Hey guys. And welcome to another episode
of the doctor nurse podcast. This week we hear from Andrea
does l. She is a registered nurse a
Healthcare Advocate in a disability rights influencer, as
well as a speaker. And most importantly, a Survivor
at the age of five andreea was diagnosed with transverse
myelitis, which is an inflammation of the spinal cord
that causes pain muscle, weakness, and paralysis that
ended up causing her to need a wheelchair full-time.
By the age of Years old. She received her Nursing degree
from the city University of New York, College of Staten Island.
And she became the first registered nurse in a wheelchair
in the state of New York. She has devoted her career to
helping others with disabilities live, healthier lives whether
seated or abled bodied. She was actually crowned Miss
wheelchair, New York in 2015 and utilized her title and platform,
life, liberty, and the pursuit of access to promote her
message. Age and belief that people with
disabilities can live a fulfilling life.
She's an advocate and activist who was Juan recognition over
the years, including being named new, Mobility, persons of the
year in 2021 and the inaugural Craig H Nelson Visionary, Prize
winner and 2020. She's been featured in unite.
Spinal Homecare magazine. She's been an Apple iWatch
campaign, Yahoo and Forbes. You're going to really enjoy
this episode. Thanks for tuning in to the
doctor nurse podcast. And as always, don't forget to
enjoy the journey of your career and let's hear from one of my
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to help you finish up your Russian guys, thank you so much
for listening to the podcast. And let's dive into today's
episode. Doctor nurse podcast, guys.
I'm so excited about today's episode.
I have Andrea does l. She is a registered nurse
Healthcare Advocate, disabilities rights influencer
speaker, and most importantly a Survivor.
Guys. I I just I am so pumped for you
guys to hear her journey. How she is doing what she's
doing today, guys? She's an inspiration to us all.
And yeah, Andre welcome. That is why One of the best
welcomes ever. So, thank you.
I am excited to be here. Hello, all of the listeners.
Well, I am just so excited to just share, what you've gone
through, where you've been and more importantly, where you're
going because you just got such an incredible trajectory on your
life. It's just inspiring.
So explain to my listeners for those again, you guys listening
to my introduction on her, you kind of know where she's coming
from but where, how do you see Yourself, what are kind of your
hats that you're wearing and your current, you know,
occupational job status. So the amount of hats that I'm
wearing is absolutely unbelievable at this point in
time. Well, let's start at the top, so
main bread and butter is I am assistant nurse manager at a
family care practice in the Bronx.
New York I worked on Monday through Friday, long hours.
Yes. If you follow me on Instagram,
Shameless, plug the seated nurse.
You will know that I am constantly complaining about
these. So, that's number one.
The second hat is I am a school nurse consultant for a private
school for neurodivergent students, who attend a different
setting for school for school reasons. 90% of their kids, take
about medications throughout the day and they have different
levels of abilities. So therefore we have full
nursing staff available to them all day long and I consult with
the LPNs just in case they are unsure and they can't do
assessment. So I'm there back up.
Up. Or I'll go into the school and
do IEP meetings and so on and so forth.
The other hat is I am the CEO of my nonprofit, the seated
position I am the founder of the CEO and we are a non-profit
based out of New York and we coincide with another nonprofit
called the Access Project. We are, we hope will people with
disabilities. I get active and physical in
space and the seated position helps them to bridge, their
educational gaps. Whether that's from high school
to College, college to the workforce, Sleepy the workforce
into another type of we help do all of their educational
settings accommodations and making sure that they have
advocacy on their side. Wow, I don't even know how you
have time for that and to sleep and to someone have a social
life and family and everything else.
One of the things here at the doctor nurse podcast, we like to
talk about the journey, right? We like to talk about how
nurses, get to where they are. I know that the journey for
everyone is different and success is that the straight
line. It's this curvy line of ups and
downs. And then you finally get to the
spot where you're like, Hey, listen look what I was able to
do with my career and this is the journey and the trials to
that spot. So I would really like to kind
of hear taking us back to what originally put you in the
wheelchair as a little girl and then take us to how you ended up
working as a nurse and starting to see, you know, the seated
position nonprofit and all the things that you're involved in.
I really want to hear about like kind of that Journey.
Yeah, take me there, take take me with you.
Yeah, so for everyone, I never wanted to be a nurse that was
not my intention. My intention was to become a
lawyer, so I can sue my doctors for all the pain that they put
me through. While I was a kid.
You guys heard? I have transverse myelitis.
It is a neurological issue that happens because of a virus.
I got a virus, it left me with inflammation of the spinal cord
and then I ended up having paralysis in complete paralysis
from the waist down. So I use a wheelchair to get
around. I've been using a wheelchair
since I was 12 years old, and I've had 33 surgeries, it's
actually 37, but my number in the head is always 33.
So, I've had thirty seven surgeries, and during the first
set of surgeries, my doctor had to like, write me out of the ICU
to go to my graduation, and he came with his and pee from high
school. He came with me, with his NP to
my graduation and in my memory book, they both wrote please.
Anything. But a lawyer.
