Courtney Anderson

My mother was a hard-working Certified Nurse’s Assistant who worked in a nursing home during my Jr High and High School Years.  Attending a private school during this time that was located right next to the nursing home, I would go to work with my mother in the mornings until school started.  I made use of my time each morning by going around visiting the residents of the nursing home.  Some of them did not have any family that came to visit and they really looked forward to that hour we spent together.  They loved to hear about what was going on in school, at home and in life in general.  I enjoyed hearing them tell of their stories from the past as well.  At a young age, I was able to look deeper than the old person sitting in a wheel chair and see that this was a real person with real feelings and real emotions.  They sat there with deep and intelligent thoughts and a lifetime of memories just waiting for someone to share them with.  The sparkle in their eye and the look of joy on their face during that small amount of time each morning showed me that I was able to make a difference in another’s life.  I wanted to do that more.

After high school graduation, I became a Certified Nurse’s Assistant and began working in that same nursing home.  Although I loved working with the same residents that I had come to know and love, I still felt limited in both knowledge and ability to be able to care for them.  I wanted to do more.  5 years later, I got the opportunity to enroll in a Licensed Practical Nurse program and became a Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN).  As an LPN, I was able to administer medication, check blood sugars and change dressings.  It was a bit beyond my former limited job responsibilities of obtaining vital signs and assisting with ADL’s and I was happy in my new role, but I still felt as though I wanted to do more.  I still wanted to understand more - feeling limited in knowledge and, therefore, limited in my ability to respond appropriately.  I came upon another opportunity to further my education with an LPN to RN bridge program and achieved my dream to become an RN.

During my time spent as an LPN and on to an RN, I felt as though I was beginning to gain knowledge through experience.  I moved on from the nursing home to work in the acute care setting where I worked in several different areas including med/surg, ortho and telemetry.  Eventually, I  moved into the ICU setting where I felt I had finally found “my calling”.  This is where I truly wanted to be.  The environment of continuous action, the surge of emotions, both good and bad, and constant rush of adrenaline was like a drug to me.  It always left me wanting more.  I thought I was gaining wisdom and knowledge through each experience but, in exchange, I was really beginning to lose sight of the person behind patient. 

That all changed when I became the patient.  In 2015 my whole world felt as though it had been turned upside down.  In a short amount of time my husband had gotten laid off work, we lost our home, left all we had in storage and moved out of state.  Just before we moved, my husband and I were both told that we had cancer about two weeks apart and we each began our new journey in a new state with appointments to see an oncologist.  My husband’s cancer ended up being just a scare and I ended up going through 3 surgeries over the following 4 months to have mine completely removed.  During each and every encounter with Doctors, nurses and hospital staff, I was treated with compassion, dignity and respect.  I wasn’t just a patient who crossed their path, but a real person with real feelings and real emotions.  I was a person with deep and intelligent thoughts who was going through an extremely difficult time in life.  They saw that and they made a difference.  They reminded me, once again, of why I became a nurse and I will always strive to do that more.

Courtney Anderson RN, BSN was one of our BNF 2021 Celebrate Nurse Heroes - Share Your Story Winners.