Good ER Nurse Jaimee Hahn Bad Pulse Night Club Shooter
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Hey everybody, this is Tina again with Good Nurse, Bad Nurse. Welcome back to another episode. This is going to be a really special episode that we're doing this time. It's a little different from the way we've done things before, but that's okay. You guys, if you've been listening to me for a while, you know, I don't like to change things up every now and then, just kind of throw a wrench into everything and just throw you guys way off. So if you're driving down the road, pull off maybe for a second, take a deep breath. I don't want anybody to have any wrecks.

This is going to be a really amazing episode. I'm super, super excited about this. First of all, I have Roger with me. You guys know who Roger is. I'm back, y'all. Roger's back. He is, he is, you might as well just get used to him because he's not going anywhere. Like it or not. Like it or not, Roger is, I have a feeling they do because I know I love it when Roger's here. He's the life of the party. I want to start off by telling you guys the story that I feel like most people are going to be

familiar with. It's just a horrible story that happened a few years ago. And then I'm going to introduce our special guest. So we have a third guest that we're going to be introducing here in just a minute, but I'm going to start off with this story. So on June 12th, 2016,

The Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, a vibrant and welcoming space for the LGBTQ plus community, became the site of one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history. That night, over 300 people gathered for Latin Night, an event celebrating diversity and inclusion. At approximately 2 a.m.,

29-year-old Omar Mateen entered the club and began a horrific attack, killing 49 people and wounding 53 others before being fatally shot by police and

in a three-hour standoff. Mateen, a U.S.-born citizen, had been investigated by the FBI in 2013 and in 2014 for potential ties to terrorism, but was not found to be a threat at the time. During the attack, he called 911 and pledged allegiance to ISIS, though investigations later revealed that he acted alone without direct orders from any terrorist organizations.

organization. The Pulse nightclub shooting was a targeted attack on the LGBTQ plus community, leaving a lasting impact on survivors, victims, families, and the nation as a whole. It sparked widespread discussions on gun control, terrorism, and LGBTQ plus rights and led to increased advocacy and support for marginalized communities. Today,

We're honored to have Jamie Hahn join us. Jamie is a registered nurse, and she was there working in the emergency room the night of this horrific attack. She's here to share her personal experience and insights. Jamie, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you for reaching out to me. So glad to have you. Well, I'm the fourth of five girls, and most of my nursing background has been in the

Yeah, because I started out as a union secretary in the ER, and then I was a technician, and then I was on EMT, and then I was a CNA, and then a nurse. And my father was a firefighter.

My mom also worked in the air, so I always had air around me. Everything was emergency, and so it got to me.

So I would have been in the ER as a nurse for close to 15 years. Jamie, can you walk us through kind of what happened before the incident and kind of what led up to y'all's notification to the emergency room of the shooting and that night? Just kind of walk us through. On that night, it was...

A typical night, you know, so many departments and hospitals have a mass casualty drill. They say, oh yeah, we're going to have a drill, and they do a drill. But everybody always says, well, if something's going to happen, it's going to happen on the weekend at night.

And, of course, it was on Saturday night, or I guess Sunday morning at 2 a.m. But it was a typical night. Except there weren't that many traumas. It wasn't too bad. But we'd have some local celebrities doing their own shows.

So they were going to that, and everybody was kind of keeping to themselves. So there wasn't a lot of other violent trauma that night. Not any other shootings or stabbings that night. There are about 95 beds. So that's great.

This level one trauma center where you worked in the ER is about three city blocks from where this happened. And so you said you guys kind of always on alert, having drills for mass casualties. Yeah.

Trying to be always ready, but at the same time, you're not really ever, you can't really ever truly be ready for what it's going to feel like when the real event happens. Had there been a mass casualty or anything like this before this happened? There was a lot of droves. There was a Monday morning 7-7.

I'm going to incorporate the day and night shift. But I usually go home at 3 because I'm married well. And so I always miss the draws. I have said that I don't think that if I see

I have seen a lot of shooting victims, a lot. And this type of injury, I think, would only be in, like, a combat zone of war because the bullet that those shooters used were kind of a lot, and they'll

Just the damage from the shots were so big. There's so much shots. You can shoot gunshot wounds and they bleed a little and they're yucky and whatever. But these wounds were huge. And you see me just go, what the heck happened? The gun was crazy.

