Gentry's Journey
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Gentry's Journey
Faith, Grit, And The Making Of Judge Lorraine Pringle
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What does it take to reinvent your life when the world says stay in your lane? We sit down with Judge Lorraine Williams Pringle to chart a journey that starts on a segregated Alabama street, moves through ICU night shifts and policy manuals, and lands on the family court bench—powered by faith, community, and audacious work.
Lorraine shares how nursing shaped her legal mind: triage thinking for crowded dockets, documentation that stands up in court, and bedside communication that diffuses conflict. She talks openly about failing the bar exam twice, grieving family losses on the road, and then turning the bar into a full-time job—8 a.m. in the chair, model essays, multistate drills—until breakthrough came. When a public courtroom rebuke over a modest voucher lit a fire, she ran for judge with no donor safety net, a Discover card for campaign materials, and Sundays spent visiting churches straight from overnight shifts. The win wasn’t a twist of fate; it was the fruit of credibility built bed by bed, brief by brief.
From the bench, Lorraine confronted the complexity of family court: removing children from harm, offering parents real chances to heal, and facing the hard truth that not every foster home or relative is safe. She lifts up the everyday acts that protect kids—breakfast before school, kind send-offs, consistent love—and explains how children remain fiercely loyal even when hurt. Along the way we trade field-tested nursing playbooks: route calls through answering services for a verifiable trail, document verbatim orders, dissolve meds correctly, and lead with listening before lecturing.
This conversation is a masterclass in purpose, resilience, and transferable skills. Whether you’re a nurse, lawyer, student, or second-career dreamer, you’ll find permission to pivot, courage to own your lane, and proof that slow and steady change beats quick fixes. If you felt seen by this story, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review—then tell us what bold move you’re making next.
Old Friends Reunite
SPEAKER_03Okay. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to Gentry's Journey. And we have our honored guest today is Judge Lorraine Williams Pringle. Um, we're going to get into the interview, but with um, we have been knowing each other for a very, very long time. Uh, I think sixth grade is where we may have met, but we didn't connect until we graduated high school.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so which is good, which is good, and so actually we connected before because we were at church together a ton of Sundays, but then on a deeper level, we connected after high school for real, because Lorraine had the audacity to move out of the state.
Childhood In Segregated Alabama
SPEAKER_03Then when she came back, there she I said, oh, oh, so okay, so you and Elton decided to come back and join the crew, you know. And um, and that's that is the beginning of one of those stages in life. Um, and that was our young adult college year stage in life. So um, so um I am a part of Survivor's Remorse, but I had a different take on Survivor's Remorse. So my chapter is going to be definitely different. Whenever you read it, you will understand why I why I say mine is different than other people. Because sometimes you have to leave people behind in order to do what you have to do. So you're yes, you are the survivor, but you I don't have any remorse for you know going about my career path, is what I'm saying, and neither do I, yeah. So I don't have any remorse for doing what was in my heart to do, so I can't call it survivor's remorse. We survived, but I'm I'm not remorseful about it at all. Okay, so audience, welcome again to um Judge Lorraine Williams Pringle, and uh this segment is basically titled The Making of Judge Lorraine W. Prinkle. So she's gonna take us down memory lane, introduce herself, and tell us about the making of her becoming a judge. It's a fascinating story. It was fascinating seeing her grow and go. Um, so that's what we have to do. You know, let's let's push each other, not pull each other back. So welcome to our audience.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_03You're more than welcome. So go ahead and introduce yourself and start with the making of Judge Pringle.
SPEAKER_00Well, uh, to the listening audience or those about, I am Lorraine W. Pringle, Lorraine Williams Pringle, and I never thought about the making of Lorraine W. Pringle until Carolyn gave me the title. And I thought, well, that's interesting. Let's think about that. So born a young lady in the South in Alabama, a deeply segregated South at the time, um, where a young girl at the age of seven got a rock thrown and hit upside the head for walking down the street and by a car full of white youth and being called the N-word for no other reason than just being black. And I was crying. I went home to my mom and I didn't understand because, as I said, I'm walking down the street, not bothering anyone. But my I said my mom, but I probably really should have said my grandmother because that's who, although my mother gave me life, and I would never detract or take anything away from Luella.
SPEAKER_03Amen.
SPEAKER_00Mary Jane raised Lorraine. Mary Jane put her whole being into those who would gather around that table with her and who would learn of her. And so, um, although I've had several strong women in my life to take example out of, Mary Jane, Luella, and Melvine Williams were to me the most three most women who stand out in my mind who had a part in making of Lorraine. And by that, growing up with my grandmother and my mom, and then my uncle taking us to Michigan, supposedly for a summer vacation, and that turned into us going to middle school, grade school, middle school, and high school in Detroit. And then um that journey started. So, but it still was my grandmother who told to tall all of us to listen, you can make something out of yourself. But first and foremost, you got to trust in God and you got to have a relationship with God, not your mom's relationship, not my relationship, but your relationship with God.
SPEAKER_03As a child, you don't know what that means.
SPEAKER_00Like, what?
SPEAKER_03No, you talk about way over your head. It is way over your head. Like, okay, on my hand, whatever that's supposed to mean, okay.
Nursing Roots And Grandmother’s Influence
SPEAKER_00So as time grew grew on, and as I matured and aged, I began to understand exactly what that did mean. So at 16, I was baptized at St. Peter Primitive Baptist Church in Bessmer and began to study and read. Probably not, I know not like I should have, but began to listen to the sermons enough to understand what that lady was telling me, what she was teaching me. And my grandmother was half Cherokee, half black. And because she was half Cherokee Indian, she could never be a nurse because they wouldn't allow it. And that was all she ever wanted to be in her life was a nurse. So her granddaughter became that nurse for her. And I could tell the joy when I would leave the house going to work. She would look at me with my uniform on, you could just see it beaming all over her. And it was always, babe, you need me to make you some lunch. No, granny, I don't need you to make me any lunch. Yes, let me make you a lunch. And before I walk out the door, I had lunch. And so, but it was that fulfillment that she could see a part of herself and me because I was a part of her. So that fulfillment really thrilled me. And I enjoyed being a nurse. I did, Kellen. I don't even know how we both ended up becoming nurses. Because it wasn't like something we sat out and talked about with each other. It was just like you took a different path getting there started, and I took a different path getting there. And we both was like, What? Really? So we're both here nursing on folks, taking care of folks, and thoroughly enjoyed it. And midway through that process, I think I had been an RN about 15 years, and I decided I'm gonna go to law school. And actually, it was because my nurse manager at the time would get these little notifications, written notifications about X, Y, Z going wrong. And I would see her because we had gone to nursing school together. I'd be like, What is the matter? And she was showing I was like, okay, girl, just give me this. And I would take it home and write her response to it. And I bring it back and she would be like, You wrote this, and I was like, Yeah. And she said, Where did you get this? I said, It's in the in the call, in the um policy and procedure manual. She's like, You done read that. I said, Pretty much when you you know, downtime from taking care of your patients, you gotta figure out something to do. It's not too much you can do on the unit, so you read the policy and procedure manual. She said, Girl, you need to go to law school.
