Just When The Caterpillar Thought The World Was Ending, It Became A Butterfly

Brooke Smith
Welcome to MDF Instruments Crafting Wellness Podcast, I am so honored and over the moon today to introduce you to Chandler. You might know her as the travelling nurse on social media. She's doing all kinds of incredible things in the world, and is a truly inspiring nurse, so I had to have her on the podcast. So I'm just gonna go ahead and let her introduce herself a little bit to everyone who might not

Chandler
Hi everyone, I'm so excited to be here. My name is Chandler, and I'm a paediatric travelling nurse whose home unit is the cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit. Right now I'm working in more of a critical care setting but I have experience from nursing all over the world. I've gone to Kenya, India and Costa Rica. I recently got my Master's in Public Health to focus on pediatric healthcare sustainability. So I'm just really excited to be here and tell you more a little bit about my story.

Brooke Smith
Yeah, we're so excited to have you, I guess we'll just kind of start with, let's start with the basics, just kind of tell us where you're from where you were born.

Chandler
So I'm from San Francisco, I went to the University of San Francisco for nursing school. And it's hard to leave California, when you're here you have everything that you could ever need, the ocean, the mountains. But I've always felt this draw to New York. And so it wasn't until last year that I actually got to move to New York as a travelling nurse, which was so fun. But otherwise, I'm from San Francisco born and bred.

Brooke Smith
I know that you've had quite quite the journey in your life, you've gone through a lot of things that were difficult at a really young age, take a lot of strength and build a lot of strength in you. So I'm just here about why did you become a nurse? Tell us a little bit about how this even came to be for you?