In most systems, there's like a notification that you've got patients or there is a possible mass casualty. Did y'all get that notification or did you start receiving patients walking wounded first? How were y'all notified? What did they set up for you? We've got a text message first because over to PA, the PA system, they call overhead for the trauma nurses.

So Will showed up like, what's going on? There's all these people and no patients. All these nurses are blocking around. And then I see the pager and it has had 20 GSWs. And a person was told 20 times and he said no.

20 people were shot. Well, if there only were 20 people, it would have been okay. But it was 49. Well, more than that, I guess. So you were thinking, you heard 20 gunshot wounds, and you're thinking one person died

That has been shot 20 times or maybe a few people shot multiple. It just... And I can totally understand how that would happen because, again, you had never experienced anything. You're not in a war zone. You don't expect to be told that 20 different people... And even at that, you're saying... And from the number that I had...

was that there were 49 people that died and 53 wounded. So as far as how many people came into the ER, that was probably well over 50. Oh, way a lot. And it's so much to say. Both of you can attest dispatch is notoriously wrong.

This best never knows anything. And then, you know, there was, I talk so slow, but there's so much to say. There was one set of barometrics that were on the surface.

because they had just dropped Peshton off but they were able to go back to the scene go to the ballpark club because dispatch would not let anybody go in there at all because they didn't want anybody else to get shot and so

Those two guys kept going back and forth and back and forth bringing these strong people in and I know some of those guys, it was just crazy. And then some of the walking wounded, I met people that were usually just once and they were like dragging their legs down the

You know, oxen are calling each other and helping each other down the road. Because we're so close, they would just sit and knock. Or there was a police truck, and the police would take them when they escaped out of the nightclub because the shooter was in there just picking them off.

and our department had created its own triage system. We had two nurses in the ambulance bay looking at patients where they came up if they needed to come right inside or could go through the waiting room, and some of them would

come and get treated, and some of them have multiple wounds, multiple gunshots. But all the people that made it to surgery made it. And a very few people actually died in the hospital because once they came in, we could give them treatment.

Not that many people died. It was crazy. I mean, people that go old can do anything. What was your role during the process of treating the patients? Were you in the trauma center itself, or were you doing triage, or where were you stationed at? I was in the trauma center and treated.

I was kind of organizing. There were some people that were getting like lot of chouchous and

little treatment x-rays and stuff, and we moved certain patients to certain places. And the usual trauma room, which is a bay hold six people, that became like a waiting room to go to the operating room.

Because there were so many of the needed operations, when there was one that went right up to the lower, they made a spot in the tram room, and I would choose who needed to go into their tram room to pick their place.

So I kind of did that. And I did some care and doing. And when we finally received blood from the blood bank, I gave out a lot of blood. And then I medicated a bunch of people because everybody was in pain. I just took the fentanyl and gave to everybody.

I think it's amazing that you're saying that of all of the people that were injured that night, the people who actually died, died at the scene. They did not die. There was no one that died at the hospital? There were a few people that died in the ER, but they weren't going to die anyway. Like, their wounds were not survivable.

We did do amazing work with the tools that we had and the little staffing, of course, that we had. There were some people that just were not going to make it, but everybody that went to surgery did make it.

That is amazing. Did your facility have a mechanism to call in extra help, and how quickly did they mobilize? We have done drilled up there also. We have a procedure, I guess, that secretaries call. We're like in a camp tub, a few hospitals. So like,

There's a pediatric level one from the center in the next west and a women's hospital. And some of their nurses bought a guest away that came from Winnie.

from the women's place, but the pediatric nurses were very good. And then there were some other people like they went home 11 to 11. The day I just got home, some of them came back. Some of the days they came in early, but it only really lasted about four hours.

By the time they really came and started, everything was done with the doctors and not just... You said it took about four hours in total for you to kind of get through that chaotic time period where it was just kind of trying to get everybody in triage who to take priority, you know, and who could maybe go through the normal ER process, maybe diverting some other patients to other hospitals. Yeah.

And just trying to figure out what in the world to do, getting patients to the, I can't even imagine the staffing. And this is in June at a level one trauma center. I feel like the resident situation is going to be different around that time period. I know the new residents typically come in around June, July. They come around July 1st. Yeah. So the residents were good because three of the doctors said,

They were very experienced because they were about to leave. They were all three years and ready to go. And the surgical residents were all good. But the surgeons, the attending trauma surgeons, they called themselves their own people also.

to do more surgery. And so they did go to, because there was so much surgery to do. So it really...