Well, if you can't beat them, you join them.
And I was like, I am going to find the cure for pain because
of all this pain nonsense. Like I'm I don't like opioids.
I don't like the way they made me feel.
I was constantly prescribed that because I have chronic pain.
So I had to figure out how to navigate my world without pain
pills because if not, I'm just in bed all day, but then if I
don't have them, I can't function.
So I was like, I need to be a doctor so I can figure out all
of the pain receptors like and understand it, right?
So I audited Medical School classes, in my final year of my
biology and Neuroscience degree in college.
And in that class I realized doctors particularly medical
track, not nursing track, medical track, particularly
everything is the disease process.
So whether you come in as a patient, doesn't matter, you are
patient a but your diagnosis is be you're always going to be
seen as be and how be is reacting to your body?
no longer a so, Having all of this previous knowledge of being
a patient. There was no way I was ever
going to roll into a room and say to someone you will never be
able to do this again. Because I already know that me
putting that pretense onto. Someone means that they already
know that, they can't do it and especially coming from a medical
professional. Where this is like healthcare is
trusted. No way.
I'm going to tell someone that they can't do something.
No, there's just no way. So trying to figure out nursing
school actually didn't happen until someone said, well, why
not be a nurse like you'll be able to be the holistic side of
medicine that you want? Where you're more integrated?
And I've never saw someone any of my nurses.
Have a disability, not one. So I think subconsciously, I
never thought that I could be a nurse.
I did my pre entrance exam. I scored extremely high,
extremely competitive for my school and it took me a year to
actually apply to the program. Why?
I think again, subconsciously I think I've never seen a nurse
with a disability let alone in a wheelchair.
It's not something that I Watched on TV.
It's not. So I might my favorite shows
were like house Grey's Anatomy, you know, like er like I grew up
on these shows so I'm like I've never seen a nurse with any type
of disability. Hello Shonda Rhimes if you're
listening changed it. But think about that, right?
If you never see something, how do you see yourself in that
position? So, you know, I applied, I got
in based on my grades merit-based nursing, programs
are the best and I got into the program and then The first day
of orientation, the professors are like we don't think you
could be a nurse. We don't think you can, our
Hospital Affiliates will allow you to be there and this is
everyday thinking, so don't don't even like, this is not
like something shocking. Anyone listening like, what do
you mean? They, they don't think you could
be a nurse will, again representation matters.
So, if you're only used to someone standing up and now
someone's rolling into the room to get this Nursing education,
you're thinking, how could they be a nurse?
This is not, you know, it's not Abstract thinking we're so used
to seeing people who are just standing up who dealing with
very obsolete illnesses in the healthcare field as if health
care workers, can never get sick.
So well, well said, yeah, now let's fast forward a little bit.
I finish school graduate. I get I passed and collects in
the 75 for all of those that want to know that number.
Yes, doesn't matter. Okay.
But I did it in that 75 because I had something to prove Just
give me the chance, right? So yeah, you go.
I fast forward now and I'm asking them.
I'm having so much trouble to find a job, 76 interviews, to
find a clinical position in nursing know, I was thinking,
that's what I've heard your story before.
I wanted to know how those interviews went, like, I had
only to it, it to Hugh, really, I do.
Those facilities listening, yikes.
Yes, I recorded your hiring managers because in New York
state, you only have to have one person know that you're
recording, so because I thought that I was doing such a terrible
job. So with 75 interviews, right?
I must be the worst. I'm the worst rate at 15.
I'm like, oh my goodness, let's go.
I don't know if we mention this but I was Miss wilshere New
York, which is an advocacy pageant platform.
Yes. My I had a I had an interview
coach who taught me how to interview like, who taught me
how to speak. Because I had so much media and
press and how to take a pause and think before you speak.
So, you know, I was just always flabbergasted to get to this
point of having a conversation and an interview and then never
get a call back. Something's wrong.
Like I internalized me being the person that was wrong until I
realized that it was the disability and them not being
able to Fathom past a wheelchair doing something.
More than they think that they know.
Yeah. So, how did you get someone to
take a chance on you? I guess, like, in call it a
chance, like, how did you figure that out?
What was that interview like compared to all the others
covid? Hate, thank you, covid.
For the one thing that came out of covid was one, everybody was
remote and to everybody was scrambling for nurses.
It didn't matter anymore. Right.
Every single nurse was needed Across the Nation.
We needed nurses out of retirement, we needed.
Nurses. Who could just get on the phone?
We need two nurses, who could do triage in the hospital's.
We need to nurses and I see you desperately in the, ER, is
desperately. So, here I am with all of this
knowledge and hospital system. Puts up their HR number begging
for nurses, and I reply, and I remember talking to my preceptor
saying to her, I'm going to go into this place.
They are already pushing me through the hiring process.
They're going to see my chair and they're going to say, no.
And she reminded me that on the bottom of every business
statement, no matter what mission statement, anywhere,
every business has to abide by one thing and that's the EEOC
statement. So it means that they are an
Equal Opportunity Employment, right?
They're not going to discriminate.
So if they the moment they say you're not, welcome?