SPEAKER_01I was like, Okay.
SPEAKER_00I thought about it, I prayed about it. I had um been married, had divorced the children's father, and I thought, okay, well, everybody will be in school. All three of us will be in school at the same time. So I went to law school at night. I nursed every weekend. I was a full-time parent mom during the week. So it was a well, you know, crafted decision. I talked to members of St. Peter and said, hey, you guys, I'm gonna go to law school, I'm gonna work during the weekend. And would somebody just come by and get the girls on Sunday mornings to make sure that they stayed in church? I said, because I would have come off a 12-hour shift and I need to go to sleep because I gotta go back. And they would go, sure. And they did. And um, and it was the same way with uh Victoria was the athlete, Taylor was the cheerleader, so the parents would come by and pick them up when they needed them, you know, and so it was a working village unit, and it worked well for me at the time, and it still does in many different aspects. So we did that. I went to law school and um came out, graduated, had my law degree, went down there to Montgomery, ill-prepared, did not prepare as well as I needed to for that bar exam, and I didn't pass. I missed about six points, and I thought, okay, and not really just doing it, was a lot of family issues going on, and by that I mean it was a lot of deaths in the family. So we was in Detroit, maybe one weekend, three weeks, weekends later, we were in Florida, so I was on the road trying to study by a flashlight and a car, and never should have been done. So it didn't pass the second go round either. So I just took a year off, and I said, you know what, it's gonna be there. Whenever I get ready, whenever I get back to it, it's going to be there.
SPEAKER_04True.
From RN To Law School
SPEAKER_00And so I took a year off and I uh reserved a room at Birmingham Southern. And I, for me, taking a bar exam, I took July bar and February bar. Now, by far, July Bar was better because there's way too many people down there in the summer. And the examiners, they're gonna hit the highs and the lows, but in February, it's much less people there, so they have really time to correct to critique your essay writing and everything. And we had to do uh essay exams plus the most estate. So I took um rented, reserved a room at Birmingham Southern and treated the bar exam like a job. I was up every morning in that room at eight o'clock, not arriving, but in their room seated with a book open. Once I had crafted my model answers for the essay question, put those aside, then look at them again, then started studying the multi-state. And when I went that time, God walked me through it. So I was like, now, okay, I'm a lawyer. What we do now? Because really, it was just, I don't know, it was just somebody's suggestion. So now I'm a lawyer. I am a Christian, I'm a mom, I'm a sister, I'm a daughter, I'm a granddaughter, I'm a niece, I'm an auntie, I'm a cousin, but now I'm a nurse, and now I'm a lawyer. So what do we do with this? So why did I gravitate to divorces? I don't know, but I did. And I was good at it, and I could craft out a divorce agreement, I could be um, we were the attorneys and I were all civil with each other, and sometimes our clients would be, how can you talk to her? And I'd be like, Who? Opposing counsel. I said, we don't have an issue. You and your husband have an issue. Okay, so we're not gonna turn this into two lawyers' issue. Now we're both gonna represent our clients, but I don't have no issue with her. But I'm gonna do what I need to do to get you the best agreement out of this divorce settlement, but I don't have no agreement, I don't have any issues with her, sure, and I was like, oh, I said, y'all, uh, it ain't personal for me. This business, this is truly business. And so did divorces and didn't do that much in family. Um, when I say family, I mean in the juvenile aspect in the Bessmer division of family court, because at that time, um the judge who was there had her particular set of attorneys, and there weren't that many who looked like me. And uh we weren't getting appointed cases out of family court investment. We really just were not, and so I had one case that had been in her courtroom for a while, which most family court cases are, and uh submitted my voucher, and it was 96 hours over probably about four years. Never had submitted an interim voucher, had never done anything of that like, and um and I had seen some interim vouchers that were twice as much as my my final bill, my total bill, and she uh dressed me down in open court about that voucher, and I stood there, as they would say, I took it on the chin. I got out of that courtroom somehow, I don't even remember how. Found myself standing outside on the sidewalk, and I said, I'm gonna take her job, and I uh started crying, but I said, I'm gonna take her job. That's it. So I said a prayer, I prayed about it, and it wasn't like the election was gonna that it was time to qualify anything that next week or anything, it was gonna be a whole year or more, about a year before uh the next election would do for her to run for um to rerun for her seat. So I prayed about it. And you remember when we used to have monitor techs in the unit? So there was a monitor tech whom I hadn't seen in eons. I mean, it had been about 10 or 15 years. I was uh on the airport authority, Bessmer Airport Authority, and she came out there one day and she saw me and she said, I hadn't seen you. We, you know, hugged and everything. She said, Well, what are you doing now? And I said, Well, um, I'm an attorney and still nursing. She said, Well, why aren't you a judge? Oh, okay, Daddy, I hear you. So now you've given me okay that I can run. Well, for me, okay to run meant okay to win. Because if I'm running, I'm running to win. So then I had another talk with God, and I said, Well, listen, I don't have no money. I don't know how I'm supposed to get all this campaign paraphernalia and all this stuff. And as clearly as I'm speaking to you right now, he said, You got that discover card, ain't nothing on it.
SPEAKER_02Okay, you're right. So let me just charge up what I need on the discover card and just pay it off. You're gonna pay a month, okay? And that's what I did.
SPEAKER_00And so I got signs out. Um, it was this company. You remember the restaurant? Um, I think they called it sharks. It was right on the corner, 150, where it dead ends where you can go left or right, and there's that little business section over there.
SPEAKER_03Yes, yes, yes.
SPEAKER_00There used to be a restaurant right there on the corner.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
Bar Exam Setbacks And Breakthrough
SPEAKER_00In the back, they did campaign pay for there. Who knew? Yeah, who knew? I did not, I did not know. I who knew? So I went in there and somebody told go there. And I was like, Um, I'm not looking for anything to eat. I need to, you know, order campaign, pay for campaign. They said, go in there. So I went in there. The guy took a headshot and I wrote up everything. And I still think I have one of the old, the my first campaign uh pushcards. And um, we wrote it up, and he told me what the cost was, and we charged it to the um Discover card. And so I went and, you know, I made my rounds, worked every Sunday. We get off work and go to different churches, still would be in uniform, and I would explain to the congregation. You know, I apologize, and I'm in this uniform. I still have two daughters that I need to take care of. The lights still have to go on, the heat still has to come on, air, food still needs to be in the refrigerator. So I I leave work after working overnight, and I'm coming to talk with you all. So I hope you all take don't take this as a disrespect. And it was open and welcome. So I went from church to church to church, and sometimes I would take clothes and leave and not eat lunch or anything. And about six, I would sneak off, go shower, put on something decent, and then go to church that way. So then that's what I started doing. And um worked at campaign trail, didn't have didn't have that many people who supported me financially. Actually, I ran the campaign off myself, so which in essence Cal was one of the best things that God did for me because I wasn't beholden to anyone. True, I didn't have to give anybody honor and credit and praise to that, but nobody but my Lord and Savior.
SPEAKER_03Amen.