Chandler
Yeah, so when I was 16, my whole life was dance, I thought that I was going to be a professional Broadway dancer. Everything I did revolved around dancing. I had never really tried in school, i'd take all my classes, I'd get A's and B's. But I never really devoted myself because I knew dance was it for me. Like, I didn't need to have a 4.5 GPA. To be a dancer, I literally channelled all of my mental capacity into dancing. And when I was 16, I was doing a dance move. I'll try to like describe what I was doing. Because I remember it so vividly. It was almost like a toe touch that you see with cheerleading. And then you level out your body. So you look like you're flying like Superman in the air, and then you drop to your hands.And I love to jump jumping was my favourite. And I did it a little bit too intensely. And I fractured my wrist. And I never complained about anything growing up ever, ever, ever.And I went to my mom and I'm like, something doesn't feel right here. And we went to the emergency room. No, also like background, I'm a kid that broke like all of my toes never was fazed by anything hurting or broken on my body. So like, had already a high pain tolerance. So my mom really knew something was wrong if I'm complaining about it. So we go to the emergency room, and they do a bunch of X rays and stuff. They see a fracture. And they're like, You know what, let's put it in a cast for now.And then come back if you need anything else. But little did they know that that was the worst thing that they ever could have done for me.So a week goes by and I'm just getting more and more in agony and pain. I see my fingers are turning purple. My arm is literally just like pulsing in a way I have never felt like I could feel my entire heartbeat, almost like on steroids just in my arm.And I unwrapped the soft cast that they had put on and my arm was blue in and ice cold to the touch, and what the heck is going on. So I tried to like, wait it out, I was studying for a chemistry exam with a friend trying to just distract myself and I was resting on the couch, and my dog at the time ran past me and the little hairs on top of his head, hit my finger, and I thought my finger had been chopped off. And I screamed bloody murder in a way that I think no one's ever heard in their life. My mom rushes me to the emergency room. At first, they told me I had carpal tunnel, because kids text too much. And I'm like, This is not carpal tunnel. I don't know what is going on here. But something is really wrong. So they admitted me. And at this point, I had lost the ability to move my arm, the ability to walk, I was immobilised in a wheelchair, I, I just, I kind of felt like the life that I had known had just disappeared within a second. You know, it was homecoming, I was supposed to be going to homecoming with my friends. And ironically, the hospital that I was at was right across the street from my high school. So I am watching from my window, my classmates go and live their normal lives. And I'm going through this feeling so isolated, and by myself. I didn't know if I would dance again. And that, as I mentioned, like that was my entire world. And so they diagnosed me with chronic regional pain syndrome, which is essentially when my glial cells which are part of the central nervous system, were misfiring with any stimulation, that could have been movement that could have been wind that could have been touch.And the way that my neurologist best describes it is, let's say, like, you have your house, and it's getting hardwired. Imagine if you go to turn on a light switch, and the toilet flushes. There was some for some reason, with that trauma of my fracture, there was a miscommunication happening with my nerve cells. And what just really did me in was having that cast on with that constant stimuli and immobilising it.So ended up being in the hospital for my entire senior year of high school.They transferred me to Stanford Children's Hospital, where they had a specialist and neurologist. And he at the time had mainly worked with adults with this condition. And he saw my arm and he's like, You are the worst case that I've ever seen.He actually did a TED talk on me. And he really describes well, how this condition and pain is a disease. It's a disease of, you know, how how the mind is processing information. Andat Stanford, I actually finished high school going to hospital school, I was in what they call the pain programme, where I would go to physical therapy and occupational therapy. For an hour, two times a day, I underwent seven operations to put these nerve catheters in almost like an epidural for pregnancy.But they'd go, they'd find some type of a nerve bundle, put it in, and it would completely anaesthetise my arm. So that one I was going through physical therapy and occupational therapy. At the beginning, I was known, because the pain would have been so immense. So how it worked was, I'm numb. And this was just the beginning, I just want to be very clear about that. I was only numb for maybe one or two, two weeks, and then they tapered me off it because I can't be numb forever obviously, it's part of the process.So undergo physical therapy was movement oriented, stretching out every single finger, me visualising this process, retraining my glial cells to not process it as painful. And then occupational therapy was more stimuli more doing things within the house, touching my arm with a feather seeing that it didn't hurt, but still having obviously that anxiety because it freaked me out. And then over time, it could not be numbed the entire time. It was probably the worst thing I've ever gone through. I couldn't eat because of the pain. Iliterally just I let ran out of tears to cry. I felt like it was the worst thing that I've ever gone through in my life and I never wish it upon anybody. And I honestly blocked out a lot of it because of the trauma of it.But then I just realized my mental capacity within all of it. As I was starting to get better. I realized like, Holy guacamole like, I am powerful, like my brain is powerful. And this journey, although I never wish anybody to go on it,it unleashed this strength in me. And it's on me to decide how I'm going to use this strength. And I want to use it to be the best paediatric nurse that I can be for other patients out there. And so after I started to get better, and honestly, this is a long time journey, I feel my arm every single day, I just choose to not let it take over my body. And I just want to be very clear about that. Like, it's something unfortunately, I still live with, I just don't talk about it or mention it. I think that's part of how I deal with it too. But ever since I started to get better, I channelled all of that newfound mental capacity and strength into my pre nursing requisites. And ended up getting into my favorite nursing school, the one I wanted to go to top, my top choice University of San Francisco, graduated top of my class and started at children's hospitals working there in the intensive care setting. And I always knew that wasn't going to be enough, right? Like, it was a great job. And I was happy. And I knew I was making an impact, and it felt great. But I was given this strength, Why limit myself to three shifts a week at the bedside, when I know that I can do more. And I know I want to do more. So I began going on global missions, just to first off, it opens my eyes to what's going on out there and what children are going through. And you know, what, what they lack within these, like health care settings.And I wanted to be there for them. And as they went on more and more missions, this really evolved for me, because I was seeing the same trends over and over and over again, where a lot of the time you're throwing a quick fix or quick intervention at a patient or family and never following up with them again. And if I didn't have paediatric patient, follow up with my nerve disease, I wouldn't be here I wouldn't be functioning right now. I don't, I don't know where I'd be or who I'd be. It became extremely important to me to flip the system and create some type of health care sustainability for children that lack this preventative education, or this follow up,especially for mothers and children in these rural health care settings. So then, I realised like, okay, how am I going to be my best self within that setting for these patients, I needed to get my master's in public health. So recently graduated from Dartmouth with my master's in public health, and just took a board seat for UNICEF and San Francisco sound the board for next generation. And we advocate for change for children. And we lead in fundraising. And I feel like I am step by step getting towards my goal. Obviously, there's still so much more that I want to do. And I'm, I know both wholeheartedly, I'm going to do it just a matter of time. But that's kind of my long winded story of how I became a nurse how I became focused on public health, and I just know what it's like to be on that side of things. And I'm very fortunate that first off, I had access to health care. And I know that what I went through wasn'tan emergency by any means. It wasn't like, I lost a leg or I had, you know, cardiac damage or a collapsed lung. I know it wasn't a medical emergency. But it would have changed my life like that was a life shattering diagnosis that could have taken over my entire life. And so I just feel so blessed for my access to health care.And also bow blessed for my journey because it unleashed this strength and tapped into this strength that most people don't get access to, unless you go through something really hard. So for me, I was going to make sure it was worth something bigger and something more so that's me.

