34 - Kaylee Powers Pt 2: Breaking Stereotypes Left and Right

Continue with nurse and current Arizona resident Honored Guest Kaylee Powers as she talks about travel nursing, life-long challenges, accidental and purposeful parenting, the teeter-totter of taking from area of life to fill your cup in another, night shift life and shift differentials, feeling adjusted, her passion to break stereotypes, her inspirational list of "equity trail blazers," and more!

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Transcript

0:02

Welcome back to the very special confessional episode of Feeding Our Young with honored guest Kaylee Powers. Just kidding. How are you doing, Kaylee? Pretty good. That was a really down here in sunny Arizona. It says 107 on my computer. 107 and that is at 12 30 in the afternoon on july the 13th 2024 correct yes oh yeah i'm good thanks feels like a bathtub right now. I do you feel like is there like a lot of swimming pools down there though? I feel like that's kind of a - right? Isn't that a thing? I'm not fancy for sure. No, no, no, but I mean, like, but the fact that everybody's got, you know what mean? There's at least a way to cool off for the most part. Because we're, a lot of people love Washington because, you know, they're like, oh, it's just so much cooler there. And compared to where you're at, 100%, we're only going to get, think, to 96 today. But the swimming pool situation is a little bit different up here. Not quite as ubiquitous as maybe down south a little bit more. Yeah, yeah. With that, so Kaylee, we've already established the fact we've known each other for four years. I had the honor of meeting you as you traveled to our facility. And if I remember correctly, that's one of your earlier travel jobs out of nursing school. Is that correct? Yes, so, OK, so the third assignment, and that's out of nursing school. as a new grad, would you, because there's a lot of, you know, there's, There are lot of pros and cons to any area of nursing you pursue, let alone whether or not you're going to be like a home -based nurse versus a travel nurse. So did you travel locally? Did you travel nationally? And what would you recommend this to students as they're first getting started? What was your experience like? I traveled across the state first like selfishly I took an assignment closer to my grandbaby because she was you know not being seen by her graham cracker often enough so I went and took a assignment in the hospital in which I had my children I wanted to go back and see what it was like to be a nurse there. And it was awesome. I learned a lot. I would not recommend being a new nurse going into a high acuity labor and delivery unit. I felt like I had a lot of life experience and I'd been working in the medical field for 16 years at that point. So I had no problem. interacting with patients, clients, whatever you want to call them. But it can be very overwhelming if you haven't developed mental maturity and the ability to kind of step outside yourself and ask for help when you need it. And there's a lot of humility that goes with entering in other nurses' spaces. especially when you don't know their processes. So, and you're only given two to three days to understand what the unit looks like and what their processes are. So, I don't always recommend it. I very rarely probably would. Yeah. And if it works for you, And that mental maturity you're referring to, of course, she's not referring to age or anything in that regard. It's establishing those patterns and those habits that you need to have as a new nurse to then build, it's building a new foundation, right? That foundation of practice upon which the rest of your practice ends up getting built upon. So I'm representing that accurately, correct? Yes, yes, for sure. yes, yes. Awesome. So that's a little practical right out of the shoot. Those that have listened to the previous episode know that we're diving in the deeper end of the swimming pool today to use our Arizona vernacular. That being said, for those that might have just joined this episode, and even those that haven't, would you care, Kaylee, to share about any challenges you've had in your Well, transparently, I sent this long chronological list of what I consider to be challenges or barriers, hurdles that were placed in my way via myself or other people to become a nurse. If I just run through that, like we talked in the previous episode about being born into a less than ideal home with addicts for parents who abused each other, abused themselves and never grew out of it. Found myself in foster care and then family home with my aunt and uncle who gave me... a leg up, a little leg up in life. And that is not to say a financial leg up in life for real. But while living with them, I became a very rebellious teenager. Met my son's dad, had my first child. My sophomore year of high school, had my second child. before I turned 19 years old. I met another amazing person apparently in high school and married that person and had a baby with him. So I was 19 years old with two babies and said, what the heck am I gonna do with myself? And I became an MA. It was an easy way to, you know, they had these like very, workable schedules. You could go to school at night and work during the day and I had my mom and my grandma to be helpful and this is at a time and this may hurt people's hearts a little bit. This is at a time when your apartment, your two -bedroom apartment