SPEAKER_00So that was a oh, a very good thing. And so um did all my speeches, made all the rounds, and it came down, and I think this was the deciding factor. I had gotten off work, had gone up to church, and it was the Sunday before the election. And my best, one of my best friends, Nick, attorney Nick Lester, we all went to law school together. We shared an office space, and I was in here asleep, and the phone was ringing, and I finally heard it, and I said, hello, and then Nick, he was like, Lorraine, and I was like, What? He was like, Did you see the Sunday's paper? And I said, No, I bought one, but why? What's going on? He was like, Lorraine, have you not looked at the Sunday's paper? And I was like, Nick, I just told you no, what's going on? He said, Get the paper. So Kale, I pulled the paper out, and so you know how the Birmingham News writes up and tells y'all about the candidates and everything. Well, under my picture was the incumbent judge's name, and under her picture was my name. And you're thinking, okay, so what's the big the incumbent judge is white? Lorraine's black. So my name is under her pic. Wait, how did it go now? Yes, my name is under her picture, and her name is under my photograph in the paper. And I began to laugh. And he said, Why are you laughing? I said, because do you not see them little idiot white ladies going to push that ballot and they're gonna look at that name under that white lady's picture, and they're that's who they're gonna vote for. And he said, You are insane. I said, I didn't do this.
SPEAKER_01I said, but it's absolutely genius. He said, Well, what about the black voters? I The black folder's no Lorraine Pringle Black.
SPEAKER_00Wow. And if you go back to that article, and it's still I cut it out, but I can still go online and find it. And of course, she called and raised Holy Sand, as I would have too, but the correction wasn't coming to Wednesday. The election was on Tuesday. So it was gonna be too late. And it turned out to be that's what that God has a plan over our lives. And sometimes the twists and turns that we take in it, we have no idea where we're going, but he knows where we're going. And so um that night, um, with 99% of the boxes in, I had a clear command and lead. And legally and literally, I had one. So I remember Taylor saying to me, Mom, what are you doing? And I said, I'm going to bed. And she said, Well, there's there's there's a box that hasn't come in yet. I said, baby, if she get the votes she needs out of that one box, then she deserved to win. Mommy going to bed, because mommy's tired. And so, and she said, No, let's go down to the campaign site and let's just go to where the elections come in and everything. And I was like, Oh, okay, Lord, this is not what I want to do, but okay, we're gonna go. So we got up, we went, and we were in there, and when they called it, Lorraine Williams Pringle had won the election.
Finding Purpose In Family Law
SPEAKER_03Oh, praise God.
SPEAKER_00And it was Taylor, Ashley, and myself, and we were downtown in the Democratic headquarters, and tears just sprang forth from my eyes. And that night, I got the best sleep that I had gotten during the entire campaign trail. Because you're always, even when you're asleep, you're not asleep because you're constantly trying to think of what I need to do, where I need to go, what who haven't I spoken to, and what do I need to try to convey about me to help me to win? And it was so, so funny, Kel, because um you just gotta put people in in the right place for you. And so I will get a call and say, Girl, you would not believe people up here saying, Well, I heard she's a nurse, and somebody said, Okay, so she's a nurse. You still have to go to law school in order to run the become a judge, don't you? So she did go to law school. Didn't she go to law school too? And they were like, Well, yeah, so what's her nursing got to do with it?
SPEAKER_03Nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing. These people have dual careers all the time. What are we doing? What are we doing, Kale?
SPEAKER_00And I was like, Oh, well, it seemed like it'd be to y'all advantage that I'm a nurse. I mean, because when these people coming in here saying, Well, you know, he's just been like this, and that one guy even told me while I was, he's like, you know, I smoked marijuana one time, and the doctor said that one time was gonna make me a chronic use. And I said, 'You lying?' He excuse me. I said, sir, I'm RN. One time use marijuana does not make you a chronic user. Multiple trips to marijuana land makes you a chronic user, but not a single smoking of a uh marijuana cigarette gonna make you a multi make you a chronic user. He was like, Oh, yeah, oh, what do sir, what are we doing? What are we doing? And so I think about my mom and my grandmom and my aunt often, because they and I this is so necessary of a conversation because this is Women History Month. That's true. And it's in to me is women empowering month. And if we don't encourage and empower each other, no one else really is going to. There are a ton of young ladies who need conversations like this to be had, to see women like you and I, whose background was not the silver spoon, as people would say, that we actually had to work at what we've gotten, Kel. And we've earned it.
SPEAKER_03I agree.
SPEAKER_00I mean, every bit of it, it was not handed to us, not at all. Even when we were the most qualified nurses on that unit to be that next nurse manager or supervisor. No, can't do that. Because we were looked over and stepped over so much so until one lady asked me one day and asked how she said, You ain't not seeking a position. I said, No, ma'am, because see, that's a headache waiting to happen. I don't need you calling me in the middle of the night because nobody showed up for a shift and staffing is low, so that nurse manager needs to crawl herself up out of her bed to come in here and work and then hang over for the rest of the morning, make sure the rest of the day is no, I'm good, baby. And sometimes I agree with you. Wonder, you know, what we're doing because the high of a title as nurse manager is wonderful and great supervisor, whatever, nurse coordinator, however, you want to have it. But that doesn't mean you have any more education than you and I, who are there that as our nurse. Agreed. We all had to get that that REN degree. We all had to sit through that um state board of nursing exam. We all had to go through our clinical rotations, we all had had a uh internship or new hire, however, you want to term it, but we all had to learn how to care for our own patients. So that title doesn't detract or add to me necessarily, is how I embody that degree within myself.
The Courtroom Clash That Sparked A Run
SPEAKER_03I totally agree with you. I was reminiscing just the other day. Uh was a case manager at one of the local hospitals, and I was on call. That means you're covering the entire house, yes, ma'am. So a situation came up, and um the supervisor, the weekend supervisor, gave out poor information, very poor information. Oh, and so and I couldn't find the patient at the hospital where she sat. So they told me the patient wasn't there. That was the end of it for me. So this the following day, which was Sunday, they're calling. We want to get our patient transferred over here. That's okay. Uh you'll have to speak with the house supervisor, which is one of the directors, they rotate that. And do you know that director would not pick up the phone? In fact, I could tell she was out shopping, and she left a message with the operators. Do not disturb me. And so I told them, This is patient's business, this is hospital business. She is a director, she's on call. If you don't call her, I'm going higher. She has no right to tell you guys not to call. She has a job to do, so she cried and she called back in a huff, uh, like I was supposed to be concerned. Right. I told her, This is your call. You have to accept this patient, not me. And so she was like, But I no, I said, No, you are you are on call and you have to accept that responsibility. I said all that to say this. We finally got the patient over, but like I said, the initial call, she had the wrong name of the patient and the wrong name of the facility. So, how can I find it? It's not gonna happen. So um she called, uh, she I I tracked it down some type of way. My director the following Monday, because we have to submit our paperwork to them. Uh, she said, How was your weekend? I said, You didn't read the report. I didn't read the report, and I said, Well, since you don't think enough to care, I don't think enough to talk, and I was through for the day. I'm not talking to you. That is such a slap in the face. That lets you know that everyone who has a title is it they are not worth their salt, they are not concerned about the patients, they're not concerned about the hospital, they're only concerned about their title because if it wasn't for patients, none of us would be here.
