Healing Presence: A Conversation with Shelli Nelson, RN, BS

Abstract

Joan Karnas: Shelli, I would like to talk with you about your work in nursing and some of the unique aspects you bring to our profession. I got to know you through your work in cardiac care at Fairview Southdale Hospital in Edina, Minnesota, but there is so much more to your story that I know people will be interested in. Could you start by describing your nursing journey and how you arrived at the role you have today? Shelli Nelson: I just had a reunion with my elementary school friends, and they said to me, "Shelly, we always knew that you wanted to be a nurse." I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes when I was 10 years old, so medicine and nursing and hospitals were a normal place for me to be. That was what led me to want to be a nurse-I wanted to be a part of that. I went right from high school into college preparing to be a nurse. I graduated in 1985, when there were zero nursing jobs to be had, and everyone who graduated in Minnesota went to places like Shreveport, Louisiana and Crawfi sh, Texas to get a job. I married a guy who was in the Air Force, and our fi rst assignment was in The Netherlands. Within weeks of our arrival, I started experiencing my fi rst complications of Juvenile Diabetes, as it was known then. I spent a couple of years basically trying to stay alive. I was 24 when I totally lost my sight. Rob and I were transferred to San Antonio, Texas, which is the medical headquarters for the Air Force-that's where I had my fi rst kidney transplant in 1987. I was done with living in Texas and needed some really good rehab, so we came back to Minnesota. I kept my nursing license and willingly told the Board of Nursing that I had lost my vision. There were no blind nurses at that time-I think there are only two or three others in the whole United States. So they didn't know what to do with me. They weren't bad people-they just thought, "What do you mean, you are going to be a nurse?" The process involved a.. orneys, hearings-it was a big deal. I was granted the privilege of retaining my nursing license-I knew there was something I could do. I knew I wasn't going back to the ER, where I worked before and a.. er I graduated, but I was going to do something. I thought about what I could do and what I knew the needs were as a patient because I had a lot of experience with that. One of the things I struggled with as a patient was being discharged from the hospital and experiencing this big gap between hospital care and the real world outside. So when I fi nished rehabilitation training for my vision loss, I created my position at Fairview Southdale: a cardiac a.. ercare program. It's an educational, counseling, and guidance program for patients with cardiovascular disease. My basic job is educating patients about cardiac disease, but my role has morphed into therapist, counselor, and teacher of cardiovascular patients. Joan: How long do you follow them after their hospital experience? Shelli: I follow everyone for 6 months, whether they have had surgery or not. Joan: I wanted to interview you for this issue of Creative Nursing because you have pursued a passion for Alternative Energy Practice. I'd like you to talk about Brennan Healing and how you came to know about it. Why are you so passionate about it? Shelli: I don't think of my practice as alternative. It's integrative-that is the term the National Institutes of Health uses for this kind of practice. "Alternative" means either/or, and "complementary" means it's a nice thing. So, integrative health, because we have science and research to support it. How did I become passionate? First, I had seen in my own life and in the lives of patients I worked with that medicine sometimes worked but too o.. en failed and o.. en le.. a gap of incompleteness. So I thought, "What do we do with these people whom medicine doesn't help? Why do people get sick in the fi rst place?" I saw so many people who came in with no cardiovascular risk factors. …