A Special Facebook Friend Request
The other day I received friend request on Facebook. I had no idea who he was, and I'm always wary of the random requests that pop up. I sent back a guarded but polite reply: ‘Hi, I was just wondering how I know you. Thanks!" The response sent my mind running.
"You do not know me," the person replied. "I read the note you wrote about caring for babies as an RT and communicating with their families. I am an RT student in N.C. I was researching the 70/70 theory for an exam that I had today when I came across your
ADVANCE note on Facebook. I am just trying to network with respiratory therapists as I run into them on Facebook. Now that I have your attention, can you tell me how you came to be a RT?"
Huh. No one had ever asked for my story before, so I laid it out for him.
"Fair enough! : )
"I became an RT kind of as a fluke. I knew that I didn't want to be a nurse, but I had no clue what to do. I had read a book that involved a young man with CF and I was fascinated with it. There were descriptions of his treatments and how his RT was a big part of his life. I decided to check respiratory out first. I shadowed an RT and knew that I had found it. I graduated in 2003 with an associate's. I had sworn never to work in peds until my peds rotation. That totally changed my perspective. I knew peds was it. I started working for the only freestanding peds children's hospital in Indiana. We have the sixth best NICU in the country, and the highest acuity of all of them! : )
"I was terrified of the NICU for quite a while. Now it's my passion. I am a formerly reluctant NICU RT! I was lucky to have amazing people to guide me. I am truly blessed!
"Now, I'm going to turn the tables on you ... how did you pick respiratory?"
I was both proud and humbled by the interest, and it seemed he really loved respiratory already. Not a bad start. What came next completely floored me. I had never heard anything like it.
"I am glad you found your niche. I have not encountered peds yet.
"
The Reader's Digest version of my story is as follows. One Sunday morning, I was sitting in church before services started, talking to a friend. In the middle of a conversation, out of the blue, he told me that he felt God was telling him to tell me I needed to go to school and become a RT. I laughed and then he told me that he knew I was praying for God to show me a new direction in life. I had not told anyone this, but that was what I was praying about.
"Even though he was able to tell me that and some other things that no one could possibly know, I still laughed because I already had my own business doing garage door repairs. I had some very high expenses and I had to work a lot of hours just to make ends meet.
"Plus, I was approaching 40 years of age and going to school seemed like an impossibility. All that said, I looked into what RT programs were available in this area.
"A couple of weeks after I started looking into things, I suddenly had some things happen that caused my expenses to drop tremendously. My wife was very supportive of the idea because she did not like the fact that we never knew what my income was going to be from week to week depending on how business was going. She also had been praying for changes.
"I am now in the second semester of an associate's program at a community college. I will graduate in May 2010. I will have my RRT within two months of my graduation. I will continue on to my BS in RT through an online program with UNC. I will be going on medical mission trips. I don't know if it will be short-term trips (1-2 weeks) or long-term trips. More to the story later."
Whoa. What a story! I was amazed at the events that put this man on the course to become an RT. I wrote back: "WOW! I can say that reading your story gave me chills. I think you were literally called to be an RT! How amazing is that?
"We are a part of something amazing. It takes so much to be an RT, but it pays dividends! Keep at what you are doing. We need more great people to bring our profession forward!"
Who knew that learning something so amazing would come out of replying to a Facebook friend request? This is truly a way to remember how many lives we touch and how incredible of a profession we're a part of. Anyone bordering on job burnout should spend five minutes with this guy.
So now the time has come to turn the tables again. How did
you become an RT? I can't wait to read your stories!
--Stephanie