Or they're going to renew your contract, bring it up.
Keep recording have a bad home fight for yourself and it was
the same. Just the encouragement that I I
had needed to actually do what I've already been doing for
other people just for myself in a situation that has never been
done before. So I didn't even need all of
that because I got the job. The nurse educator.
Didn't say anything to me. I get to the floor.
I'm on a clean unit during covid the first half of it and I get
stuck with a patient that's on a vent.
And the I'm on an ortho floor which is considered a clean unit
at the moment and none of the ortho nurses knew how to control
the vent but the vent was going off and they're calling for
Respiratory therapy. But again this is covid.
So respiratory therapy is spread thin.
Your Co teams are spread thin, your rapid response or spread
thin. So usually you don't have more
than three teams of this group anyway.
So I go into the room and I was like I can do it.
I have friends who are quads that are on permanent vents like
I can I can figure this out and I go in there and I have that
knowledge because it's the same vent.
A friend of mine has I know what high peak means.
I know I needed to get some suction in there.
I know I needed to, you know, loosen her up for some saline.
Let's go and afterward there. All praising me to the nurse
manager and Drea has vent mount, Ginger, and knows what she's
doing. These shoot me straight to the
ICU. This thing I was always wanted
to do, which day you would been told you can't.
Do you not being allowed to do now?
You're standing in the room, doing it.
And you're like, doing, I'm here.
You're doing really standing. I'm sitting but I mean, the
first section. No?
Right. So the perception is.
Yes, I am sitting in the room doing this, you know what I
need? I need you to just get back.
I want your listeners to realize, like there is no real
difference between sitting and standing sitting for 12 hours
versus standing. The difference is that I'm not
going to hurt at the end of my shift.
Dogs. Don't bark like biting.
Do they do? My body is used to sitting on an
air cushion for 12-plus hours a day on a regular basis.
My arms are used to pushing my chair the way I need to go for
miles, I did a New York City marathon 26 points. 6 miles of
straight rolling around. I want to know what nurses doing
this and saying that, they're ok, at the end of their shift,
you're not. And I get to say, I don't have
to worry about that. Yes, you are.
So right, oh my goodness. What?
Respective, you have, after you work in the ICU, you've got this
contract, you are again sitting in the room.
Like, I've finally arrived what ends up happening at the end of
pent of the pandemic. So contracts are cut and I'm
talking I've already made friends with the nurse managers
on different units and I didn't realize and maybe I'll edit this
part a little bit, but I didn't realize you have the nurse
manager that I had met on the first night of my contract, she
had asked me if I had ever worked a unit before and the
answer of course was to do clinicals.
Yeah. Yeah.
You know, I've been a health director for a camper ready.
I know how to triage I know what to do.
And again, 33 surgeries thirty seven to be exact but you know I
already know how to run every single pump and Alaris Widow
polarizers. Whatever you want to put in
front of me. I know how to run them.
You wanted to have friend, rip. I probably had three of those
already want to do. Singing.
I get regular blood transfusions like so I have the patient
perspective and I know all of that but now I have the nursing
knowledge and you're asking me if I've ever worked at unit,
okay, cool. I literally said to her, HR got
me this far. If you have any issues, please
go back to HR, but at the end of the contract, as I'm asking
these managers to take into consideration, hiring me.
It has to go through this one manager who already has this
preconceived notion about my Disability on units.
Post, pandemic and pre-pandemic. So pandemic is pandemic.
It's all hands. But as soon as that's done,
we're kind of like, oh, thanks for your service by and I'm
like, yeah, now, I'm recreating myself again.
So I go back to the school. I am School nursing.
I get a job as the assistant nurse manager at a family care
practice. And I'm like, yes I can do this.
I can run circles around this now, and I did that.
And then I started my own nonprofit.
No, this is. So I want to hear about how you
started your nonprofit. How did this all All play out.
Like what happened on September 10th, 2020.
This was right after my contract, had finished, Craig
age, Nielsen and Good Morning. America, surprise me with a
grant for 1 million dollars. I won the Visionary, prize award
for my perseverance, and my ability to not give up and prove
that even through the worst of times, there's some type of.
What is the resilience? Yes.
Yes you're incredibly resilient your Credible, you are
absolutely incredible. One of the things that I
remember hearing about in your other interview, I was listening
to your other podcast episodes and I remember lying that you
said that just completely just hit me right in the middle and
the chest to the heart and you said why what I am doing for
people that are disabled with my nonprofit and advocating for
people that have disabilities and bridging those gaps between
Ween job, interviews, and job options, and allowing them to
really get what they need from A system that says that they're
supportive says that they don't discriminate, but then
discriminate because that's exactly what's happening, right?
Like you're you're saying that like 76 interview 75 going to
reviews, like I wasn't given a chance even after I was there
doing the job proving that I could do it, I wasn't given the
opportunity and I was discriminated against said, all
it takes is one moment for you to be able.
To being disabled, it can happen in a blink of an eye.
It can happen with just one single mistake, one single
accident, one single, anything, anything you could be where I am
or it or worse, or in different situations.