Brooke Smith
Chandler like I can't even imagine because you know when you're especially when you're young when you're 16 when you're a teenager, everything is such a big deal homecoming and like just all the things that you're doing, it's the it's everything and when you are just going through and having normal life and something so unexpected out of nowhere, just comes and shatters everything and you're just kindof completely lost because once I get you're fine. And then the next second, you're in this excruciating pain. I can't even imagine what that that was like to go through. I'm really sorry that you had to go through it. But I know thatyou are obviously extremely resilient. And you took the best out of that and made it into the best possible situation that you could I feel like you probably struggled a little bit I would think with being a teenager and being 16 and saying to people, hey, something's wrong with me, I, Something's very wrong. When you are young, and you don't look unhealthy. People don't take you as seriously like, Oh, you're just a teenager, you're being dramatic. Or, you know, it's just carpal tunnel.

Chandler
from texting too much. Yeah, as a diagnosis I got that changed myentire life, like the disease my entire life, I was told it was carpal tunnel.

Brooke Smith
Yeah. And I think that that's a struggle, that people who don't look sick go through a lot when they're when they're experiencing pain or their extreme, something's wrong with them. Now, you're in this amazing position where you're on the other side of that, helping the people who are coming and saying, hey, something's wrong with me. And you, you come from a different perspective of listening and wanting to probably stay more open to what these children are saying or what they're experiencing.

Chandler
For sure. That was my first lesson in patient advocacy, I first need to advocate for myself, which was a hurdle to get over. I mean, I knew something was wrong, my first time going to the emergency room, and I kind of just trusted that they would do what's best for me.Now, if my patient says something to me, or the family says something to me,You bet you I am advocating for themruthlessly, sometimes whatever I need to do for my patient or their families. I'm on their way it takes to

Brooke Smith
how long did it take for you from the time that you were in the pain to actually get the diagnosis of what was happening with you? Was it a long time? Or did it happen pretty quickly?

Chandler
I think it was, I think my ER visits were a week apart or so week or a few days. Honestly, a lot of it's a blur. Yeah, probablyblocked out a lot of it felt like an eternity just when you're talking about pain management like that. You refer to like, oh, well, I didn't lose a lane, I did have a cardiac problem. But when you're talking about pain, when you're feeling pain like that, it it doesn't matter if you lost a leg or didn't lose a leg, like you're feeling pain as if you had lost a leg, you know, like you're filing begged, I begged my doctors to chop my arm off, so I wouldn't have to deal with the pain anymore. That's how bad it was. I was like, just take my arm.I do. I think, because I was at a smaller hospital when I was first diagnosed, they finally figured out what it was. And then they had to refer me to a specialist, a specialty centre, because they they couldn't, they didn't know what to do, how to treat it.So the whole process, from diagnosis to reaching some sort of remission was a year and a half.

Brooke Smith
Wow. Okay, so then what? What brought you to travel nursing? Out of all of the things that you could have done with the bedside? Andis it is it just the fact that you get to go to these different places and help different people and move around you? Or is it? Is it the adventure and you where you like to try you know, living in different places, what brought you kind of to travel nursing as opposed to just staying in one spot.

