My name is Jessi and I am a Registered Nurse here at VNU and have been for 5 months. I have been a nurse for 7 years. I made the decision to become a nurse after watching someone make a careless mistake while taking care of my own father during a hospital stay that ultimately ended in his death. That mistake made me realize that I had the ability to offer the world something. A nurse who was kind and compassionate and caring. Someone who would take care of others the way that I wanted someone to take care of my own dad. When I started my journey to becoming a nurse I never expected to become a nurse for people with disabilities. I thought I wanted to do ER or some type of hospital nursing. It’s funny how our journey into the medical field can bring us exactly where we need to be. I started out as a travel nurse. I worked in long term care facilities and home health settings, I worked in veteran’s homes and hospitals. At some point in my travels I realized that I was away from home more then I liked with 4 young children and I took a full time hospital job. I enjoyed that but it was not the best fit for me and soon I realized that I was again looking for something different. I stumbled into a position at Hope Haven, another company that works with people with disabilities. In my time there I came to learn how much I truly love working in this field. We as nurses bring so much knowledge and experience to advocate for our clients when they are not able to advocate for themselves.  After experiencing a hard loss last year I once again found myself wondering if I was where I was supposed to be. I felt the pull at my heart that it was once again time to change directions in my career. I was no longer joyful in what I was doing and felt pulled to apply at VNU. If you have ever prayed on something and needed to know if you were making the right decision this is where I was in the fall of 2023. I had a flier in my mailbox, an email in my inbox and a radio ad all in one day. That was the push I needed. Now can I say it was just that easy, no of course not life never really is as simple as that? I can say I had an excellent interview, I loved what I heard it all felt really good but the fear of change, the unknown, and the little voice in the back of my mind held me back. I just couldn’t convince myself to make the leap yet. Over the next several months I sat with the possibility of change, in December I made that call to see if there were still open Nursing positions. I started here in January and am so glad I made that choice. It is exactly the change that I needed. I came to VNU for the chance to offer my knowledge, experience, leadership, talents, compassion, outside the box perspective and overall infectious joy for what I do to this community. I have found so much of the same things I have to offer given back to me in the daily interactions with the clients and co-workers that I see every day here at Village Northwest Unlimited.

 

Jessica Brown, RN