Campaign On Faith And Grit
SPEAKER_00We surely wouldn't. I remember in the ICU didn't work night shift, didn't like to work night shift, but for whatever reason I was on a night shift. I called the um the pulmonologist who was on call. Patient was having some difficulties. We needed some, I needed some changes, I needed to know what else to do with the ventilator and this. He politely told me, don't call me any more about this patient. And I said, excuse me. He said, You heard what I said, don't call me anymore about this patient. I said, Okay. PO, Dr. So and so, do not call me anymore regarding this patient. Verbal order written in the chart. I called respiratory. We we we tried to do whatever we thought we could do to get the patient settled along with medication, and we did. I needed to get that patient through until 7 o'clock when I could hand her off. That pulmonologist came in, picked up the chart. He said, Who wrote this? He came in about 6:40, 645. He said, Who wrote this order? I said, I did. He said, Why did you write this? I said, because that's what you said to me. Don't call me anymore about this patient. I did not mean for you to take it as an order. I said, Well, what did you mean for me to take it as? Because it really was an order.
SPEAKER_01It was an order.
SPEAKER_02He said, You can't do that. I said, Yes, I can.
SPEAKER_00And I did. And he said, Well, I'm taking it out of there. I said, You can do whatever you like with it. But it has been entered on the record. And however you want to say you did or didn't do, I know what you did, what you said to me. It is dated, it is properly timed, and it is given everything as to when I call. The service can verify that I called and went through the service to get you. They can verify that they called, you call back through the service. And these phones have caller ID now. So there is a documentation of when you call back. So please don't say to me that this did not happen, because it did.
SPEAKER_03You know, I tell the new nurses, I have told them over the years, don't call directly to the physician. Always go through the answering service because that is a record. Because it can easily say, I never got the call. So when you go through the answering service, they have to document the call. And some of them will call you back. Did he call you back? They sure did. Yes or no? It's either yes or no. You know, but that documentation will save you. And they were like, Oh, I'm so glad you're here to tell me that. I I never knew that. I get it, I get it. I'm not here to watch you drown, but I'm going to help you. I'm going to help you. But if you don't want to listen to what I have to say, then that's on you. Everyone has to answer to someone. There is no one here who does not have to answer to someone, and that is your physician, that position as well. And so one guy said, I'm just eavesdropping, but I'm sure gonna start doing that because I usually just call directly. I said, you know, when I I realize that once you have been talked to real crazy, you know what to do. And I'm like you, I'm documenting what you said. I don't have a problem not documenting. You were big enough to say it, I'm big enough to write it down.
SPEAKER_00I'm not big enough, wrote it in that in that chart, big enough to and had a call back. And here comes the nurse manager of the unit. Well, Lorraine, uh, well, Lorraine, yes. You can't write that white, can I? Yes, I didn't know. It was an order. Well, I don't think you understand the complications. Oh, I understand the ramifications and complications as well. But he what he didn't understand was I understood him very well as he should have as well. True. Because he's this patient's doctor. We are the nurses there on the front line 24-7. Y'all go home and go to sleep, but somebody still up at that hospital should be tending to that patient. And if we have an issue, we're to call you to say, This is what's going on. What do what am I supposed to do now?
SPEAKER_03I agree. Because we're not the doctors, we don't write the orders. We sure do not.
SPEAKER_00So from there, you know, I became that judge and I absolutely loved it. Two terms on the bench, loved it. Um, being a family court judge was very fulfilling in the manner of removing children who are being abused from abusive situations, allowing parents the opportunity to get some help so that we could possibly see if we could put them back together again, if we could rejoin the parents with their children. Sometimes we could and sometimes we couldn't. Um, and I can't, I just always looked at being a parent so different. I didn't want to do anything that put my children at risk.
SPEAKER_03But not everybody high five. But not everybody, not everybody thinks of parenthood in that manner. I know, but that was one of my, that was one of mine. I mean, it still is. I mean, high five. I'm just saying, high five. Uh no, no, mm-mm, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00And the abuse that these small children have suffered at someone's hands, it I never when I took that job, I never knew what I was getting into until I got that job. Because I for me, that wasn't something I thought about, because it wasn't something I did. I never thought of the number of parents who had children who really didn't want to be parents. You just want to somebody to say you just want baby say you're a mom.
SPEAKER_02Well, but it cut the job come with more than that.
Election Night Upset
SPEAKER_03The resume is very lengthy once you become a parent.
SPEAKER_00It is very lengthy, very lengthy, very uh selfless. Yeah, uh, you cannot be a selfish parent. Cannot. You cannot be. This is I'm thinking about me. You cannot be, well, this is what I thought I had earmarked this for. I've seen this pair of shoes, and this is really what I wanted to get. And next thing you know, somebody coming home. There's this assignment that's now due, and XYZ materials are not needed, and now you got to dip off into that that uh shoe full of money that you were saving because that's what that's what parenting is. It is, it is so don't tell me that you're sending these kids to school, and okay, it's different when you know they're gonna have breakfast at school. And if your child doesn't qualify for that, then you need to make sure your child has eaten before they leave home in the morning. If it's a Pop Tart, I never understood what I ate those because I thought those are the most yucky looking things in the world. But is it cereal? One wanted cereal, the other one wanted bacon and toast and some eggs. So you had to get up and start your day early enough that you got them squarely prepared, have their meals, and going to school prepared to do what they needed to do, which was to learn. And thinking about how you send them off when they got out of your car, was it have a good day, or you SOB or you SO this and you did a da-da-da, curse them out before they get in the classroom, but you want them to perform well in the classroom. How can they when the only thing they're playing in their mind is the last words that you said to them getting out the car? Absolutely, absolutely.
SPEAKER_03It it's it's a lot of sacrifices when you become a parent. If you're gonna take the job seriously, because it is a work, it is a work, you know. And yeah, you want to pinch their little heads off some days. We're not saying that that's not what we did, but yes, we wanted to.
SPEAKER_00Listen, uh when I got a call when it was saying Aloyshes, that Taylor, uh, well, no, that's not how it went. Taylor told me, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to mention her name, but anyway, she was like, I have to staff the school for um some help today. And I was like, Really? And she said, Yeah. And I said, Okay. So then I get a call from the teacher saying, You sure are taking this well because we know you. And I was like, What? She said she needed some math help. She said, She has a 95 average. What she needs math help with? She had a detention. Oh, so you have told me that you need math help, but you actually got after school detention for cutting up.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00And she said, so I asked her, Well, what did your mom think you was she was signing this for? And she said, Oh, I just told her we I needed some help with some sort. She decided to call and tell me the real reason. She said, So is there anything you want me to tell her? I said, just tell her you talked to her mom. That's all she needed.
SPEAKER_01She said, Is that it? I said, Yeah, we good. Yeah, we're we're great. Just tell her you talk to her mom.
SPEAKER_02And she said, You're so calm about this. I said, uh-huh. That's all you need to tell.
SPEAKER_00That was it. Because those are not, those are those are the kind of games we're not gonna play.