Chandler
This one's also multifaceted.First off, I grew up with a single mom to three kids. She obvioulsy incredible. She gave me so much. But there were a lot of things that I missed out on because of our financial situation. And so when I became old enough to really work full time, like when I was in nursing school, I worked over full time, I had three, three jobs that I was working, I prioritise travelling on all of my off days, and I would or any school breaks like I would go to, I went to Iceland, I went to Peru. Like anywhere that I saw that I wanted to go, I made sure that I went. And so when I became a nurse, it was really important for me that I either had a job that allowed me to travel in between to keep this up because it just you learn so much about the world and how to be a better person. And I don't know it just changes the way that you look at life by travelling.So I knew I wanted a job that provided me time off to travel. Or if I could travel nurse that would be more than ideal. So as mentioned before, I thought I was going to be a famous Broadway dancer. Everybody knows Broadway's in New York. So my childhooddream was to go to dancing school in New York. So at the time of my diagnosis, I had actually gotten in early acceptance into a few universities in New York for dance with almost a full ride scholarship. And I was I skipped a year when I was little so 16 For my senior year of high school 1617. So I was still a minor. And my mom made the executive decision when I was sick, that I shouldn't leave the state of California.I mean, I have some bitter feelings about that still, but I mean, a mother does what a mother believes is best and I, I, I trusted my mom's decision, but I was still saddened by it, of course.So for me, I'm not going to live my life with any regrets and travel nursing gave me the opportunity to live out one of my dreams now might not have been a Broadway dancer in New York, but I got to live out my New York dreams and you know, run through Central Park every day andjust be a local have my local grocery store and my nail salon, my favorite restaurants, actually going back to New York in a few months to, to do it one more time before I get married.

Brooke Smith
I love it. I love it. And you know what? New York isn't going anywhere? I promise it's there. Maybe one day you'll have a spot there too. And do you? Are you able to still dance? Or is that something you just don't? Don't do anymore now?

Chandler
No, I definitely do. It's more about time. So my my grad school took a lot of time away from me. Unfortunately, COVID prior to COVID I was doing a dance class once a week. In nursing school, I actually taught Hip Hop

Brooke Smith
What kind of dance you were you are into because I danced growing up too, but I never wanted to take it professionally. It was more of like a fun thing for me. Expression art, you know, artists thing I started when I was two, I think you said you started when you were three. So kind of in the same boat as you. But I know that like I still try to pick up like a ballet class or you know, whatever. But I was just curious. What was your What was your main I know you said Broadway dancing. But what was your favorite kind of dancing just,

Chandler
I would say tap, tap and jazz or musical theatre I just I love to perform. And I think now I'm using social media as my outlet to get that part of me fulfilled that I haven't gotten to fulfil yet. But like,

Brooke Smith
I feel like in healthcare in general, it obviously it takes a very empathetic person, it takes a person who thinks of others wants to help others wants to be there. For them. It takes a certain kind of heart but so does artistry, like expression of dancing or acting. These are the same kind of characteristics that you need to be a good performer because you're trying to move people and channel things and like help them through art find it's it's so interesting, because everyone I talked tothey all have a creative outlet. Anyone in healthcare has a creative outlet, because I think you guys just have those those empathetic hearts, and you have that, that energy and you have to put it somewhere. Some people write poetry, some people dance, some people draw, you know, some people sing. And I think it's just it's so important and so beautiful that we don't ever lose, like our artistic expression, because like you said, multifaceted people and we have more than just one thing that we're passionate about, you know,

Chandler
Oh, for sure. And I do think that dancing prepared me for nursing in so many ways. There is so much muscle memory involved with certain nursing tasks thatI know a lot of people could struggle with, you know, a sequence of events. That is my skill, I can memorise a whole sequence what to do with my body and space and time. And this might sound weird, but my patient's room is almost my stage in a way where it is my job no matter what is going on. But to keep like, no matter what's going on in the room, it's my job to keep the family calm, and to be a therapeutic presence. And I almost see it as like a dance role in a way.And just like really bringing positivity to that setting. And of course, this can sometimes be draining by the time that I get home because I give my full heart to my patients and my families. But I really do think that dance helped prepare me for nursing. Yeah, I think so too.

