2006 Inspired Comfort Award Grand Prize Winner — Advanced Practice Nurse Category

Nomination

Recipient:	Shelia G. Gholston, LPN 2006 Cherokee Inspired Comfort Award Grand Prize Winner Student Nurse Category
Job Title:	Student
Employer:	Tennessee Technology Center at Crossville Crossville, TN
Nominated by:	Gregory F. Sherrill

My Hero... It is my goal to educate students and to enable their success as productive members of society. Emulating the moral and professional characteristics which students model after to be successful as future business owners and member of our society is my greatest achievement. Educators every day feel their responsibility to model and to weave into our students the moral fabric, which maintains the nursing professional’s high ethical and professional standards. Every now and then as in life someone comes along that through his or her own past experience, bring to the profession those traits which even seasoned educators admire. Not often do you find a student whom you call as I do her “ My Hero.”
The first time I met Shelia was in my night class. I taught night classes especially for prospective students. It gave me an opportunity to meet the new people coming into the program. She was not even accepted into the program and yet she was taking night classes. She intrigued me from the beginning especially when I heard she drove over an hour a day one way to class. Taking the money out of her pocket to pay for the 70 hour class to get ahead and spending all the money for gas to travel back and forth late at night amazed me even more.

Shelia had always wanted to become a nurse. At age 15 she stayed at her father’s beside for 64 days providing total care for him. She even had his nurse teach her how to suction his mouth and perform all his care and after 64 day watched him die with lung cancer which had metastasized to his brain. It was then that she decided she wanted to be a nurse. And not only be a nurse but minister to those without homes and health care. She attended college at Tusculum College in Greenville, TN. But with a child and bills Shelia found it necessary to put her dream on hold and work to raise a family. Becoming a Certified Nurse Assistant she found she could still be close to her dream and minister to the sick and homeless.

Married for 6 years then divorced, Shelia was for ten years a single parent. She went to school and became an affiliate broker in real estate. Still worked as a CNA and raised her son. At the age of 36 she remarried and her and her husband opened a small business together and everything was going good. Two years later while working home health and helping run business she was diagnosed with a rare cancer of the adrenal glands called Pheochromocytoma. In patients with unresectable, recurrent, or metastasis disease long-term survival is possible however, the overall 5-year survival is less than 50%.

Huge masses were found in her breasts, which had to be removed, six months later two more masses were found in her abdomen that required her to have a hysterectomy. One year later another mass was found in her chest, throat, tonsils and all tumors including tonsils had to be removed.  Six months later they had to remove both ovaries due to huge masses. Many surgeries later Shelia was left with nerve damage of bladder and kidney and with massive infections. Shelia found herself at Emory University in Georgia where she became a candidate for experimental surgery to give her bladder and kidney function back. It worked and now she has an electronic device in her abdomen, which stimulates her bladder and kidney to work. She went to the Mayo clinic in Jacksonville, Florida to try to find out why tumors kept coming in different locations, and why the blood pressure would bottom out. She endured more chemo and radiation, and was constantly sick. She lost her hair, she lost her health, her business, her marriage, yes everything and still did not give up. She went through a difficult divorce when her child was 6 and now unable to handle the stress of his wife’s problems she lost her second marriage.

She had to work between surgeries and doctor visits to keep her insurance and she was able to do it all. She worked 2-3 jobs at a time but tried her best to always be there for her son. Years of battling cancer she remarried and now has a loving and supporting spouse. She has raised a wonderful young man and has a beautiful grand child. She now is attending nursing school and pursuing her dream of becoming a nurse. And only months into the program Shelia’s house burnt to the ground and she lost all her books, clothes everything. She did not quit, she did not falter, and she persevered to the end.

In the program, Shelia has excelled, she is a model student and mentor to her peers. We have received numerous positive remarks from staff members, patients and physicians concerning her demeanor and abilities. We have also received three cards from patients at the hospital complimenting her on the excellent care she has given. To my knowledge we have never had this kind of feedback on a student. All who hear her speak experiences her positive attitude and her appreciation for life. Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia one of the places Shelia frequents in her battle for good health, found her so motivating that they actually allowed her to speak to families to prepare them for what to expect next.

She takes advantage of every opportunity to reach her goal of becoming a nurse. She even moved to Crossville so she would not have to drive and possibly miss school because of weather. She only recently moved back to Oak Ridge and that was because the new chemo drugs she is taking are causing her to be very sick and she wanted to be closer to her doctors. Shelia has a motto she lives by and she demonstrates it every day she is in clinical, “Life is a journey, it is not about me, it is about how many lives you touch along the way. God does not make mistakes, so if I can just help someone else along this journey one day he will say well done my good and faithful servant, whether he heals me here or on the other side, I am a winner either way.”

Shelia’s cancer has progressed and as I type this paper she is enduring another surgery to have another tumor removed. She has battled for over 5 years and she is beating the odds. Like so many of our patients she remains steadfast in her struggle to grasp all, which our creator blesses us from life.

I finish this story like I started, hoping to be an example, a positive role model for my students I choose to remind myself of the humanity of my patient, my student and take from the experience the greatness of a shared life. I am blessed each day to see a miracle, to be humbled by the perseverance and compassion of my student, my hero. How can I ever complain, ever give up in life when everyday I come to my class, I see her smile, I see her desire and I see My Hero. On June 16, 2006 it is my prayer, my dream, that I am blessed with the honor of presenting Shelia with her nursing pin. To see my hero achieve her goal will be my greatest satisfaction.

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