Why Dual Careers Matter
SPEAKER_03You know, working, um, being in in careers, career fields where you are challenged from stem to stern. And that's just that's where I'm back on nursing, but I don't know anything about being a judge. But I'm just saying, you are always thinking when you are a nurse, you have that patient forever on your mind when you are a nurse, and I just want to think, and you you're here to correct me. Being a judge would be the same thing, you know. You always have people on your mind, you're trying to process you when I would come home after being a case manager, you know. Yeah, it's it sounds uh wonderful, but you talk about had me thinking outside the box to get the box, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_00You were thinking outside the world because you were steadily trying to figure out. We were steadily trying to figure out okay, well, if we do this, these are possibly the results that could happen. But then that little being would be like, But what about this? No, I want to. About that one right there, yeah. Well, we we gotta give a little thought to this, okay. So now we gotta recircle back around and think about all this. Yes, especially with, like I said, with my clientele was birthed to generally 19 years, it could be up to 21, but it was generally birthed to 19 years. That's a lot of time spent in between. It is, and it's a lot of time span of removing children from the very people who were meant to take care of them, and then it was a lot of especially when you have children who can actually tell you in their way of what was going on. One thing I know about children is they are resilient and they have an unconditional love for their parents, even when they are being abused by them. Most of them will still want to be with mom and dad.
SPEAKER_03I've I've seen that. I understand that because you have a commonality with that individual, you have a relationship with that individual, it's innate, but you know them.
SPEAKER_00And my take was better the devils that you know, yes, than the ones that you don't. Because not every foster home is a great foster home.
SPEAKER_03Sure.
SPEAKER_00And not every relative is a good relative.
SPEAKER_03That's absolutely true.
SPEAKER_00And so, you know, kids just be like, Yeah, mom and dad may fight and argue and say bad things, but we know they'll settle down, and we just know how to go hide, scourge someplace, get out of the way until things settle down. Another sad way for a small child to have to grow up.
SPEAKER_03Yes, because as much as you don't want to carry that weight, you carry it with you, and you carry it through um adulthood, even though you know how to process things.
SPEAKER_04Well, you think you do anyway, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Because some memories you just can't erase.
Women’s Empowerment And Mentorship
SPEAKER_00And the other thing, Cal, is that God has this wonderful ability that he will make he'll put him in a place, and it may be years before something happens that triggers one of those memories. And you will then go back and they'll all start flooding back, but you'll be like, dang, I hadn't thought about stuff like this for a long time. What triggered all of this? And you never know what that is, you never know.
SPEAKER_03It could be someone else acting out, let's say a patient, okay, just acting out in the room, just want to just show out that day, and you can look in a person's eyes, and as we we know, eyes are the windows to the soul, and you can tell if they are really gone off the deep end, or if they're just seeking some attention, and I'd be like, if you don't sit down somewhere, they look at me.
SPEAKER_00You were nice. I distinctly remember it was two new nurses on the unit, and uh, I mean, freshly passed for the uh nursing exam, and we were oriented them on the unit, and they were in this patient room. I don't remember what room it was, they were in there with this patient. She is in restraints, but she has somehow gotten, she was so thin, she has gotten through the bed rail, and she is on the floor, and they are desperately trying to get her back in bed. They have gotten her restraints undone and the rail down, and I am just standing across the hallway, just looking at this, and she has got these two new nurses. I mean, she is taking them through the bringer down through there, and I walked in that doorway and I said, if you don't get Joe back in that bed immediately, it is gonna be a problem in here. She stood up and she tapped her foot and she said, Well, I know when I'm licked and crawled back in that bed.
SPEAKER_03I mean, they know who they can play with and who they can't.
SPEAKER_00Those nurses turned around and looked at me and they said, Are you serious? Are you kidding us right now? I said, Hey, I didn't do anything but come here and tell her to get back in the bed. Y'all were the ones in here, all under the bed with all on the floor. No, I don't have time for all that.
SPEAKER_03I can't do all that. They were her playmates, and she was gonna let them play. And she was playing, baby. She was playing, it's just wild, it's just absolutely wild. It's wild, it is absolutely wild, but you know, those are the stories that strengthen us or help us make it through the day because they're real, you can't make it up, they are real, you cannot, you cannot, and then those are they're the ones where oh, you've taken care of this patient, care you poured your all into it at them, and no family would ever come see about them.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and you would just be I would be so defeated as to say, how can you have somebody up in here and not ever come to see about them? And one day God spoke to me and he said, But how do you know that she was a good mother?
SPEAKER_03I got that advice from um um one of my coworkers when I first became an LPN, and um I was working with her, and she always just had wisdom nuggets for me, always. And I saw her not too long ago, and I said, I remember basically everything you ever told me, and one of I didn't tell her, but one of the things she told me, don't get upset if a patient doesn't have visitors, and I was like, My mind wasn't on that, I'm trying to pass these bills, and I was like, So what now? If a patient didn't have visitors, uh, don't get upset about it, you know, don't be feeling sorry for him because we don't know how he treated that family and why people aren't coming to see him. He may have a past that we're truly not aware of because he's just coming in here for that. So that reminded me of that. That you just she said, just keep an open mind when it came to that. And I was like, Wow, you know. So when people say, Oh, you just a nurse or you're a nurse, they don't know what baby.
SPEAKER_00I am just the gatekeeper that has kept your family member alive. You're just a nurse. I know. I I fed them, I made sure their medications were given. I've encouraged them to get out of the chair, even when they told me that they weren't, and all the same time, I'm putting a pillow, a blanket over that that chair, putting the pillow to the back of and saying, Yeah, we're getting out of this bed. I'm not getting up out of the bed, okay. Letting that bed all the way down, raising the head as high as it would go, calling a couple of texts. Okay, y'all, come on, we're gonna get so-and-so up at this out this bed. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03I mean, this is for your benefit, it does not benefit me, but it is a part of what we need to do to get you on the road to recovery.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely.
Frontline Nursing Realities
SPEAKER_03And what goes on with people? I you're not helping me, you know, I'm helping you, you know. So, you know, don't be acting like I told her, no, no, and I'm finna show you, but it's okay. If you think you did, it's okay. It's crazy, you know, and it's just wow, you know, the emotional, the mental, the physical that goes into careers. Um, someone said something about he was a bartender and he said, You I'm just like you all, you nurses, you know. I hear I hear all of the stories. So one of the nurses thought back, yeah. But if you give the you get the wrong drink, nobody's gonna die. Lord, nurses have a comeback, boy. They have oh I just was so embarrassed, I wouldn't be looking in his eye, uh, because I couldn't, because you can't can it's you can't make comparison, you can't make the comparison, you know. Um come on, you're here for probably a four-hour shift. We're we're right here trying to do this thing, but uh, and he was serious, he was very, very serious. And the nurse was too. She said, Your patients don't go down, you give the wrong drink. That ain't happening, you know. So let's just kind of be open to listen. And some people, I don't care how much you explain things to them, they well, what if this? And why I said, Look, it's it's just complex, it's complex.
SPEAKER_00The human person is complex, and some of them want to be complex, and some of them don't, but then you know, it's I told somebody in uh who was in law school, they kept asking the the the uh professor, what if I said, please can we not what if this question today's always gonna be a different scenario that can foresee itself, but I came here to learn something. I didn't come here to hear you what if is to the tenth degree and beyond.