And so I had that very moment realized that this is important.
This is everybody's fight. It's easy to separate yourself
from it and just below. Those are her problems.
Oh, let it happen. To you.
Let it be that you were in the position and now you have a very
different appreciation for what you have been fighting for.
And so, the award is well earned you definitely deserved it.
And again I am just in awe, an inspired by what you've been
able to do and now how you're able to help others.
And why we all have a dog in this fight.
I'll do like, always, you're writing for Is for everyone, you
are fighting for Humanity, you are fighting for personhood, you
are fighting for people to be seen as equal regardless of the
disability. I just, I can be your hype woman
all day. I'm here, just to piggyback off
of that, right? Let's let's bring it back down
into the realm of just Healthcare in nurses, and I love
to talk about this part. Now, is the fact that we chose
nursing to be The Healing Hand. For whatever reason you got into
it, okay. Even if you went into it for
money no one's in this for money.
So there had to be at some point that Healing Hand that I need to
make a difference part of you, whether you're doing it because
of a family member, whether you're doing it because of you,
whatever the case is, We join this profession because we care
and we give so much of that care to our patients, no matter what,
How is it that we don't in turn, receive that care back when they
come to our door, asking for a job or asking to be an intern or
be in the program or to get into nursing school because now we've
already seen their deficit. Now we see it, whether it's
present and visible or invisible and they're letting us know
about it, we're closing the door.
On the hard work that we put in, we, we heal these people, we
literally give our souls to heal these people every day, post
pandemic even more. So now, the way we are running
around short-staffed and, and overworked and underpaid, and
not valued and devalued, and yet there's a whole section of of
nurses who have disabilities and chronic illnesses, post
pandemic, who cannot figure out how to even get back into their
positions. Because other nurses are now
gatekeeper saying, wait a minute.
You should take some time off, wait a minute.
We don't know if this is going to work for you.
Me maybe we should try something different instead of allowing
them to come back and seeing how that job is going to work for
them instead of allowing them into a program and working with
them to ensure that they can learn how to be a nurse
effectively. And if they can't physically do
it themselves. Can they walk someone through it
verbally because that's what 911 operators do.
That's what police officers do. That's what fire services do.
But yet we're holding nurses and doctors to a whole different
standards. You have doctors on the phone
with Doctors Without Borders, across the sea walking them
through procedures on the phone, they have web cameras WebEx in
people, to get through procedures.
But what, if nursing because of the fact that we're so physical.
And we're so bedside, Focus. Hmm.
We forget that. Every single one of us belong in
this profession, if we choose to be there, Yeah.
Yeah, because what you're describing is like the scarcity
mindset. We talked a little bit about
this before the podcast and I'm obsessed with this mindset,
because I believe that I've been a victim to thinking of, there's
just a lack of your, were all playing a game of spoon.
So we all have to grab a spoon and let's hope you're not the
one without a spoon. You know, you played that game.
Yeah. And there's always one less
spoon so someone's going to be without and I have started to
enforce myself to embrace an abundance mindset of.
There are a ton of options, everyone's Got a seat at the
table. Everyone has the ability to do
something, and whenever you do not value people's personhood
and they value their contribution to society, in
whichever way that looks like everyone has a role to play.
And everyone has something that they can bring to the table
every single soul on this planet.
And if you don't open up your hearts and your mind to
everyone's got purpose. So let's find her.
Let's help her. Let's get her into those
opportunities where she can shine because again, your
nonprofit is how your shining someone gave you that
opportunity to go now go shine and you're like running with it.
And I just think it's so beautiful that even though
people that were trying to hold you down and stop you from doing
the thing that you knew you were met on to do on this planet.
Like, you were meant to do this on your, on this planet.
And you are moving in your purpose and I think that's what.
So Firing to me is that you are moving in your purpose and your
letting no one, not your your disability, not your attract, I
feel like, I feel like you're just abilities become this now.
Beautiful badge of honor that you get to wear and say I am
qualified because of this and it is again just something that as
I've heard you. Listen and I've listened to your
podcast episodes. And I've heard you talk today.
Just keeps reverberating in my mind that you are meant for
something that's specific for you.
That only you can fulfill And every nurse is in that spot
regardless of disability regardless of your past because
we all have a disability, we do with things that you don't deal
with exactly that are specific to me that our problems that
every month I have to, I have to get have to get Imaging every
year that again, I don't really talk about my own personal
health issues, but I have health issues that I actually have to
get looked at every year. I have to have evaluated, you
don't have to deal with necessarily what I'm doing with.
Yeah, I can't let that hold me back.
Back from my purpose, like you just can't.
And so I love that. I love that so much.
And I want that to just reverberate so much in this
podcast episode and for every nurse listening that you have
something that you're supposed to do the specific for you, were
talking a little bit before all this like, you know, just with
people with disabilities in general, when you think about
their Rock Bottom, there Rock Bottom is giving up their
complete vulnerability to someone else and hoping that
they're true that the trust that you're giving them and you're
most vulnerable state will be Respected and and given a chance
to grow and heal and figure out what life looks like.