in Western Washington was like $700. Like what the heck. Whoo. Yeah. Yes, yes, the 1800s are... it has to be true. Yeah, Honda Civic, Horse and Carriage, that's what I drove. But yeah, so I lived kind of this meager life with these two kids and people always say, hey, was that really hard? And my answer always is, hard is, you know, your own perspective. I don't know what it's like to not have that just keeping your head above water struggling life in those earlier years. So yes, was it hard? But anybody's life could be hard. They don't have to have two kids before they're 19. Like I said in the previous episode, we never know what that patient is holding. We never know what our coworkers is holding in their background. So we just have to just assume the best about people. Sometimes it doesn't always work out well to assume the best about people, but it doesn't hurt you to assume the best about people. So just move forward. Yeah. Well, and I personally would rather get burned, assuming the best of someone, than to do the opposite. Yeah, yeah. I mean, sometimes I've made such poor choices in my life. I don't know what I did to deserve my life now. But I just like, oh, it wasn't when I was a crappy 20 -some year old that earned me this life. It was probably all of the things that I had to endure before those years. And my karma has come back now. So I feel very fortunate to have gotten divorced after the second child and kind of had some time to find myself and had a third child with not the person I married to. So how again I got that person I have no idea. I, okay, so I always tell women. that ask, you have children? Yes, I do. I've had two on accident and one on purpose. And I think everyone should experience that if they want to be a parent. It should be nice, it could be nice for you to know what it feels like to do it on purpose. I have a lot of purposeful non -parent friends and purposeful parent friends. I have friends that raise other people's children and friends that have decided not to be mothers and people that have struggled to be mothers and use their last embryo and have one kid. So I just think parenthood comes in all shapes and forms and we don't love our kids less or more. because of the way they got here. But the experience is absolutely different between being a mom so young and then mom less young and on purpose. So I'm still raising that kid in my home right now and it is challenging. I tell her all the time, you're the purposeful one. You're the one I did on purpose. Why is this so hard? Is it because I'm older? Is it because you're a... It's just because she's a different person. Yeah, it's okay. So what does the rest of your timeline look like from that point forward? I met my husband while I was taking prerequisites and working as, well, I had two jobs at the time, I guess. I spent nine years of my life working at Planned Parenthood as an MA, loving women's health, learning what healthcare advocacy looked like, what education looked like, what empowerment looked like. My whole professional life has built on what I learned there. and I would fill in at the clinics here and there while I was in school and I worked at a lounge in a casino as a bartender. The other hours of my day that really that's what really paid the bills. My husband played trivia on Tuesday nights in the lounge that I worked in and that's how I met him and he had zero game. So it took quite a while for me to find out that he was interested. But you did find out, fortunately. I did. Oh my gosh. Yeah, so met him in 2013. Started dating in 2014. Still a slow mover. We got married in 2018, And at that point, like I had filled out so many nursing applications. And I lived in a very saturated area. you know, Western Washington is saturated with nursing students. There's colleges everywhere, whether they're universities or community colleges. You have to be a saint and... volunteer all your time on your applications, a 4 .0 student, take your TEs and do better than everyone. People are getting waitlisted with 80 plus on their TEs test like it was insane. When my son graduated high school. I started, well, when I knew he was graduating, that's a story for another day, but when I finally figured out he was gonna graduate, I said, I'm gonna cast my net wider. And my husband was willing and able, he was my fiance at the time, willing to move our life in order for us to get this done. So I cast my net to Yakima Community College, Walla Walla Community College, and Walla Walla. wanted me so I said let's go and we did and I got married on August 18th 2018 and started nursing school September 28th 2018. We moved our whole life one week after we got married. Our wedding was like a goodbye party. It was the best day. Everybody we loved came. And some of those people we haven't seen again since then just because life has taken us, you know, but I, all those memories I just hold so dear in that last couple months of being over there. And you talk about those forms, know, you know, mental health forms, things of that nature, where, you know, have you had any of these major life moments, you know, in the last however long? A year, you know? Check the box if you, it sounds like there were a lot of boxes checked back Yeah, major life stuff in the last year. Yes. I mean that's a curveball, Eric. said you were gonna throw one. I warned ya, they come, they come. I'll say, and I don't know if you've experienced this, but any time