SPEAKER_03I agree because there's you you're going too far out on that ledge that sometimes all it takes is, sir, what's really going on with you today? I'm just mad because she acted like she didn't want to give me my medicine and she talked real ugly to me. And so, you know, I didn't feel like being bothered with her. Okay, sir. You know, I'm sorry that happened to you, but let's get back on track now. Well, I appreciate you at least listening. Some people just want you to listen to them, don't push that cup of pills in their face, don't push that water in their face and walk away.
SPEAKER_00And if nothing else, ladies and nurses and gentlemen who are nurses, when y'all gotta give all those meds down those peg tubes, please just get can you dissolve them in some little bit of coffee or some or some Pepsi Cola, please? So that I that the end of the peg tube is not gonna be stopped up. All of that stuff is gonna be dissolved. That coffee and Pepsi gonna push right on through there, and they're gonna get every bit of what they need.
SPEAKER_03It goes back to an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. You're not in that big a hurry to give the medicine, just make sure that you're giving them correctly because you have an eight-hour ship, and if you're fortunate enough, you're doing a four-hour ship, but take that opportunity to make sure that you're doing what you're supposed to do, uh don't cause the patient any more harm or any more discomfort. Give them what they need, give them what they're doing.
SPEAKER_00And if all those family members who want to call you from two 2500 miles away, you you better, excuse me, wait, we're the ones here at your family member bedside, and you're gonna call and threaten the very person who has to take care of them, yeah. Yeah, please tell me what sense that makes.
SPEAKER_03None, absolutely none.
SPEAKER_00You better, yeah, yeah. Okay, all right, and if I don't, then what's gonna happen? Yeah, and how you gonna know it didn't happen? Like I said, you 2500 miles away. How you gonna know? I'll be gone by the time you get here, madam.
SPEAKER_01Okay, and that's all point, yeah.
SPEAKER_00My people, well girls crazy, I am truly, I am truly, I truly believe that when God made nurses, he knew that there were gonna be things that we never should have seen, and he said that getting a big chuckle like, yeah, I know you didn't see that one coming, and he is so right, that's so true because what's in the book is not what's in the bed.
SPEAKER_03Say that again, it's just not, and I think that's what intrigues me about nursing. Nursing, everybody knows nursing was not on my radar. Um, but once I got in and started. Really? No, I wanted to either be an educator or an OT, occupational therapist. Nursing was not on my radar. So when I haphazardly, when someone mentioned the LPM program, um, I'm like, yeah, why not? I'm not doing anything. So I went and fell in love with it. The more I was in class, the more I was in clinical, the more I loved it. And so coming to the end of the term, we went around the room and our instructor wanted to know what were our plans after graduation, and I said, I'm going to work one year as an LPN, and if I like it, I'm going to Orient School. And she said, Oh, do you have a school in mind? I said, I have two, but the better one is going to be Sanford. The other one is too far away. And that's exactly what I did. So, yes, but it's because I loved it. It intrigued me. Um, you learn so much.
Documentation, Advocacy, And Boundaries
SPEAKER_00And see, I went to Sanford um simply because they said, well, in two years, you can go take the uh nursing uh examination, and you pass your nurse, and I was like, two years, 24 months. Okay, that's doable. I can do that. And so, like you, got into it, enjoyed it. Clinicals I love, and I think, and it didn't hurt that uh for whatever reason in the financial aid office they thought I was white. So they gave me a lot of scholarship money until I actually had to go in and and they said, and they called my name and they was like, You're Lorraine Williams. And I said, I am. They said, Are you sure? And I said, Well, last time I checked this morning, I got up, I was her and looked for my grades, and they said, This is you, and I said, Yeah, and they was like, What's the issue? Oh, oh nothing. Well, my grades was good, okay. I was making uh straight A's and B's, and you know that should have been somebody else. So after that in-person meeting, the the scholarship money kind of dwindled up, but by then I was on maybe I only had that one semester to go, so I got a loan from Am South and got through that semester, passed the uh uh nursing exam, got a job, and so I went back and made reservations, um arrangements to pay off the loan. And um the lady at Am South bank looked at me and she said, Are you serious? And I said, Yes, why? And she said, Well, one, we don't very have that many people who come in and voluntarily make arrangements to pay off their student loan. That's number one, but why are you doing that? I said, Because somebody else will need a student loan. And if you keep having people who don't pay off their student loan, then student loans aren't not aren't going to be there as they need to be.
SPEAKER_03True, true, very true. I just um going through that those first two years was really good for me. It's kind of like I eased on through. So I was like, I remember telling you, because I think you were at another school, and I said, You need to come over here, they're gonna welcome you with open arms. And you were like, Really? I said, Oh, really? I said they have the uh two-year program, and then you can once you finish, then you can go into your your bachelor's if you so desire. And you were like, Oh, let me think about that. Well, next thing I knew you're on campus, you didn't think long, but it was great. Um, and I don't even think they have that associate degree program anymore, which is fine, you know.
SPEAKER_00Everybody um, you know, morphs into what's best for them, but I still think they should they should have kept it because at least you you got good qualified nurses. Uh that's true, that's true. By the way, and if they wanted to go back and get their bachelor's, then they had that opportunity that they could do that, which was you know, the pay wasn't that extravagant, you know, extraordinarily different between the associate's degree and the bachelor's degree. It really wasn't, it was not, but it just gave you more opportunities if you were going to go up that career ladder. That's all that bachelor's degree did for you. But um, in a time that we have right now, we need to have that associate's degree availability back because some people don't want to do the, you know, we did what three and a half, four years. Places like UAB, it was generally like five years to get that that bachelor's degree.
SPEAKER_03Some people just want to get that associate's degree and go to work, they do, and earn a living and have a career and be able to take care of themselves and if they have a family, and some people they are second-degree people, or they left school to raise their families, and they all they want is that associate degree, they're coming back um into school at an age where a lot of people are thinking of, oh, my kids are grown, I'm gonna achieve retirement, but um, they to me are more dedicated to the cause, they are more bought into what is needed, and um they're some of your better students.
SPEAKER_00It's to me the same way when I I think about law school, because you know, everybody would say, Well, you went you went to law school at night. Yeah, I did. Uh-huh. You know, that's the person who really wants to be a lawyer. Because you're telling me I done worked a full eight-hour job someplace, and then I done got off that job and enough time to maybe go through somebody's drive-through, grab something to eat, and then I'm gonna go sit in somebody's classroom for another two hours.
SPEAKER_03Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00I gotta want that.