Brooke Smith
So what do you do for yourself like when? Because I know I can tell you're giving so much in your life not probably just in your career, but also to your friends and your family and your loved ones. I think so what do you do for you like how do you stay so strong and be able to be there in that capacity that you need to be through?People's most difficult days supporting them, loving them through it, helping them through it, carrying them through it.How do you like walk away on those days when you feel drained? Orit maybe didn't go the way that you had hoped it was going? How do you kind of handle that? Especially just going through what you've gone through yourself? What are some things that you do to kind of cope?

Chandler
I mean, this is an ever changing answer, it really just depends upon my age and my experience level and my current work setting.But in the cardiovascular intensive care unit, the stuff that I saw and the stuff that I, I went through, you cannot,you cannot explain it to someone who doesn't work in a cvicu, nobody will get it unless they work almost on that same unit with you. So really finding people within wherever you're working to vent to is extremely important. And as I've gotten older, I've learned to just accept where I'm at, for the given day, and give myself grace. I am so type A that I call myself type AAA personality, where if I, if I have downtime in my life, I almost feel guilty, like what more could I be doing what's next. And I've really pushed myself and challenged myself to just accept that today, I'm going to do nothing. And I'm not going to feel guilty about it. Today. I'm just going to watch TV, and actually have to remind my partner to not get it in my head about that. My fiance. He's like, man, you just watch TV all day like don't do that might be hard enough time every five years, let's just not bring it up.No, but he means he means well, of course. But it's a release. It's a reallytough internal struggle for me sometimes. But things that I do day in and day out that make me feel awesome outside of work, or exercising i For right now, because of COVID I just got in the swing of running. So I'll run four miles every day, I don't work no more, no less. Because I'm type AAA and I chose four miles, it has to be four, I don't know, I'm crazy.And I like to have really freshly prepared food, like cooking and meal prepping is something I take a lot of pride in. And then seeing friends and travelling. But honestly, as I've gotten older, a lot of my self care.I call myself an extroverted introvert. Like as I get older, it's an I spend time with friends or go in the social settings or travel, I need I need a little bit more me time to recharge after. AndI just accept it. I'm accepting where I'm at, at my stages in life. And II just give myself grace, and I talk things out. And yeah, I don't think I'd make it through without my loving partner because he he's just so supportive, even though he doesn't quite get it. I think just having that one person, even if they're in a different field, that one person that you're confident in that is there for you, no matter what, that will stop working just to hold you while you cry it out. I would not be okay without him. I love it so much.

Brooke Smith
I know when I saw when I saw the whole trip and everything on social media, when he got engaged, I was so happy for you.And just more deserving ofthat kind of love and that kind of adventure. Like it's, it's, it's you all the way and I'm truly, truly happy for you. I do want to talk a little bit about your medical mission work. I know that that's a big passion of yours. Do you have any plans for doing that in their future, maybe after you get married and the trips coming up or even tell us about some of your experiences and what you saw and what kind of help people need out there. I know you touched a little bit on, you know, not just showing up and then leaving people need but care to be consistent.