that you change up your schedule, your structure, your family life, whatever that means, there's challenges. And I wouldn't say it challenges your marriage, but it requires you to tap into things and... coping mechanisms that maybe you haven't had to tap into in a while. And I haven't had to tap into those kind of behaviors in a while, like really finding patience in moments. And I... always try to maintain a certain level of perspective when it comes to how fortunate I am to be where I am, to have the partner I have. But in the last year, there's been so much like missing of my son and my granddaughter that I've really had to like look at my husband and be like, I know that what we're doing is what our dream is. but there's also a part of my dream over here. And he been the most amazing and supportive partner, never would say anything negative or contrary to what I believe my needs to be. And if my needs mean purchasing an extra plane ticket, like that's what it is. So there's just a real like rawness and vulnerability when you feel like your mental health is starting to decline because you're not filling up that cup right? Like I haven't seen my grandkid in five months, I need to go. And so I have to pull from this part of my life to fill up that part of my life. I just feel like it's like a constant teeter totter. But yeah, that's the challenge in the last year is like just finding balance amidst like NP school, working full time, night working too. You remember what that's like here. yeah, all too well. All too well. I am only now, in fact, tomorrow. Mark six months on day shift in a 17 and a half year career. So yeah, yeah. I don't know if we're allowed to talk about this, but what's the difference in your differential when you work days? Some nurses like to know this kind of thing, or nursing students. Kaylee has become the host. Yeah, no, there's definitely a difference there. And that's one of the many reasons why many like, there are some people that know they don't want to do night shift, and they go, I'm going to do night shift, and I'm going to suffer through however long, hopefully it's as short as possible, and I'm going to get to a day shift position. you know, putting in their time, etc, whatever the case may be, because typically that's what's open, or at least historically. And maybe the pandemic has changed that to a certain degree, but I don't know how long that'll last. But that being said, yeah, no, that's a huge one of the huge deterrents for people jumping to days because night shift, know, depending on if you're union, non -union, et cetera, minimally, you're talking at least a couple extra bucks an hour. Where I'm at, it's currently, I think, $4 .50 an hour difference, which if you're working full time, that's huge. That's huge. you know, I was, what we call is, we call positions FTEs. So it's what percentage of a full time. position is that, know, one FTE, 1 .0 FTE is like 40 hours a week. And so typically, if you work in a place that has 12 hour shifts, then you're a .9. So you work 36 hours every week. And so on nights I was a .75, which is 60 hours every two weeks. You have three shifts one week and two shifts another. And wash, rinse, repeat. And so my .7, Worked to the point where I could do a .75 on nights and still take care of the family needs. And then this talk about going to days, know, it's huge. You're talking about this huge hit that you take if you maintain the same FTE. So part of that for us was just, I went back to total full time, 0 .9 FTE. And everybody's like, oh man, well you guys get to work, you know, three 12s a week, you got four days off. my mom, going back to talking about my mom, I never forget, when I first got my job she said, Man, I wish I could have had four days off. I'm like, yeah, mom, but the three days you're on 12 hours, it takes it out of you. Yeah, it's it's brutal, it's brutal. So anyway, long story short, there you go. Yeah, that's working nights, working days, doing all the sacrificial stuff. That was a nice little detour. I will say the health system we work for now, I'm not gonna put names out there because I don't know that that's allowed, but they're one of the largest employers in the state of Arizona as far as healthcare goes. They have an 18 % nighttime differential, so yeah, yeah. So it pays you based on. your hourly wage, right? So if you're real senior nurse and you stay on nights for 25 years, that can be pretty substantial. Yeah, very much so. those are the things that, I mean, again, you're talking very lucrative and it's, you balance out the work smart, not hard, whatever. But then, you know, we heard, gosh, seven, I want to say it seven, eight years ago when they were coming out and there's the big news, they're talking about, you know, insurance companies are now, what research is finding is that night shift is a known carcinogen. Everything. everything, especially if you're in California, everything causes cancer in California. But I mean, it wasn't the fact that you're doing all this shifting, but it was the habits that went along with it, right? Like the poor eating, the caffeine, the energy drinks, yeah, whatever you gotta do, all those things. So yeah, you're making more, but it's always, I always have a motto in that is if you're making a lot of money, Typically, it's because of some certain reason. Like if you're making, if you have an opportunity to go make more money, i .e. traveling, like you