Tough Calls In Family Court
SPEAKER_03You gotta want it. You have, and that's like those people with the second, you know, trying to get a second degree or their first degree, but they decided to raise their families and be a housewife. So, yes, they are hungry for it. I um one of my students, she came up to me because I I do clinical instruction as well. I take them to their clinical site and um she said, Oh, it's such rewarding. It's it's it's why I said, God bless you. And she's like, Do you think I can get my bachelor's and and learn how to and be an educator? I said, Absolutely, you can. What's to stop you? Well, she recognized me before I recognized her because it was a few years later, and she said, Remember me? And it was during COVID, and we all were masked up. And I said, I remember the face. She said, I asked you, did Think I could go back to school. I wanted to be an educator, I wanted to teach nursing. Well, here I am. I am an educator and I am teaching nurse. And so I'm I'm like, I gave her the biggest hug. We hugged each other and she said, It's because of you, it is truly because of you. And then she takes the mic because she's teaching one of the seminars, and she calls me out, and I'm like, look at it. Please, you know, but it was such a beautiful thing that some people really will go ahead and give you your flowers while you yet live. And because she says she told me I could do it, and she had no doubt that I could do it, and here I am doing it, and she's over there and she called my name, so I stood up. So it's just that what we pour into people, you want to pour the best because you have a way of coming, it comes back to you.
SPEAKER_00It may not come back the way you poured it, but God has a way of bringing it back to you. And that's one of the true things, and one of the things I really do wish that they had never done away with was the true baylor program. Because a lot of bail moms, the opportunity to help support their families and take care of things and still be that full-time mom during the week. I really do.
SPEAKER_03I wish true Baylor and I loved it. Yes, yeah, I loved it. Yes, ma'am. I did. Yeah. So when people tell me, yeah, I do 312s, I said, that's not real, Baylor.
SPEAKER_02You just say full-time the way they say I said you do what are they playing you?
SPEAKER_00They playing you in Texas where that where the bayl program was originated from, it was never originated off of three 12-hour shifts.
SPEAKER_03And yeah, it was weekends, it was weekends, you know. So either you worked five uh with your four shifts, or you worked your baylor, which was Saturday and Sunday, whether it's uh 7A to 7p, 7p to 7A. That was true baylor, and I did that for about three years and I loved it.
SPEAKER_00I did it longer than that until they played at the three week, three days, and then I was coming to the point where I was getting ready to um run. But um that Friday, Saturday or Saturday, Sunday, you couldn't beat it. No, you couldn't beat it, Saturday and Sunday. You could not beat it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I went to church on Wednesdays. So no, you couldn't beat it.
SPEAKER_00Could not beat it because it gave you the accessibility to do there for your young children, and you and I had um children around the same age, and um it lets you be that mom during the week, that um breadwinner during the during the week as well, and you could get everything tidied up and knew where everything was. Yes, you could not be that the original Bayer program was absolutely hands down the best of both worlds.
SPEAKER_03It really was. It really was. I enjoyed every minute of it. Well, Judge Pringle, do you have any closing remarks for people? One thing I'm gonna let you say it. I'm going to let you do your the closing remarks because, like you say, this is um is it International Women's Month? It's definitely women's month. Um, because there are some young ladies out there. I want them to be inspired from your story. They've heard mine, but I want them to know there's alternatives out here. You just have to want to get them. And I love your rides of your career, honestly.
SPEAKER_00Well, thank you again, uh, Cal for having me. Thank you for our friendship that has spanned some decades. We'll just leave it like that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we'll leave it like that. Ain't gotta know it all.
SPEAKER_00But I will say to those um who are listening, who are thinking about their life, what their careers are, for those who are in it, who are unhappy with it, and for those who are just seeking something different. I once said to my youngest daughter, Mommy has had three jobs, and she started laughing hysterically. And I was thinking in my head, what is wrong with her?
SPEAKER_02What's so funny?
Resilience Of Children
SPEAKER_00What did I say that was so funny? And she looked at me, she said, You've never had a job. And I said, Excuse me. She said, Mom, you've had three careers. And I went, Oh. She said, You never had a job. Yours were careers. So, ladies, think about what it is that you love to do and what you're most interested in, and what you really want to do in your life. And don't let anyone deter you from your dreams and your aspirations and hope. But first and foremost, put God in the in the in the head of everything and let Him direct and guide your path. And for the naysayers who come into your life, don't argue with people. You know what you want to do, and you can get there. They may not see what's inside you, but God sees what's inside of you. So don't shortchange yourself by living somebody else's dream. Live your dream. And if it takes you five years to get there, guess what? It is okay, it's your dream.
SPEAKER_03It's your dream.
SPEAKER_00But don't all bump, but don't ever be, I wish I had done. Please don't. Don't do that to yourself. Don't say you did this, but this is not what you wanted to do, and I wished I had gone ahead and did what I originally wanted to do. Do what it is he's put in your heart and your desire to do. Because if he's put it there, he has a way of showing you how to get there.
SPEAKER_03That is so true. I I mean, hand clap, hand clap, hand clap. That is so true. It's it's your dream, it's your life. Just let allow God to uh walk you through this situation. Um, just two caveats. I took chemistry on a summer five-week term.
SPEAKER_00You were insane.
SPEAKER_03I was insane, but I was determined to get into that program at a certain time. The next summer I took micro five weeks. But I passed.
SPEAKER_00Listen, let me tell you, we went through chemistry one and chemistry two. I wanted to be a nurse anesthetist, baby. The alkins and the alkines had made me so sick, and they said, Oh, to be a nurse's inest, you have to take two more years of chemistry. I said, you know what? I'm gonna pivot right here because I don't love chemistry that bad. So let me pivot right here. So I was like, C RNA school, you have to uh you know go through all of that, and then you have to, you're going up against the best of the best, which is absolutely what is necessary. I said, but I may have taken all these science and chemistry classes, and I still don't get in. Let me look at this law degree, I can get into that, and I don't know. Yeah, that's what I'm doing. I'm gonna pivot, and that's how I did. I pivot.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, because everyone cannot walk that same walk. Everybody, that path may not be for you, it may take you a minute to get to know yourself to figure yourself out, but make sure it's your dream and not someone else's. Absolutely, you will work better in your dream, yeah. Micro, and it wasn't a couple hours, we were there like four hours a day, okay. But it worked for me, okay. And it didn't just work for me, it was a class of a class of us, okay.
SPEAKER_00Chemistry had the same rate, we had to take micro, but when that man told me to trace a drop of blood from my heart to the tip of my baby finger, and back, oh I was like, You done lost your mind.
SPEAKER_03This is it, baby. Right here, you know. So if it's your dream and you're not competing with anyone, ladies, please hear me. You're not competing with anyone. What God has for you, He has for you, and His timing is perfect time.
SPEAKER_00It sure is now that it is, Carolyn. If you have not said a true word, I'm gonna give you hand clap, hand clap.
SPEAKER_03What God has for you, it is for you, and it is in his timing, but we can sometimes derail his timing when we listen to naysayers, and the naysayers are here, they are on the sideline like you're in a parade, they are cheering for your fault. Okay, so you cannot listen to the naysayers, and I just was always team Carolyn, it's always team Carolyn and whoever I buddied up with. We had to depart at some point in time, but it was not out of that any animosity, it just was timing, it was timing, and um, I don't regret being a nurse, it has opened so many doors for me. I've done so many things in so many places with so many people, uh, all over the country, and I am just okay with it.
