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A portion of Ugochi's winning essay:
There are very few things in life that one can be absolutely
sure of. There are too many variables in the world; changing one
can result in a completely different result. However, just as
sure as the sun will always rise in the east and set in the west,
I’ve known nursing was for me since elementary school. My
mother, my role model, is a nurse. As a youth I’d be mesmerized
with the stories she would come home and share with me. No matter
how severe the patient’s injury, the story would always
have a happy ending. I longed to be in the position that my mother
was in, as she would assist the doctors, making certain the patients
would rehabilitate. She would tell me of how she would coax the
most stubborn patients into taking medication, or other things
they would not want to do but were necessary to ensure their adequate
healing. I would listen intently, taking these stories recreating
the scenarios she’d given me with my dolls and toys, mimicking
my mother, as I was the nurse in my room’s hospital, and,
like my mother, it was my job to provide treatment to my toys.
At Fairmont Elementary School, during my fourth through sixth
grade years, I had my first encounter with assisting human patients.
I was afforded the opportunity to work with the handicapped children
during my lunch period. I, and my fellow volunteers, helped them
with flexion and rotation, rubbing lotion into their hands and
arms, aiding their circulation, thereby assisting the feeling
in their limbs. This is an experience I would not trade for anything
in the world, as even at such a young age, I became addicted to
the feeling one gets when one knows she has helped another human.
I became (and remain) a junkie for this feeling, as when someone
gets hurt I am always the first one to run and get the first aid
kit, and applying treatment to the best of my ability. My cousin
Chibi got bit by a dog, and I would not let him go see the doctor
until I had rinsed the bite and done my job as his cousin-nurse
to prepare him for the doctor. When I was 15, I received the opportunity
of the lifetime. For the only time in my life, I was able to shadow
my mother on, “Take your kids to work day.” As patient’s
information is confidential, I was only able to follow her to
the rooms where the patients consented. (I believe it worked out
to be 30-45 minutes total.) I enjoyed lending my mother a hand,
and the stories her patients would tell me about my mother’s
patience and kind heart. Few people enjoy going to the hospital,
and still fewer want to be hospitalized so a kind nurse can make
the stay bearable, each of he patients informed me that was what
my mother did for them. On November 26, 2005, I had the experience
that confirmed my destiny was nursing. My niece, Delia was born
at 12:49AM. As my sister, stubborn as she was, insisted she wanted
no medicine to assist with the pain, I watched as the nurses did
all they could to assist her. They told her about more comfortable
positions to in which to lie, talked with her, in an attempt to
maintain her calm, ensured her IV stayed in and provided her with
proper hydration, and reminded her that an epidural was still
available should she so choose. I watched, fascinated as I found
myself replacing the nurse’s faces with my own. I refused
to leave the room (until my sister accepted the epidural and everyone
other than the doctor and her husband had to leave), watching
intently, thinking, “I could do that.” I WILL do that.
I am convinced that I possess
the same kind heart my mother’s patients informed me does
she. Partner these two things, and I am certain that I will fulfill
my Ancestral Obligation to greatness and become the next great
Onyike nurse, making my mother, the nurse in my life, proud.
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