Coffee with All4Cure - Sarah (2/4)

Throughout my bone marrow transplant, chemo infusions, and radiation, I had some really positive experiences with nurses. I decided nursing was what I wanted to do. My nursing school applications required reference letters, and I asked one of my college advisors to write a reference. Before agreeing, she asked that we meet for coffee. I thought this was so she could get more information from me to write the letter, but really it was for her to try to dissuade me from applying. She worried that I would go to school for a career that I wouldn't be able to realize because the myeloma would leave me too sick to do the job. She said she would write a good recommendation letter if I really wanted, but asked that I consider a desk job instead. It made me question myself and what I was “allowed to do” after my diagnosis. I decided that I didn't know what the future was going to hold, and I wasn't going to wait around for cancer to come get me. If that meant I would go to nursing school, learn everything I could, and then never be able to work as a nurse, then so be it. I respectfully told my advisor I was still going to apply, and she wrote the recommendation. I went to nursing school, graduated, and have been a nurse for the last 12 years. Much of my career has been working in the ICU (intensive care unit) and I have loved every minute.