And at my most vulnerable, there's multitude.
We go through our vulnerabilities, very
differently, but my vulnerability is very visible.
I can't hide rolling into a room.
I can't hide my disability. And when you can hide your
disability, it's another pressure to be able to say it to
someone and hope that they believe that what you're asking
for is actually needed. It.
Oh I don't really see him that sicko you're not really that
way. Oh, I don't know what is this
coming about now? Like we question People's Health
and Healthcare. We question people's ability and
healthcare for getting that technology has gotten us to this
place. And to this point in time that
opportunities are literally endless to the point because
technology is just moving and advancement farther than we
could have ever imagined. And when you think about like,
oh you got discriminated against you should have filed a report
No one blatantly told me they're not going to hire me because I'm
sitting in a wheelchair. No one's going to do that.
That's not how it works. You don't just get to file a
complaint because you don't get the job, you know, I have to be
vulnerable. You have to allow for someone to
think outside the box, and I can't force you to think.
That way all I can do is give you the information and hope
that you look at it from my side of you, where, you've given me
the opportunity to live. Open surgeries is not a small
feat. 37 surgeries means that there's 37 different.
Oh, our staffs that have been in my care.
There are 30 different pacu staff that has been in my care.
There's 37 ICU staff that has been in my care.
And that's just pods, right? 37 pods because it's 37
surgeries and out of all those teams I'm living today
successfully in my own role. Because whatever success means
to me, may not be what success is for you.
Yeah. And I've come back to give back
to a That has given me something and to constantly have to face a
barrier is not fair to someone who's coming up behind me, who
has seen me get to the successful point in life who
sees what I've accomplished a successful and now trying to go
that route and getting the same blockade that I got.
How why are we there? What happens to you guys when
when your backs are hurting from lifting, that 300-pound patient,
right? And you your now, you slip the
disc. You Thing has happened and now
you can't get accommodations to get off whenever you need to.
Because again, we associate Healthcare with being
synonymously healthy and we equate disability to being
synonymously unhealthy and those two things don't actually
happen. Yeah.
You never think that they intersect know everything that
healthcare workers and again you almost have to do that when
you're practicing as a nurse, you have to kind of disassociate
like well that's you know. And the problem is we are Out
much more vulnerable than we think we are.
And I never thought about what you just said that that you are
where you are, because of the system.
And yet the system is now saying well yeah.
Sorry we're not going to give you any chances.
It's like wait, wait. But I'm do your weapons.
Are you leaving your skill set to get me here?
Like like you're just like I'm blowing my mind because it's so
true that hypocrisy of just that whole system.
It's like this is so hypocritical.
Like you helped me get here with 37 surgery. 30 said 37, right
wait, there has to be something you'll be caught there.
Now you're like you can't do this.
This is what you can't do. And again not only have you done
it, you are now reaching back and helping others.
And so just I feel like your whole journey has just been this
uphill. Climb that you've just conquered
thing after thing after thing. And I like to ask people, what
was one of maybe? Biggest challenges that you had
to overcome in your journey and if it can be like one specific
moment you remember just being like, oh this is it like have
you ever had a moment that? Remember maybe you never have
that, you're just so incredibly resilient that maybe you
haven't, but maybe there was a moment in your, in your career
as a nurse that you were just like this is it like I'm meant
to be here, you know? Not like I'm not going to make
it. Yeah then fought through like
you push through. Oh yeah, I was Was going to fail
my last semester of nursing school.
I had already failed. One class pharmacology.
You guys who messed up with pharmacology?
Pharmacology is not our Jam, okay?
I messed up in Pharmacology, my, my first year, in nursing
school, and I had to repeat the class, and you're only allowed
one fail or, you know, which one Fair one.
Drop and that's it. Yeah, so I already used my fail
and I am in my last half of nursing school getting through.
Maternity and I'm failing. Everyone is getting 90s in the
class. I don't understand what I'm
left. Seeing I'm doing really well, in
clinical, I am. Yeah, II don't know what to do?
Second test comes. I fail that test.
The third test comes. I am below what I need, so I
would have needed. There's 150 question final.
They told me to drop, everyone told me to drop.
The professor told me to drop the clinical, Professor told me
to drop. She actually begged on my behalf
to figure out some type of like extra credit.
Because I was so great as a clinical peer.
That she was like, no, there's no way.
The, the dean of the program called me into her office.
Pulled me out of class called me into her office.
And told me that she would give me two days past the deadline to
drop the class. That's how badly they want me to
be like, do not go through with it.
They really thought I was going to fail and Like in some ways it
was the encouragement to drop and not fill out because they
wanted me to pass and in some ways it was more, which is kind.
Yeah, which is great. And in other ways it's like, you
know, your tests are really bad. So can you stop?
Because everyone is passing because they have test Banks, so
sorry. So my class I'm out in all of
you guys. And here, I am trying to like
actually understand what it is that I am learning because I
can't afford to mess up the pressure that I had on myself
was so I should probably draw. I should I should give it up and
I was literally on my way up to the Dean's office on the second
day before 5:00 and upperclassmen, saw me and said,
what are you doing here? You're not supposed to be here
and I said, I gotta go drop a class and they were like, aren't
you graduating this year? And I said, yes.
