A Rose for Nurse-to-Be Jessica

Here’s to Jessica Terry, an 18-year-old high school student who, despite doctors’ inability to provide a diagnosis for her sometimes severe GI problems, came up with the answer.

Terry says she wants to become a nurse and she is just the type of investigator that the profession can use.

The Sammamish, Wash., teen has suffered from abdominal pain, diarrhea, vomiting and fever for eight years, according to a story that appeared on www.cnn.com. Despite many attempts at diagnosis, her illness remained without a name until the Advanced Placement student looked at a slide containing her tissue from an intestinal biopsy. (Her entire class had decided to study her slides because she had been ill for so long.)

After searching and searching, Terry discovered a granuloma where pathologists had seen none – an indication of Crohn’s disease.

That, of course, is the bad news and the good news; Crohn’s is a serious autoimmune disease, but at least she now knows what she’s dealing with and can begin proper treatment.

Kudos, also, to the local pathologists who helped teach Terry and her classmates how to examine, read and interpret slides.

I hope that when the admissions committee at whatever school Terry chooses to attend is deciding whether to admit her to the nursing program, they consider her tenacity and passion for learning and solving problems. Her desire to learn and succeed – to consider possibilities when others have given up or have come to a dead end – are just the qualities we need in today’s nurses.

Hats off to you, Jessica Terry. I hope you are able to realize your ambition and wish you every success.