The day my mother started chemotherapy was the same day my father decided he wasn’t built for sickness. I was 14, my brother Jason was 8, and we sat frozen on the staircase as we heard him zip his suitcase shut. Upstairs, Mom lay bald and trembling after her second chemo session for stage 3 breast cancer. When Dad said, “I want a partner, not a patient. I’m not a nurse,” Jason begged him not to leave, but he walked out anyway—straight into a new life with a younger woman. Within weeks, the mortgage stopped, the house was lost, and our family collapsed.
Mom survived, but nothing was the same. I grew up fast—working, studying in hospital waiting rooms, and helping care for her through treatments. Somewhere in that pain, I decided I would become a nurse. Ten years later, I was head nurse in a neurological facility, trained to handle the worst cases life could bring.....