Chandler
So a lot of things have happened in the last two years. Obviously COVID has reshaped a lot of medical mission work. And a lot of these companies don't exist anymore or are financially suffering.And a lot of these companies have just cancelled their missions entirely because they don't want to bring any type of diagnoses to an indigenous group somewhere. So my last mission was a year ago in Costa Rica. And I would love to go on another mission again and I'm in the process of trying to figure out when and where I'm going to go. But I'm not going to go justto go at all, I'm not, I don't operate that way for me, especially with everything that I've learned from my Masters in Public Health. And just finding my place within the field, I'm only going to invest my time and energy in an organization that operates sustainably or is trying to operate sustainably. Otherwise, I'm just, I'm just throwing fuel to a fire within the problem. And I don't want to be that. So this problem that I'm referring to, and I touched on briefly before, is that a lot of these companiesForgive me if my statistic is wrong, I believe it's over 65% of medical mission companies. And I'm pulling this from my thesis work, I did my entire senior thesis and internship on this specific topic. So over 65% of medical mission companies operate what is what is called a vertical fashion, which means they go in for an intervention, fulfil the intervention and leave. So it's just this,we give you get type of model. And it's great, it's easy.It helps get a lot of financial donations, because the deliverable is saying, We treated X amount of patients or we did X amount of surgeries. And for people that want a tangible number in order to donate, it's wonderful, but like, Oh, I just donated 20,000 surgeries in Africa.For me, I don't believe in this system. I think it's unethical. I don't think it's fair, especially to children, and especially to women who really benefit from preventative health education.I want to invest in companies that have a more diagonal approach. So of course, there's an intervention, but you're supplementing it with preventative education, and investing within the community that you served, and you're there for the long haul, you're building up this community, you're giving the community there, the resources and the skills and the knowledge to sustain their own health care systems. That is what I am passionate about, specifically within the sector of children. But for me, I don't want to invest in organisations that don't operate in some sort of diagonal manner anymore. So I recently became certified as a nurse with Operation Smile. And they are a sustainable diagonal operating Medical Mission company. So I'm just waiting to hear when I get to go on a trip with them. And I cannot wait. Because I I kind of fan girls over this this company, they have been around for over 30 years. And they used to operate vertically, just focused on how many surgeries they performed, and how many kids they quote unquote, saved, without trending any patient data without trending any deaths reported after surgery, any infections, any patient needing any extra medical resources. And early on, they realized like oh, maybe we should start trending stuff, trending this data they did. And they saw that they actually had, although small, like a small, small, small percentage, they had some deaths that occurred. And for them, that was too many, you know, this is a life changing operation. But most of these kids don't really need this to survive. Of course, it makes their life better. And for some patients, yes, like they could not maybe meet their nutritional requirements. But I'm speaking very broadly like this is more of a cosmetic type of surgery. And they completely revamped and restructured the their whole entire company and how they ran and went from they took 30 years to go from vertical to diagonal operations. And that is the type of company that I want to devote my time, my knowledge and my willpower to because I fully believe in them. And they also as I mentioned before, they make sure that they have training programmes set up in all of the countries that they serve, so that they can have freestanding hospitals run by the local community members. Yeah, now I don't know what my role is going to be within public health. I'm still trying to figure it out since I just graduated. But I am super passionate about empowering the community and training the local community to be their own advocates for health. And I would love to one day be a nurse helping train locals on preventing the most commonly seen diseases and illnesses for children. Like what are the signs and symptoms? How do we treat it?

Brooke Smith
that's that's where you're talking about your career.Talking about creating real change, you're talking about not just showing up fixing something for a moment, and then leaving and leaving it behind, you're talking about going and saying, Hey, let's figure out how you can do this when we're not here. How can you sustainably create this education, the preventive medicine, how to you know, maybe maybe all you need is a prescription here or there or whatever it is, so that it doesn't turn into this down the line and it doesn't turn into something worse. But, you know, you're you're talking about creating real change by helping people help themselves. Yeah.

Chandler
And that's what it's all about. So it should be about

Brooke Smith
Yes, 1,000% Chandler will you have to let us know if you need some more medical equipment because you know, we're always happy to, to happen there and donate and do whatever we can because you are exactly whatwe do all this for you're the person our whole crafting wellness initiative is about as people like you who are going and you know, causing real change in the world and bringing global health care to everyone. Because we all deserve to be healthy and happy. We appreciate you

Chandler
Well it wouldn't be a travelling nurse mission trip without MDF. I would love to bring you all again and whenever you all start doing mission trips, you let me know I'd love to be a part of it.

Brooke Smith
Awesome. We definitely will you give everyone your social media handle just verbally so everyone listening can get it. And any other handles that you want people to be able to go over and follow and check things out that you're doing your blog, and also they can see all the awesome work you're you're doing.

Chandler
Of course so my blog is thetravellingnurse.blog I'm most active on Instagram, which is the travelling nurse with periods between each word so the period travelling period nurse, and then I'm also on Tik Tok, which is just honestly for fun I just post whatever I want to post it's less focused on nursing and more just life but if you want to get to know me in that way too. It's the same handle as Instagram that period travelling period nurse. So yeah, come give me a follow let's be friends.