to spend quality time together. In that regard, she couldn’t be more accurate. The fall turned out to be the hardest for my family. In September, my maternal grandfather’s health started to rapidly decline as his body was failing. Only a few weeks passed until Justin and I received a text message from my dad, “The doctors aren’t sure if grandpa will make it through the night. Your mom is on her way there now.” Tears filled my eyes as I felt my heart slowly breaking, and couldn’t help but think about how my mother was doing. My mom called a few hours later. She was composed and strong, and I was shocked. We talked about our memories with grandpa and laughed together. She knew he wasn’t doing well and had accepted fate. It wasn’t until she saw the hospital sign when she started to cry. Two days later my grandfather passed away. Masks and social distance were not ideal when all you want is a hug from your family members. Yet, we sat dressed in black only near individuals of our households. Less than a week after the funeral, I received a call saying a family member had just tested positive for COVID-19. I walked to the COVID-19 testing site on a cold Friday morning and left with tears in my eyes as the nasal swab stung my nose. Wednesday morning I received the news, I was positive for COVID-19. Those next two weeks of isolation were the hardest. However, I learned how strong I was during this time. I learned how to cope with grief and composed myself just as my mother had done before reaching the hospital. I learned how to be strong, yet most importantly I learned that it was okay to break down and cry and release all the fears, anger, and sadness we often hold inside. Those two weeks allowed me to self-reflect as I craved homework time with my sister and a family meal on a warm summer night. 2020 emphasized that the intangible things in life are most important and irreplaceable, and that is something I will always remember and take with me as we move forward into 2021.