As far as it happening in June, it happened right before that changeover would have happened. And then there would have been all new residents coming in in July. Yes. They would have been brand new. And can you imagine the deer in the headlights that would have been happening for those residents? We are ready as that. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. What is it like?

To be in an emergency room going through something like that, where, yes, you've done the drills, but nobody can really ever be fully prepared for that. And then how do you get past that? Just some of the things that I went through, through COVID, taking care of patients, you know, taking care of patients in the ICU that died, a lot of patients of COVID died.

It was traumatic. And afterwards, like it was a very traumatic experience dealing with the family and all of the isolation and all. And I feel like that is doesn't even come anywhere close to what you went through. Can you just kind of explain to our listeners, because there are a lot of nurses, a lot of young nurses, a lot of nursing students that listen to this podcast, how

I guess kind of explain the process that you went through of healing. Did you get through therapy? What was it like? Do you feel like you went through some PTSD after this? Well, we did have a debriefing. The hospital wanted to do a debriefing session, of course, which was done. We did it just and then

The ER people authorized and said, we're going to have our own. So we went to a restaurant.

and everybody came, and we debriefed a bunch. We just had a big party. We talked about it, but there were a lot of other people that were there that apparently did not debrief well enough. A lot of people either quit or switched departments.

or whatever. And for me at least, I saw a lot of things, but I don't internalize things. And so I think that my personal grieving process is a little different because I am very religious and

I have a business, and my family is very strong, and my family above me, and my family, like my kids and my husband. I'm an assistant nurse manager now, and somebody in my role...

based upon your experience. And I also am part of our peer support team who I would be in to do the debriefing. And, you know, I heard what you said. What can I do if this was to happen or something similar? How can I support my team the best to debrief or to watch out for signs of potential problems?

The biggest thing for you, I think, for a manager, is to not pretend like you know what somebody else is going through, because you do not. Unless you've been there, you don't know. You can have sympathy, but not empathy.

A lot of people would say, oh, I understand. Oh, you don't. That is very shallow. You don't understand. And that makes it get your back up. And then it closes them off. I think to be welcoming, just to let you do as I'm leading you,

leading questions and just understanding and take your time with them nothing the red flags for people that are not adjusted are when they're too quiet and they're missing things that are obvious or should not be missed like

You know better than that. When they're missing things or not caring about things or not caring enough about certain things, those are red flags, I think. I'm trying to process some recent events that I just went through with a team of mine and what you're saying and...

I'm kind of speechless right this second. So I'll let Tina take over back over. I feel like we all can do this. Managers and colleagues, everyone. Even if you were side by side going through an event, whatever it is you've been through.

You cannot assume that you understand that you know what that person is feeling because you're not them. You know, just because you've lost a loved one, you've lost a child, you've lost a spouse, you've lost a sister, you've lost a best friend or whatever it is you've been through does not mean that you understand another person who has been through that. Sometimes we just don't know what to say.

We're trying to be helpful. We have great intentions. But sometimes the best thing to do is just to listen. And that was the other thing that you said. Just let them get it out. Let them talk. Let them process it. Listen to them.

I feel like the best way to do that is just like, let them talk, you know, that active listening of like repeating back to them what they said. Don't have your own ideas. Don't be waiting for them to be quiet so that you can then just say whatever you're thinking. You know, sit there for a while in that grief situation and just process it. Let them feel what they're feeling. Yes.

I think that the Kubler-Ross stages of grief that everybody learned is good because, I mean, so many people deny that something even happened. Oh, this is really happening. And there are so many of those conspiracy people that...

Oh, that didn't happen. And that might be a coping mechanism for someone to say, you know, you just cannot internalize what it must mean that someone would have so much hate in their heart that they're trying to disguise as a love for a religious, you know, kind of thing. And it is so...

unfathomable that you would want to try to be, Oh, this surely cannot possibly be that a human being could have that kind of hatred in their heart, that they would want to go and do this to complete strangers and wreak havoc. People will tend to create these scenarios, conspiracy theories. You know, they've done this over the years. They did that with the situation, Sandy Hook. Think about what was done with Sandy Hook.

Just like, no, that did not happen. Those kindergarten children, no, that did not happen. This happened. And then, and there are people that will literally latch onto that. Yep. Oh, okay. I want to believe that. I don't want to believe that this could happen. So I love, I love that, Jamie. That's very insightful. I'm glad you think so. There was a girl that is now a lawyer.

