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Introducing (insert column name here)

Stressed Out Nurses Weekly, February 4, 2008

I will not let this happen to me . . . I will not be on welfare . . . I will not let this happen to me.
These determined thoughts were why I began nursing school. Mine is not one of those pretty, wishful, Cherry Ames stories. I was never one of those little girls who wanted to be Florence. Nursing was not on my horizons at all when I was a child. No white uniforms and caps for me! I was going to be a great writer like Louisa May Alcott or my heroine, Laura Ingalls Wilder. But somehow in the growing up process, that dream got put on the shelf and I dreamed other dreams of a home, husband, and children of my own. I was well into the process of achieving that dream when the life of one of my good friends crashed into my own.

We had many similarities; we both were about the same age and we both had very young children. Like me, she had postponed going to college or learning a trade; like me, she totally invested herself into her marriage and home. However, there our similarities mercifully ended. One night, my friend's husband arrived home and informed her that he had "met" someone else and was very much in love with her. So much, in fact, that he was divorcing my friend ASAP and moving to another state. In one fell swoop, my friend lost her dream. She was left with a fistful of bills, a mortgage, two children under five, and no visible means of support. Gravely wounded emotionally, my friend was also gravely wounded financially. She had no training, no degree, and no way to support her bewildered, helpless children and herself.

I am ashamed to say that my first response to this news was not concern for my friend. That concern came several minutes later. My first response was fear, heart-pounding, white knuckle fear. If something like this could happen to her, who said it couldn't or wouldn't happen to me? What would I do? How could I support myself and more importantly, my children? However, somehow in those first, frantic moments, a steely determination began to pierce that fog of fear around my thoughts and emotions. "I will not let this happen to me . . . I will not be on welfare . . . I will not let this happen to me."

My husband and I had a very candid conversation that evening.

For more of this story (plus a whole lot more!), please visit our site.

And, as you can see, we don't yet have a name for Karen's column, which will appear on our Web site on a bi-weekly basis. Send your ideas for a column name to mbriddon@hcpro.com. The winner will receive a Stressed Out Nurses T-shirt! The deadline is February 18.

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