And they were like coming to the nurses Lounge.
They said, what do you need? What do you have?
They wrote out, I still have the picture.
It actually gives me chills. They wrote out all of my tests.
They did my average, they told me what I needed to get, I
needed to have 80 questions right on the final.
Order to pass the class with a b - so they're like, what are you
going to do with that information now?
Like don't listen to what the dean says, like, we know, you're
going to go drop your class but you only need 80 questions out
of 150. You can do this and I took the
lead because the upperclassmen believed in me so much when I
didn't believe in myself anymore.
I was like, everyone around me is telling me to drop.
I need to drop, right? Don't don't give up this
opportunity and if it weren't for those.
Upperclassman. They didn't know me, I wasn't in
their class, I wasn't in their cohort, I didn't go to clinicals
with them. They've never seen me operate
before, but had it not been from then I would have dropped
because I would have listened to everyone else's know, for me,
and I'm so adamant. Now, I'm listening to my phone.
Yes, that those upperclassmen really gave me back my yes to
say you can do this. Just put in the work two weeks,
you have two weeks until the final and I called another one
of my friends who was already a nurse and she went through over
1,000 maternity questions with me.
In two weeks, we did almost 150 questions on night.
Almost depending went through, all the everything I watched all
the videos. I was on YouTube non-stop.
I maybe got four hours of sleep during that time frame and I
passed, I passed and that was just believing in me enough to
say I can get through it. When even at a point in time,
everyone else was saying, no, and I was falling into that,
trap of know like give it up. You can have another chance in
and I'm not going to Negate having another chance.
I could have taken that job and I could have excelled through
that and if I had failed, it would have been terrible.
But I took the chance on me. So you have to kind of always
bet on yourself and not allow someone else to dictate your
move. And if you need to take that
break because of whatever is happening, then take the brake.
So for a nurses that are hearing the story and and thinking, oh
my goodness, like I don't know how I would have been able to go
through that test and take the drop.
You have it, if you have to extend your time so that you
understand the material, then do that, I just knew what I was
capable of in that moment and the resources that I had and the
fact that Those upperclassmen really just motivated me enough
to give it my all instead of just allowing for the backtrack
and saying, I'm just going to extend my time, I would have
probably just taken the drop. And I don't know where I would
have been. I would have probably failed to
three exams again and I would have been suffering at the end.
So yeah, who knows? But I knew to better myself so I
did love that line and you to bet on myself.
So I did, I mean that is that's what life is about.
About it is about giving yourself the shot to go after
your dreams and not again, like you said if you needed that drop
fine but there's likelihood. It's I think there's a high
sense of when someone gives you hope and you have that sense of
like I'm holding on to this because this is the last string
I got and it better not break. I'm going to bolster the string.
Guitars are my way to do it. See that word picture?
Would you describe? Not of like this is the last
string and I just went for it and I just think that's so great
and Aundrea. One of the things I like to talk
about because I noticed that nurses and particular, I'm sure
nurses with disabilities, they even have less resources for
mentorship. People that again, like you
said, talk about took, you talked about, you have talked
about representation, right? Seeing someone doing it.
And again, that's the heart of the podcast.
Is that self-efficacy? Is that idea that you can do it
yourself, right? And you believe that you could
do it because you've seen others do it right there.
In terms that we understand is to be true.
Have you had any One Mentor you? And I know that you do Mentor,
you've mentored other nurses that have been in similar
situations. You know, you find yourself in
kind of describe to me if anyone's mentored you.
And then if not, yeah, I like how you're mentoring because I
really think we need to do more of that as nurses.
Yeah. So a mentor without mentors is
not a mentor. That's one.
Let's put that on there right now.
If you're a mentor out, They're claiming that you are a mentor
and you don't have multiple different mentors.
You're not a mentor because you can't just have one Mentor.
You need to have a collective of mentors, guiding your thought
processes and allowing for you yourself.
To figure out the path and how you then can can transition for
someone else. Right.
So let's put that up there. And then also a coaching
coaching is different than mentoring you pay for a coach to
get you to the next spot. A mentor can just give you
advice, right? Or you can pay for your mentor
to and they can Be your life, coach.
Hey, whatever works. But I was blessed to have a
multitude of mentors come through for me at different
points in different aspects. One of them mean George Gray
ago. Who is a partner of mine right
now, for the nonprofit's, he started the nonprofit's.
I will progress which partnered with Access Project and now I'm
here with the seated position and Access Project.
So we and he partnered me from the very beginning when I was in
Biology class in nursing Before nursing school being, this
realtor, New York, how to be poised.
How to how to like, really give you those hard-hitting questions
and get the answers that you need and he kind of navigated my
world and disability. Then I have like Tiffany Gibson
who's a part of new nurse academy, Shameless, plug for
her. She's amazing.
She was the one that told me about that EEOC statement, she
was the one that told me how to be a leader in nursing.