And we both said, I cannot believe this is happening. This is just a bad dream you're made of. I had a Vietnam nurse on a few years ago. She went over there as a young, young girl, just out of high school, just out of nursing school, went over to Vietnam. Man, she had some stories. I just sat there riveted listening to her.

That's what this reminds me of. But she at least was in a war zone. She wasn't prepared for what she saw over there. And she had all those same reactions that

You don't even understand what is happening. You're just like doing what you have to do. And you're doing the best you can in the circumstances with the limited resources that you have in this war zone over here. And you guys were not in a war zone. You're literally down there in Florida, in this area where people go to vacation. It's just not what you expect to have to deal with. So I cannot imagine that.

What in the world must have been going through your minds and just the resiliency that you all had as health care providers, as health care professionals to be able to step up every single person that was there, whether it was nurses, physicians, CNAs, the health unit coordinators, the EMTs, everybody, I'm sure it was all hands on deck doing whatever you had to do.

Omar Mateen was actually employed as a security guard. He worked for G4S Security Solutions, a global security firm, from 2007 until his death in 2016. He worked all that time for this company, despite holding an active firearms license and having passed required screenings. His employment history included several red flags. For instance...

He was dismissed from a corrections officer training program in 2007 after making disturbing comments about bringing a gun to class. Also, co-workers reported that he made violent, racist, and homophobic remarks. And in one instance, he claimed to have connections to terrorist organizations. So these concerns led to him being transferred from a courthouse assignment to

to a different post, but he remained employed by this security company. And I'm not saying that that would have necessarily prevented this. It just seems really strange that someone with that history would have been able to pass those background checks that we keep being told are supposed to be keeping people from being able to get guns.

Jamie, what's your thoughts after you learned of the situation and learned that the shooter and his background and what he professed, his ideology, how did that make you feel about the situation and knowing that he still was employed in a security position? Well, I was kind of disgusted. You kidding me?

This guy's supposed to be in security and cannot stay safe. And when he picked to do it, his attack, it was terrible. But I just think, well, it's a good thing he didn't pick a Disney character

or a park, or Universal, or SeaWorld, or something. You know, kids or whatever. But then, kid out there at 2 in the morning. So, but, you know, all of that is disgusting. At what point did you and your co-workers hear that,

how the tragedy unfolded. Was it the next day, by the news media, or did y'all know pretty much during the situation? No, because every page that came, the ones who were conscious would say things, Oh, he got me, he got me. Oh, I never thought he'd do this or that.

And so we were getting snippets, and it was so hard to put everything together because we were getting things from every different place, and we didn't know what to believe. You know, some people exaggerate, and some people are just plain liars. And so you don't know what to believe in it.

You see something on the media, and then you see something with drawn eyes, and you just don't know what to believe. So you were a little unsure about whether to believe, getting all these little snippets of stories coming in from survivors, from victims who were, and maybe family members, and it's all just kind of coming all over the place. Yeah, I can imagine.

It was also hard for me because I left town on the following Sunday for a week. I went and I did a contract job out of state.

There was so much I didn't know, but it was a national thing, so I just saw something on TV, and there were some national news, like Anderson Cooper did broadcast from outside of the ER, but of course it was only a day shift.

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You said all the chaos kind of happened about four hours later.

Then you're talking about now it's, yeah, a day shift is going to be coming in 7 o'clock or so. So by that time, all the chaos, it kind of died down. And then they're just trying to sift through all of what happened to make sense of which you're never, ever going to make sense of a situation like this. It's hard to understand how someone who, for whatever reason in their mind, they think

They did this for religious reasons that had to do with not believing in certain things according to their religion. I'm not sure how this...

helps that situation. I can't imagine any person who was not of any religion, of a specific religion, converting over to a religion because somebody came and shot a bunch of people. It's hard for me to understand and it's hard for me to accept that this was out of religious reasons and it seems more out of hate.

I think it was a hate crime. I think it was more of hate and less of a religious thing because there's something you probably didn't know about it. A little while later, Hillary Clinton was campaigning down here

And the tutor's father was on the stage with her. And he said, at that time, he said, oh yes, my son does not approve of homosexuals. And the dad said that the son did not like gays at all.

