Why Nursing?

I know that at some point in the not too distant future I am going to have to write a letter to the BSN program that I want attend that answers the simple, yet complex question of "Why Nursing?"

The question itself is not dissimilar from questions that numerous people in my family have asked me before.

"You really want to go back to school at thirty into a female dominated profession?"

"Uh, really? Nursing? Thats an odd choice for a dude."

"Are you sure you really want to do Nursing?"

All of these questions, among others, came up at one point or another from various people in my life. I can thankfully say that my wife has been 100% behind me the entire time, as have my parents.

Trying to be a typical macho sounding guy, I would simply respond that I think the money is good and there will always be a job somewhere. Yet, when I distill my real reason for wanting to go into nursing it ends up returning to a few experiences I had when my son was born.

You see, we knew from 28 weeks gestation that our son would be born with Spina Biffida. The news for my wife and I was crushing. We went through every stage of grief when we got the news. It was several weeks before I could even tell people about it without starting to cry. Knowing that my son would, according to everything I had read, need to be cathed his entire life, on top of not being able to walk without assistance.

We went to Big Teaching Hospital and had a natural birth in a birthing room with something like a dozen or more people waiting for my son to make his appearance once he crowned. Once baby was born, cord cut, he was immediately given to the drs doing the assessment of his lesion (which was located around s1,s2).

Fast-forward to the next day, my Son is recovering from surgery in the NICU. He is so quiet from the anesthesia that it just tears me up. He is hooked to all these leads that I know nothing about and it's about all I can do to keep it together.

It was the kind words and gentle understanding of the NICU nurses that got me through the days in the NICU. Again, it was the NURSES that helped me deal with my son, helped us understand what care he was going to need, and they were the ones that answered most of our questions.

It wasn't until much later that I realized how much what those nurses do, or at least my perception of what they do resonated with me on a fundamental level. It was upon that realization that a seed was planted that maybe, just maybe, I'd be brave enough to be that person for someone else.

(As an aside, my son has defied every single odd that was put against him. From the prognosis given by the neurosurgeon, urologist, physical therapist etc. He is a completely healthy 3 year old now with no health issues whatsoever to this day (aside from me having to cath him as an infant for a week after we left the NICU). We hit the genetic lottery so to speak by having a baby with SB, and we hit the lottery again when God decided to give us a perfect little boy. He walks, runs, is being potty trained even now.)