did, Kaylee, you know, there's more money to be made in traveling, but there's also a trade -off for that, and there's a reason why you're making more money, yeah, four days a week on my travel assignment. That was brutal. Ooh, I've never felt so tired in my life. But if you can make as much in three months as you can in a year, you start to knock out some bills. Yeah. larger amount of pain over a shorter period of time. But we digress. So Kaylee take us through the last bit of your timeline there as far as like, you've, you've, you're married, you've now moved. What other challenges awaited? Because I'm sure that was the end of the challenges, right? Between then and now? Yeah. Like a new start. Like I found like this peace in my daily life, my love, my support system. There's, little pulls here and there as my couple of kids left at home struggled with that move and my heart struggled. I left my son in Western Washington. That was, you know, his choice. He's going to start working and being an adult, yada yada. And then you know, things got crazy because then I started nursing school. And I had moved to a place that was very different from Western Washington. So not only am I starting in this program that's grueling and anybody that's in it or will be in it or has done it knows. It's hard and it's a lot and it's different schooling. It's different questions. How they phrase questions when you're being tested is rude and ridiculous and trickery. And I despise it. But I felt like every day that I was there, I felt grateful and so fortunate that somebody said yes and I took that as an opportunity to prove to myself like somebody said yes so show them that it's like they didn't make a mistake by saying yes. So I Made it through my first year of nursing school. That's when my dad passed away. And so I kind of had to, I hadn't talked to him in a number of years, but I kind of, he had burned so many bridges in his life that I was forced to be like the, the person who tied up all the ends, you know? So that happened and sometimes I still catch myself like, I'm one of those people. a person operating in the world without a Which, that's okay. But to that effect, it does take some adjustment. It's another sign of our own mortality, et cetera, et cetera. Whether your parents have died at an earlier age than you thought, or they did live a nice long life. The point is, as you get older, the more people you know end up passing away. And we're not going to turn this into some weird morbid episode. I distinctly felt that when my mom died. Like you said, she and I weren't super close for the last, I don't know, two decades of our life. But I made sure to maintain touch and there was a whole stretch of time where we moved her into our home after she had a heart attack. It's a whole thing and it's not worthy of time on this episode. But the long and the short of it was she's still your mom and you still remember all those things and you do. Every once in a you're like, my gosh, wow, we just... That's, you know, I my wife still has both of her parents, you know, biological and then, you know, there's a, there's all that that goes with that. both from divorced families. My dad is still alive. And so, you know, we do still have that, but you know, it already on the grandparent level, you know what I mean? It was like, well, there was the last of my grandparents and there's, know, and as the grandparents died, then it's like, okay, now it's the parents. And as we get older, you just, it's, it's a hole that can't be filled with anything. You just have to learn how to navigate. a new life, Right, yeah, true. Yeah, so I navigated. I just kind of moved past it and I don't know if that's healthy. I feel adjusted. Like I've always felt adjusted. You just roll with the punches. Like when parents never provide you support when they fail to be present, it doesn't feel any different, you know, whether it's in body or whatever. So yeah, we talked about in the previous episode, I completed my bachelor's shortly after becoming a nurse and then I started traveling. Then I relocated after my second kid graduated high school. I stayed in the LC Valley there and let her complete her high school years before I uprooted her. And then I uprooted another kid. And here we are in Arizona. And I will be here probably indefinitely. I joke to my husband like, I'll be a snowbird. You can stay here. I'll go back and forth. You know, you'll be my unofficial pool boy when I'm on vacation. Yeah. So here I am. Mm -hmm. I don't, I mean, that's just suggestive. Best pool boy ever! I love it, I love it. Alright, so I mean, we've clearly established there have been many hurdles, many challenges in your life to overcome and grateful that you're willing to open that up and be as vulnerable as you have been. How do you personally overcome challenges, whether they're those in your life, nursing school challenges specifically, like anything you've Yeah, I think just my desire to prove to myself and break stereotypes like teen mom, abusive relationships, addict parents, all these things like I asked my husband one time like, what do you love most about me? And he said your perseverance. So just like that's That view of me is my driving force. That's a positive view of me and I want to keep that momentum going. I just always want to be a good example to my children and what my husband loves about me. So I just keep it up. That's what keeps me going. Yeah, well