Yeah, that has nothing to do with love or religion or anything like that whatsoever. I feel like it changed our whole country. It changed a lot of our, I mean, it hasn't, I mean, I go to gay bars. I go to, I go with my, my friends to bars and we, you know, sing karaoke and have fun. And it's just, but it's, it has been in the back of my mind before, like, but, but at the same time,

I go to church too. So these things can happen absolutely anywhere. Hate can happen anywhere. If somebody decides that they don't like you for your beliefs, for how you choose to live your life, for your gender,

You know, that means some people don't like women. So some people don't like men. It's, I feel like, you know, women tend to be more of a target, but again, it's, it can happen. And so you can be, you can be targeted for so many reasons. I feel like the best thing we can do is just to try to talk about these things and spread, you know, the idea of loving one another. And, uh,

when it comes to a situation like this, I'm not sure what the answer is there. It's, I feel like there's a lot, there's mental illness involved for sure. And that's probably at the core, I would say of something like this, when you, you, I feel like, you know, mental, mental health issues are probably at the core of a lot of hatred in general. Jamie, can I back up one other time and just ask you another question about how did y'all handle the,

families that were coming in. You know, I'm sure they were being notified, text message, whatever, and they're not knowing where people are going. How did y'all pivot to handle them and identifying loved ones? And, you know, how did y'all handle that? Well, we have a great system

Well, the police department came and they separated all the family members and then I think they go up to the wedding room but I think you could only get into the hospital if you were going to be a patient of the hospital. They wouldn't even let

in of the family members because there was just so many of them. We have our trauma chaplains would occasionally update the group of people. So they were very good at that.

That's good. They had a system and yeah, in place where the chaplains would go out and talk with family, but it sounds like they, they did a good job of keeping families separated, keeping them, but that must've been frustrating for family members at the same time, just not knowing what's going on. There's a balance there between, obviously you have to have some sort of order. You have, you cannot have

All the family members just like rushing back there wanting to know. I can't even imagine how great. It's hard enough having one patient, one patient who is in a crisis, who's in a crisis situation. Maybe, you know, like I just imagine like when I was working in the ICU or on PCU and a patient is starts, something happens and,

They may be a patient, not even coding, but just like something happened, like an event, major event happens. And you're just like, whoa, maybe we need to intubate. Maybe you start, maybe they do go into cardiac arrest. You have to do compressions or whatever. And the family, you got to get the family, you know, kind of like out of there. You can't, I can't imagine one patient, family members can just be, you know, like you, you, you've got to focus on what you're doing. You can't be there talking to the family. Right.

I cannot, Roger, can you imagine having like 50 people and all their family? Oh my goodness, no. I can't imagine it. Oh yes. Plus, their mothers and sisters and brothers came down and they were screaming and crying and, you know, trying to get information. And really, we didn't know who was who.

Because of people. The general public probably doesn't realize it's like, I'm sure y'all had a system much like most trauma centers where trauma patients are registered as a trauma patient. They're not registered by name most of the time. They're registered under an alias. And so somebody said, hey, is so-and-so here? You know, you're not lying to them when you say, I don't know. And when you have 50 people that are under aliases, you truly don't know.

And then they show, they whip out their phone. Oh, they look like this. Nobody was smiling back there. I can't identify anybody.

Yeah, they're not going to look like what they looked like in their nice smiling. Oh, good grief. I can't imagine what that how horrifying that must have been for everybody. If you've got one resuscitation going on, you know, whether it takes 30 minutes or 45 minutes, 60 minutes and you get through that and then you kind of reflect and then you get family involved and all. But then you have 50 people.

And you're trying to process and there's no break in, you know, for staff to start processing before you move to the next resuscitation, the next resuscitation, you know, and they keep coming through. The toll that that's taking on staff to process is,

I can't imagine. I think we lost nine nurses because of it with people that are going to different fidelities. I could see why. I definitely could see why. Just as I said, I kind of alluded to earlier when I went through working in the ICU during COVID, it's one thing to be working through that situation and

doing the best you can. And you just feel like, you know, this is I'm doing my part, just trying to take care of people. But then you see death after death after death, and you deal with family member after family member after family member who was not anticipating their patient, their family member dying. After a while, it just takes its toll. I do not do bedside nursing anymore as a result of it. I had to step away from it. So I totally understand. I don't even I don't

This is so far removed. It's just, I don't think I can understand it. But at the same time, I feel like I just maybe in a small way can kind of empathize with

But I feel like we, you know, what we wanted to do in telling the story, we wanted to highlight that story, number one. It's been a few years. It's been next year. It's going to be 10 years that that event happened. It's hard to believe. It's hard to believe. It's going to be 10 years, you know, in 2026. And we don't want to forget about this. The only other shooting that was more deadly.