She was the one that taught me about emotional intelligence,
and disconnecting, my feelings about my disability.
And what, Someone is saying and trying to take what they're
saying and feed them back to education, that they know.
Yeah. Right, you know, all of this,
you know, how to treat people, you know, how to care for
people. How are you caring for someone
with a disability? And then, is that person coming
back and asking for a job in 3 years because of your care, how
do you, how do you navigate that space?
So to give some did that for me? And then now, like, Katie Duke
is another one. A, when I was so adamant about
the hospital setting and going through the interview process,
Katie was the one that was like, f the hospital, You don't need
that. You can go anywhere like you can
do anything. Like we know that nurses are
saying that you have to be in med-surg she was like you don't
need to do that. You could do anything, we can
figure it out and you know, so and a multitude of other mentors
that I am not mentioning, but I have definitely come into Mo
know there's one that I have to mention dr.
Gloria Ramsey. She is a wheelchair user who is
a nurse who probably graduated in the I think she graduated in
1980s or late 1970s, I speak very highly of her because of
the fact that she may actually, I may have found the first
African American woman with a disability.
She to go through nursing school and to become a nurse and now
j.d., So it's a lawyer. Yeah, Johns Hopkins and in
England. And I believe she just retired
or she just finished. But I met her like three years
ago. And she has been the epitome of
mentors, simply simply because I never saw another
African-American female nurse that uses a wheelchair that went
through the clinical process that has made a name.
I'm for themselves and here, I was thinking, I'm clearing a
path and I don't know how to navigate this this path.
No one else knows how to navigate this path for me.
And I found someone that's already navigated to the point
where she now knows the laws behind it.
So what did she teach you? I want to know like what was
then a nugget that you've been holding on from conversations in
time with her. So she's an education and I just
finished my masters in nursing education so the phonon congrats
right. Thank you.
And, and you know what? She's always told me.
She's like, and it's something that I've already said is like,
if you can't beat them, you join them.
I can't be all of these nurses who are gatekeeping and thinking
that this ability is the end all be, all right, I can't.
I can't beat that and they're already had this mindset there
and they're cno's there. The corporate there, they're
everywhere. What I can do though, is create
the path for someone else to pick up and keep speaking on it.
She's been dealing with this since the early 1980s, I'm
dealing with this now and in 2022.
That's a big problem for to be over 40 years of the same issues
happening. But her words to me were to keep
continuing educating. Because education is what
changes the way things. R.
And I never once done, I never you done with your masks.
Are you done after the Masters and where you going?
Yeah, I'm going for that. Okay, so right now I am actually
considering my NP instead of doing my dnp just because I have
to Fast Track. Some things I would like to do
with my nonprofit, it's a huge issue for people with
disabilities to have primary care and I feel like NPS can
fill that Gap and really do Focus based assessments for
these individuals that can actually get them the resources
and the care that they need. So the only the only way for me
to do that is to get into n Pi already finished my master so
it's a year extra to do my clinical side and Gloria wants
me to create a completely different focused assessment,
particularly those who have spinal cord injury and illness
is incredible. Yeah, very cool.
So you are going to do what she told you.
I keep getting education as I said it's a that's what it's
going to take to change. Maybe when I'm her age and I've
created this Focus assessment and now people are coming in the
ER with No cord injury and illness or they're in the ICU,
there's a different type of assessment that then gets passed
on to their Primary Care team. That knows what their Baseline
was in the ICU that will then follow them throughout their
life and then figure out what aging with a disability looks
like. So we can stop the stereotypical
narrative that everyone with a disability is equal to a death
sentence. You have a unique purpose, that,
you know, and I feel like you keep discovering what your
purpose is. Like, you find one of them like
she's done. She'd, that's it.
She did her. You're like, no, no, it's just
so good for the soul. What you're doing is good for
the soul, because it allows you to be hungry for life.
It gives you a sense. For what's next?
And what I'm tired, guys. I'm tired.
I need any help. I need all the Allies.
I could get a whole time if you could go back and talk to Andrea
on that first day of nursing school.
She's rolling up first day and you could tell her something
that you would have liked to have known from the beginning.
And something that you would tell her toss it, don't listen
to this. This is garbage, okay?
Yeah. What would you go back and tell
her if you could given everything that you've gone
through? Well, I didn't know it at the
time and you guys just heard me say it and it's something that
I've lived by. Now it's listen to your own.
Yes there's a million knows but your yes is the most important.
So if you believe it for yourself let no no deter you
Wow. So that would be one thing to
hold. Onto.
What about a thing to toss? Or because you're kind of
tossed. The nose and keep adding key
because you're my yes, but it's always going to be my yes.
Right? So like so long.
As you believe in your own ability you have to believe in
yourself and people's. It's very cliche to say but you
really have to believe in your own ability.
So for someone like me, who has a spinal cord injury, who uses a
wheelchair everyday? I'm navigating my space.
And I have to think 30 steps ahead.
There's a stuck to the bathroom if I slip, is there something
next to me that I be able to get back on my chair.
