Made Out of Good Stuff Jennifer King, AHF

 By Dixie Ann Black

Jennifer King is an iconic fixture at the Aids Healthcare Foundation. Her story is one of struggle, tenacity and renewal.

“At the age of nine I told my mother I wanted to go to the Peace Corps and be a nurse.” Jennifer reflected, “I was compassionate before I knew what the word meant.”

That dream lay in wait while Jennifer dealt with her own health needs, married, worked with the mentally ill, helped run a group home for people with disabilities and worked in Nursing Homes. In 1986, despite health challenges, King and her husband had a son. When she found out she was pregnant she started crying.

“They asked if they were tears of joy or sorrow. I said, ‘Both!’” King had a history of ovarian cysts. She was told a pregnancy would herald the return of this painful condition once the child had been delivered. Sure enough, shortly after her son was born, she returned to experiencing excruciating pain in the area of her ovaries. Life picked that inconvenient time to offer her a shot at her dream.

In 1987, “I saw an ad in the newspaper that read, ‘Do you want to be a nurse?’ and I said out loud ‘Yes!’”

King called the number to be interviewed by Mercy Hospital for a spot in their program but when the callback came, she herself was undergoing care. She was in pain and flat on her back in a hospital bed due to the ovarian cysts. But she took the call and keep her voice light as she tried to disguise the pain. The unsuspecting caller set her up for an interview in two days. King recalls that her then husband, who had always been a champion of her education, convinced the hospital to discharge her.

Here she was about to be interviewed for her dream, a place in the nursing program but she could not stand up straight. Something came over King as she contemplated her predicament. She recalls, “I told myself, ‘Stand up straight, no matter what!  Pull your shoulders back and when you walk in there, those people won’t know anything’s wrong. You cannot go in there looking bent over because an incision is hurting. You have to put that somewhere else for now.’”

And that is what she did. She was accepted into nursing school. For the next year, her days started at 5 A.M. as King prepared her child and herself for daycare and school. That tenacity paid off. She graduated in 1988 from the LPN program with flying colors.

Her first job as an LPN was in occupational nursing. She was in the field of her dreams, but something was missing. She worked the Cardiac Floor of a hospital, she worked in the Emergency Room, in Nursing Homes and she did Home Care. In Home Care, Nurse King began to understand her own calling by the passion that was aroused in her. In this setting she could truly teach patients and their family members how to manage their illnesses. She found that so many of her patients felt lost in a system that left them feeling powerless. Patients were constantly telling her she was “nice”; different, simply because she showed them respect and compassion. She had one consistent message for them.

“If anyone comes in here that is not nice to you, throw them out!”

Even as she sought to empower her patients, King found herself lacking the power she needed to make deeper and lasting changes. During those years she came to describe LPN as Low Pay Nursing.  She quickly realized she had what it took to become a Registered Nurse. She finally enrolled in an RN program at Miami Dade while still working as an LPN. But life was not simply waiting for her to succeed. It was waiting to test her.

Students could miss no more than two days per semester. In this fast-paced, intense setting King was diagnosed with breast cancer and required chemotherapy. This was heaped on top of having a family and a full-time job.

“This is my last go round, I am almost forty,” King thought to herself. Despite the nausea of chemotherapy, discomfort, and inconvenience, she persisted. Two days after surgery she was back in class with a pillow under her arm. She quit work and concentrated on her studies. Not only did she complete the course, but she was also selected to give the Class Speech when she graduated in December of 1998.

King reflected, “That’s when I realized I was made out of some good stuff.”

Nurse King had yet another success under her belt, but life wasn’t pulling any punches. She studied for the State Board Exam but soon she had to attend to her mother who had developed Alzheimer’s. Jennifer described her mother’s illness in these words, “It was like watching a candle that was slowly going out.”

It was in this latest challenge that she came to work for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) in 2001. As an RN, King was now more empowered to assist her patients while having the benefit of working from home in order to also care for her own mother.

“I was the first one hired, and I’ll be the last one out.” King’s loyalty to AHF goes way beyond personal benefits. AHF has challenged her to expand her skills into the areas of advocacy needed for the often- marginalized clients they serve.

“How do you turn an RN into a marketing person, and a licensed sales representative all at the same time?” King asks as she describes her current roles with AHF.

Not only does Nurse King provide community-based care management to AHF’s clients but she instructs them on HIV management and management of co-morbidities (other conditions resulting from their primary diagnosis). She also connects her patients to social networks, mental health and drug abuse counseling and specialty pharmacy services. This means that King participates in a coordinated care plan for each patient and their network of providers.

AHF has extended the effectiveness of their services by providing the means for Nurse King to study and become certified in a specialty insurance license. The result in summary is that she is able to follow the patients’ medical needs, help them in securing Medicare and other types of health insurance, while addressing their routine medical needs, all as one coordinated unit.

Now there you have it, compassion, care, and a network of community of services all rolled into one. Those in need of services can find their needs met at AHF in a sort of one-stop-shop and Nurse Jennifer King is happily placed in the center of a network of services that fulfills her life’s dream of helping others.

About Carma Henry 24481 Articles
Carma Lynn Henry Westside Gazette Newspaper 545 N.W. 7th Terrace, Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33311 Office: (954) 525-1489 Fax: (954) 525-1861

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