Teaching Moments And Patient Care
SPEAKER_00Oh, you know what, we know how to take care of ourselves because my daughter said when I called her, we had come back from Ghana and we had been home maybe about 10 days, and I called her and I said, I gotta go to an emergency room. And she said, Oh, you sick. You calling me to go to an emergency room. Oh, you sick, because you have tried everything you know how to make yourself feel better. If it hadn't happened, oh, you real sick. And it turned out I had the flu. She said, Oh, yeah, you were sick. Because see, I know you you don't go to no hospital. You don't, mm-mm. And we don't, we'll figure out a way of trying that self before we go to the uh ER.
SPEAKER_03No, ma'am. We're not. That's true, that's very true. We're gonna diagnose ourselves for a minute, and then when that doesn't work within 24, 48 hours, then we're tipping into the emergency room.
SPEAKER_00I'm gonna tell you one better than that. I was so sick, and I had done everything, and then I when I called the on-call doctor, and then he said, Well, you know, you can go. I said, Okay, wait, before you tell me I can go to the emergency room. I know that I said, but listen, walk with me through this path, and let me tell you, and I'll tell you what I think else might be going on. And I told him, and he said, You know what? That's a possibility. I'm gonna call you in some antibodies for what I think you just diagnosed yourself to have. And if you're not better within 36 hours, I said, I'm gonna go to the emergency room. And sure enough, it worked. I was like, baby, we will try some everything before we go to the ER.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. We don't want to be in there on that stretch if we don't have to be. It's not that's not our job.
SPEAKER_00I don't think it's that cat. I just think it's that we we know we're gonna go in there, act right, but we're gonna get entertained beyond the point of being entertained by some of those family members who've come into the emergency room with a loved one. Well, why is it taking so long? We can't, it says emergency room, yeah, ma'am. But you know what? Uh 75 other you all came in because it said emergency room.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. You're not the only one here. They have to staff.
SPEAKER_00Only one here. There's a whole waiting room full of people wanting to get back. We're seeing you all as quick as we can. Some of the stuff we need lab work, y'all think you walk in here and in 30 minutes we're supposed to be walking back out. It does not work that way. It does not.
SPEAKER_03And why would you want it to? Because why would you want it to?
SPEAKER_00It's it's like that that axiom, and I tell people I dispel this for people all the time. They said, uh, what is it? Um oh, I say slow and steady, but they say, What's the other one?
SPEAKER_03Slow and steady wins the race.
SPEAKER_00Uh-huh, but they want a quick recovery. Oh, that's not gonna happen. That's not that's not how it's gonna work. You want it to be slow and steady. So if there's gonna be some setbacks, you can catch them early, but you don't want a quick recovery, baby.
SPEAKER_03What's quick about recovery? There is none. I tell people all the time, you didn't get sick overnight. Oh, yes, I did. I was fine yesterday. I said, No, you were sick yesterday, and probably the day before.
SPEAKER_00Okay, you were sick weeks before, but you were trying to self-treat yourself, and then it got here, and that's why you're here for a while.
SPEAKER_03You know, so I said, No, you didn't get sick overnight, boom. No, no, they didn't happen that way. We would like to think that, but and then their family member would say, Yeah, she has been kind of puny for the last couple of days, and it's not that we want to be right and you you're wrong, it's just that we know how disease processes got that's the reality of it.
SPEAKER_00And you are and some people don't want to ever see the reality of it, you just want to be better, and we understand that I promise you, as nurses, we do because we want you to feel better. So that way, then you stop every five minutes. I'm not better yet, okay. But you know, I just gave you that pain shot, and it doesn't work as quickly as they say it does. You want to have to give it at least 10 to 15 minutes for them to it go through the muscle system, even if it's IV mail, it might hit you a little bit at first quickly, but it's still you got to give it the process. Don't want the process, not the process, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, no, we're in that microwave generation and so many level on so many levels, but you have to, and like I tell people, you have to heal from the inside out that we do, and in closing care, let me just say one other thing, sure, ladies and whomever else is listening, ladies, gentlemen, and everybody else out there.
SPEAKER_00There doesn't just have to be one set field that you are falling to. You may have more than one career inside of you, so don't limit yourself to just one thing and think that's it, that's a rap because it isn't.
SPEAKER_03I agree. Hand clap, hand clap. Look at the two of us, hand clap, hand clap, girl. Listen, look at us. Yes, yes. You don't have to be one and done.
Career Paths And Nursing Education
SPEAKER_00You do not have to be not, you don't because whoever would have thought we would have gone from nursing you to being an author, oh my goodness, and to all the other things that encompass your life, besides being that wife, that mom, that that daughter, that sister, all the other fears. But Carolyn, we have been through so we have seen so much. I won't say we've been through so much.
SPEAKER_03We've seen, we've seen a lot, we've seen a lot. And that that has been a blessing. It really, really has absolutely and uh and I thank God for it, honestly.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yes, yes, it would not have happened without him.
SPEAKER_03And I'm thankful for the career path. Um, they're going to be heat cups along the way, but that's just what they are. He cups. But if you still if you stay the course, you're gonna win. You're good, you're going to achieve the goal, you're going to achieve it.
SPEAKER_00But he tells us in in his word, there's gonna be trials and tribulations and tribulations. That's it.
SPEAKER_03Well, Judge Pringle, I have truly enjoyed having you. It has been great going down portions of memory lane. We couldn't tell it all, people. We could not tell it all, but we're not telling it all, but it has been great. You never know how people are going to weave in and out of your life, and they bring you life whenever you see them, because whenever we see each other, we just kind of stop in our tracks, give each other a big smile, a big grant, a hug, talk for a few minutes or a little longer, and then we part ways because we have been busy career women.
SPEAKER_00And the thing about that, Carol, is that it may be a year apart, it may be six months, but whenever we see each other, it's still that same wonderful smile that's pops up on our face.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00That same big old hug and that same girl, what are you up to nowadays?
SPEAKER_03Tell me, tell me, you know, and it's it's all good, it is absolutely good. It is okay. Well, thank you so much for being a part of Gentry's journey. I have enjoyed having you on. Um I like my podcast because it is varied. Um, uh interview quite a few people, different aspects of life, different parts of the country, and it it has been good for me to learn, to grow, to do, uh, and to give people a platform where they can share their story.
SPEAKER_00And you know what that the wonderful thing about that is um you said all those things and more, but the ability to let God use you amen in a way that you probably never saw yourself of being used.
SPEAKER_03Because I did ask them, what is it you would have me to do? What is it you would have me to do?
SPEAKER_00Maintain that servant's heart and that servant's spirit, yes, where we may you know somebody may not appreciate it, but the one who sits high and looks low, he always appreciates it.
SPEAKER_03Amen, amen, amen. Well, you have a wonderful evening. I receive that, and we will chat later.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, thank you for having me once again. And to the listeners, this has been Judge Lorraine W. Pringle, social science degree in nursing, bachelor's science degree in nursing, jurisdoctorate degree in the field of law, and retired district court judge. Look at that from a girl from Lil O'side of Pipe Shop, Alabama.
SPEAKER_03Come on, tell you. Hey, tell hey, we never know what God's plan is. Let's just be in position so we can deal with it. So we can receive it and work it.
SPEAKER_00And work thank you so much, Cal, again, for having me. I really have appreciated.
SPEAKER_03Thank you. Have a good night.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. Same to you.