said, well said. you know. When I feel like I'm losing my momentum, I just fill the time with all the things I love and all the people I love and that keeps it going. Sometimes it's easy to lose your center when things have gone off the rails. So sometimes I'm like, just need a minute to, and like I say to people who are starting out in nursing, self -care is huge and whatever that looks like to you, right? So self -care can mean just Filling your time with things that fill your soul Hmm. Like music, as you alluded to in the first, well, alluded to, you literally said, in the first episode, like music. Do you, like others, have, like, when you go through that timeline of your life, is there, is this create some sort of soundtrack for Yes, yeah, so my mom, I don't know Eric if you know what this movie is, The movie Metropolis, have you ever heard of that movie? Okay, so that soundtrack, I mean there's some Freddie Mercury and some Pat Benatar on there, that soundtrack reminds me of my early, early years. Like my mom listened to that when she was pregnant with me, right? So up until probably like five years old, like that soundtrack plays, which is very strange, right? Maybe Phil Collins filters in there a little bit, but you know. for all these young bucks. I'm just gonna have to Google all this stuff. You're getting a different kind of education today everybody. Yes, Yeah, and then, you know, as I... move through my life and move into different spaces. you know, when I moved to my aunt and uncles, I learned what hip hop was. I learned what rap was. Young MC was the first like artist that I ever heard. And I was like, well, this is a different kind of music. Cause I grew up in this tiny logging town where, know, I can only recall like Garth Brooks and Billy Ray Cyrus were playing out loud. So, and I was like, well, this is different. Correct. Yes. That's exactly right. And then, you know, as I got older, I just found a love for anything that had to do with R&B and soul and then hip hop. But there's certain albums that you can listen front to back and so great, so great. 1990s alternative rock ska. That's it. That's what fills my soul. just put it on the sound bar while I'm in the pool and float around and that's my therapy, I think. That is, it's true, true. now you're, yeah, again, preaching to the choir. I can't, just the fact that you talk about a specific soundtrack, that brought me back. I didn't even think about it, but, you know, my wife and I moved from the Seattle area to the Spokane area in Washington, is established previously. Golly, that was now over two decades ago, which is very weird for me to say, but yeah. hurts your soul a little bit. hurts my soul and I'm only three decades old so it's very strange how we were married so young. no, yeah, 2002 we moved over here and when we moved over here I was at, as far as a self-confidence standpoint and self -esteem standpoint, I was at the lowest point in my life. Period, end of story. And that's saying a lot because I grew up a nerd and there's some pictures out there that, woo doggy! I made a lot of friends, I did, because I was relatively outgoing, and I also made an awful lot of bullies, male and female, it didn't matter, I've got some horrendous memories back then. And so to say that this point in my life, as an adult moving over here, was my lowest point, just so that you get a little background on what that actually means for me. But I literally, my self -worth was in the toilet, my wife knew And we move over here, I end up with negative $250 to my name. And we have our first son at the time, and he's at that point, five, six months old. So, you know, it's not looking pretty. Like, yes, I've got a job over here, I'm going to school, and we've got this dream and all the things, but man, there was not much wiggle room there as far as anything else goes. And during this time, all that to This was about the time that Legally Blonde came out. Reese Witherspoon. And very, I don't know, guess at the risk of sounding very stereotypical, which is not me, hopefully that's been established by the time people are listening to this, but it's a very girl power, like go get them kind of a, you know what I mean? Like movie. And I highly recommend it. Very, very good. But the soundtrack to that movie spoke to my soul. You know what mean? Maybe that's not saying much as an A .I. postpartum nurse. But the point is, spoke to, yes I'm saying, it spoke to my soul. And it was like, I was just cranking that in our 91 Acura, two door red Acura. And I did a lot of driving for my job and stuff like that. Man, it just, it really pumped me up. So music is the soundtrack of life. Oh, that's so good. I equate it to a time machine. You can listen to a song. and just go right back to that moment, this person, that smell. Ugh. Isn't that crazy? So much nostalgia. There's so much brain activity that happens with these things, with these songs. my gosh, yeah. Good and bad. And like you said, the self -care, that is very much a part of that for, I imagine, many, many people. So whatever that looks like for you. So music is being inspirational. What else or who else has inspired you in your life, Kaylee? Any female that has made it her mission know, betrayal blazers in regards to equity, whatever that means, whether it means in the political world or whether it means in the music world or whether it means in healthcare. Not to say there's not fantastic men out there, because