Kelly Yaun

There are times when words simply can’t be said better than they are already written, so we’ll leave you to read Kelly’s response to our question, ”How as an applicant you could see yourself giving back to the CDH community?” – they are raw, powerful, and she is hope personified.

I graduated from high school in 1995. I went off to college for two years. Then, I got married, had five babies, and took a little break from school. For 21 years. People have asked me along the way when I was going to finish my degree. My answer has always been, “I’ll go back to school when I decide what I want to be when I grow up.” And here I am, 42 years old, starting my second semester in nursing school.

Healthcare was never on my career radar. I was a health child with healthy parents and a healthy adult with four healthy children before I ever spent time in a hospital for anything more than labor and delivery. And then, there was baby number five. Hollis.

We found ourselves staring at the ultrasound screen as the room went dark and silent. “His stomach is right next to his heart.” Those were the sonographer’s words. I only recently finished Anatomy and Physiology, but even back then I was pretty sure that wasn’t the norm. A few days later, CDH was confirmed. The rest of the pregnancy was surreal. It was as if I was watching someone else carry our baby around in their belly while I was watching it all unfold. Paralyzed to process or express any of it on my own.

We met Hollis on a Sunday.

He died on a Tuesday.

Six months later, he finally came home with us.  

Between delivery and death and revival and homecoming, there were a million moments that made a million memories and stirred up a million emotions. There were chest compressions and ECMO cannulas. There were feeding tubes and contact precautions. There were incisions and stitches and blood transfusions. There were extubations and narcotic weans. Some of my most terrifying moments on this earth happened within those walls and within those months, but…there were prayers from chaplains and cheers from therapists. There were new friendships started and old friendships cemented. There were doctors who listened and cared and loved and advocated. There were staff members who became family members.

And there were the nurses.

Hope and Alecia in labor and delivery. The Angel One flight nurses. Tracey and Jenny on day shift. Melanie and Greg on night shift. Stacey and Lauren and Juliet and Tatiana on the “Blue Hall”. Teresa whose legacy I will proudly carry on. Emory who wheeled him into open heart surgery. Sarah who welcomed him back. And a dozen others who follow Hollis’s story to this day.

I want to be them when I grow up.

I want to care like they cared and love like they loved. I want to invest myself in my patients’ journey from sickness home. I want to hold a mama’s hand and hug a daddy’s neck. I want to cheer with them when their baby makes it. And cry with them when they don’t.

I want to be a nurse.

I need to be a nurse.

YOUR DONATIONS HAVE MADE THESE STORIES POSSIBLE