Okay. Is the handle down is my chair
seat there? If I'm getting in my car, do I
have all of everything that I need, because I can't just roll
back into or run back into the house, right?
Like there's always a process and there's always going to be a
process. So yes, those are my daily
processes now. When I'm facing the world,
there's always going to be obstacles.
Whether there's crossing the street and there's No curb cut,
whether I'm going to interview and it's not wheelchair
accessible. Whether I am trying to teach a
class and no one is understanding directly what I'm
talking about because disability doesn't relate to them, right?
The most they've had disability relations to is to a grandparent
so there's always something to navigate but as long as I am
okay with saying I can do it and navigate the inaccessibility,
navigate the bias navigate. The pathway that I want then yes
I'm going to do it and if I don't want to then it's mine own
I can see no well said I'm sure this has been so much fun and
the last part of the interview I go through Rapid Fire, right?
So I just hit him hard, super fast.
Are you ready? Let's go name.
I feel like you've told me this. Okay, we're gonna go here.
What age is the best age to be to you?
Who 3030? They're gonna say they're 30 30,
Because you've partied you. You understand party life.
Now you understand adulthood and this is the shift where you
literally get to make or break the rest of your life.
You get to decide, okay? I'm going to have kids, I'm
going to settle down. I'm going to work until I'm 55.
You get to now make this plan of action 20s.
You've already discarded, you went to school, gave some time
up part of your life away 30 you get to literally change your
entire trajectory you can change it whatever you want but 30
you're not partying until 3:00 in the morning.
Anymore. You can't force.
Our hangovers are way worse now. So tell me what's your favorite
holiday Christmas? Everybody tells me Christmas.
I am so into July 4th. So like I feel like I'm waiting
for someone to be like July 4th of okay you know what?
Alright alright alright Chinese New Year in China.
Oh you went to tribe, never been to China but I watch their
Chinese New Year on like YouTube It's lit.
Its lit. Like their fireworks are nothing
like our gelato I don't know I love Christmas because I love to
give gifts. I am a giver it is the way I
show my love language to someone like so yeah Christmas is my I
need to see everybody's face light up.
I don't even care about my gifts like yeah.
Okay, so I feel like this question, I'm very interested to
hear. What are you most grateful for
in the whole wide world? My mom I know that.
Oh my God, little heart brain know.
Okay, so what's my parents? But my mom, particularly because
my mom is from Donna. So, she came up here from
Minnesota, my dad requested for her to come up, and they got
married, and when they got married a year later, they had
me. And then five years later on.
The diagnosis that they've never heard of.
They've never dealt with no one in my family, has any type of
physical disability and here my mom is trying.
She was the breadwinner of the household at the time and he or
she is struggling to maintain that working mom status in an
interior design firm while her child is going through major
surgeries and rehabs and sicknesses and hospitalizations
and all of the above and she juggled it all with two other
three. There's three Us total and she
juggled it all my entire life. I have watched her fight tooth
and nail for the thing with my insurance to get in things that
I've needed. I've watched her cry when she
thought, I didn't see her going crying, over things that I have
been through and just, you know, she's at she's Faith.
That's it, that's Mom give it to her, she's the oh, gee, that's
it. Oh my goodness, there's no me
without her. This personality is all mom.
This this tenacity is all mom. This is going to set a pick
this. Yes, this is from Mama.
This is from the Latina mama in the day.
So I have a Latina mama. She will tell me on any day I
can do. So I can't do its thing.
What do you mean? You can't do it?
What does that mean? I don't understand.
I never tried. You have never raised you with
that word. Did you try?
Yeah, she's gotta face the fear conqueror like, you know, for
all the fear it's not really fear, right?
It's just the absence of courage and we just have to find that
part in my parents being immigrants in our country for
the first time and having a child with the with a disability
and having them navigate A system that they're not even
really clear about, you know? Yeah, that's powerhouses to
them. I give them all the Kudos.
It's to my parents and I thank them daily.
For making me the rebel that I am today.
I had to fight them tooth and nail to be the person that I am
too, because they were so protective of me, right?
Like think about your parents. Your parents are no gonna be
super protective. They don't want you to get hurt.
They don't want people to hurt you, and but you got to kind of
find that voice and I used to tell my mom all the time but you
can do it. Why can't I?
Yeah it's she's like oh God. I read that.
That's what I did. I mean I'm a mom now, right?
So like what my son does something, I'm like I can't be
mad because I would have done the same thing, right?
I just think you're great. I really do have a huge fan and
thank you for coming on to the podcast today and sharing your
journey with me. And I feel like we're kindred
spirit. We are partly because we're both
Latina your curly hair and I just think your whole energy and
your Vibe. So thank you for coming on and
talking with my audience. Yes.
Thank you. So so much for having me, guys.
Thank you for having me, listening.
Yes. And I'm going to All your stuff
in the show notes so they can find you if they're interested
your website Instagram. I'll put you everywhere and
yeah, so that they could check you out because you are
definitely worth checking out. And yes, all right, thanks for
coming on. Yes, and don't forget to enjoy
the journey. Gee mom back.
So that's a wrap. Be sure to subscribe to the show
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