I did put a name on that list for you, Eric, that Dr. George Tiller was a trailblazer for women's health. Specifically, he was an abortion provider that was murdered in his church. But yeah, but there's something that George Tiller once said, and it was very simple. It's just that he trusts women. And women are the thermometer to your society. Like how is the health of your society, how's the health of your neighborhood? And that can be gauged on how the women of your neighborhood are doing. So he always trusted that women knew what was best for them. and whether that means to have zero children, to have 13 children, or more than that, whatever you want. But yeah, I just love that he... he was so out there with his belief in women. So women make it on there. As far as like people that I look up to or heroes as you want to call it, I smash all these people together to make a hero. I put Aretha Franklin on that list. don't know if any, not everybody knows that about Aretha, but she was a mother at 14 years old and became a huge success, right? So everybody knows who Aretha is. But she didn't let that one thing in her life dictate her success, like she kept going. And so I pull from that for sure. And I think when you talk about trailblazers and equality and you have to talk about RBG, right? And not only did she make... women, the forefront of conversation in the political world. But she also made men and their equality in a parental standpoint. She argued a case one time that a man had lost his wife in childbirth and he was not being granted paternal leave after she had passed. And she fought for his rights, just as she would for a female. And she won. So as a young lawyer. felt like it was really important to bring light to people that, you know, kind of fight people who don't always look like them. And I kind of operate my life like that. I mean, we know that our society has been very split in recent years about things like that, but I've always thought that my life would be devoted to the service of women and men and now just anyone. And I really feel fortunate that I get to vote in that sense and vote for people who need to be seen and heard. Because like you are kind of a middle -aged white person and we're very fortunate to be that in a country where it's not always easy to not look like us. So, yeah. a middle -aged white person drives me crazy. I know, rude. I had somebody tell me five years ago that I was middle -aged, I was like, god, I might be in my family lineage, I might be middle -aged. Yeah, you start doubling what you are, you're like, well, I guess I'm getting there. It's got to be close, right? Depending on which relative you're looking at. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I for I this is just a fascinating like I first of all like not that you need validation, but I'm listening to you describe For you your hero who or what inspires you the most that amalgam of people and I mean just hearing what you've said already and I'm sure the listener who has listened to the first episode in this episode can easily say and that is that you are the living embodiment of your heroes And I don't know that that can be said of everybody at any given time. So I just thank you. Thank you for living out the principles that you aspire to achieve, the things that you... Because we don't always get to do that, right? And so to be able to sometimes just put one toe forward, let alone one foot in front of the other, and to be able to do that, I just... So, so inspiring. Going back to I'm not gonna talk about your post again. you didn't see that there was nobody on there that was a fitness instructor. So I try to make good choices and move my body, but that's where I need to walk the walk a little more. Right. So I definitely walk the walk and talk the talk when it comes to my goals as a future provider and a current nurse. But that's not something could do better on for sure. You're there. You're on your way, my friend. You're on your way. So what makes this so unique is that we've just done a double episode. We haven't even talked about nursing school. You know, this is, I mean, we just haven't, there's been, I can't even like, I, you know, why not? Let's, we're gonna try this. You're hearing it here first. We're unplanned. And the third episode's probably gonna be pretty dang short. I don't know. I just don't want to necessarily make this one super long. But, uh, we're gonna go first triple episode. Ladies and gentlemen, the first triple episode, um, honored guest is Kaylee Parris. Kaylee, are you up for that? I mean, I'm not gonna take another 40 minutes of your time. That's insane. But, uh, I feel feel like I'm so long -winded. Ugh. This is going to turn out to be like we're talking about it being a triple episode and by the time I get it edited, they'll be like, Kaylee, guess what? We took out all the unnecessary stuff and we're actually less than one. So it's fine. It's great. No, I'm just kidding. No, I just feel like you have that much to say about nursing school. Would I be accurate in that assessment? All right. All right. So second intermission. going for a third episode that listeners be forewarned it's not gonna be the standard length that you're used to. We're just gonna hit that one hard and heavy. We've kind of already hit a lot of the hard and heavy stuff. So let's talk about what nursing school meant to Kaylee. how she navigated those waters. And we'll be right back.