Was the one in Las Vegas. Was that after this one? Mm-hmm. At the concert? Yes. That one killed 56. That's brave.

because an old co-worker was a paramedic there. Well, we definitely want to keep discussing these situations, talking about these stories, keep them in the forefront of people's minds of how important it is to, number one,

mental health issues in our country are not addressed. It's getting worse instead of getting better in terms of the funding to help with mental health issues in our country state to state. The state I live in is one of the worst in the whole United States for funding for mental health issues.

And I just feel like people just don't take it seriously. And this is part of the ramifications of that. You know, we wanted to bring awareness of the story. We also wanted to talk about Jamie and what she has done and her advocacy. You know, while that night definitely left an indelible mark on Jamie, her story doesn't end there. There's more to her story. And in years since, she's faced her own private battles, surviving not only one, but two aggressive attacks.

cancers and receiving a rare diagnosis called paraneoplastic cerebellar ataxia, a neurological condition that's so uncommon that most doctors have never even heard of it. And despite permanent and progressive neurological damage,

She hasn't stopped living. In fact, she's written five books, which I'm so jealous. Like, I wish I could write books. I'm terrible. I want to write one. I would love to be able to write a book. I can never write a book. I love reading books. I love reading. Oh, my goodness. I love reading. I want to write one. I just, like, I read all of the, I read all the, I read, like, about 30 books a month. I read a lot.

So she's written five books. She's currently working on another one and definitely shifted her focus to what matters most to her of drawing time with her family, embracing her creativity and continuing to advocate through storytelling. Her strength and resilience make her an inspiring example of what it means to live with purpose and

after trauma. I really just want to kind of use this opportunity during our Good Nurse segment, Jamie, to just focus on the good things that are going on in your life, take a little step back from the awful tragedy that happened, and just focus on some of the good things that's going on with you. Tell us a little bit about what's going on. It's kind of a funny story, but I had

some neurological symptoms. Like, I was in school, and I was writing my final paper for my BSN. And I was writing, typing it out, and my left thumb was on the space bar. It was like it wouldn't work right.

I was like, what is the deal? I thought maybe I was tired, and then I was dizzy. I had, you know, I was just trying to grow from my daughter's sixth grade to go to the high school, and I was so dizzy at the school, I threw up.

and a bunch of different little symptoms, and I was trying to power through it like nurses do. This was during nursing school. Oh, I couldn't do it. My husband said, no, what if it was one of the kids that had this problem? What would you tell them to do?

I told them to go get treated. So I went in the hospital. I was in there for nine days. And the hospital, at first, a neurological event happened.

And with my symptoms, they were sure it was a stroke. They were sure of it. And I told the nurse, don't you dare stroke alert me. Don't you dare. And they just didn't know what to do. So it got admitted and

The doctor came up, and he didn't know what to do. And in comes the stroke nurse. I was irritated. I said, I'm not having a stroke. And I was so obnoxious. I can't grab the paper on her hand. And I said, and I ate the paper with it.

You know, the pictures on it. Oh, yeah. I know. I know. It's a mom doing dishes, and the kids get up to get the cookies. And on the back of the paper is a feather and hammock and a cactus. You know, I said, I'm not, not having a stroke.

And the doctor said, I think you're fine. You think I'm fine? Well, he was just, yeah, being arrogant. Yes. And at the devil's advocate, he did not know me. So he cut my slurred speech with very subtle words.

But I could not walk a straight line, and I could not. My vision was messed up, as there were certain things. I said, well, I'm just going to call the neurologist. It's a good idea. That's a great idea.

And, of course, they had no idea what it was. Oh, yeah, the virus. Oh, yeah, this. Oh, yeah, that. Yeah, I feel like virus is always the answer when they don't know. Oh, have you been in contact with anybody? Probably. You know where I live? You know where I work?

There's people from all over the world that come to Disney or the parks or whatever, and they have to come to the hospital and I see them. So yes, I have come in contact with who knows what, and then the neuralgia just finally did a spinal tap

and send off things to the Mayo Clinic, and it took them six weeks for the test to come back, and they saw all of it was, and by that time,

I'd seen the neurologist, and the neurologist said, oh no, you need to see a neuroimmunologist. The heck is that? A neuroimmunologist? Okay, so I went to her, and she said, I'm going out of the country. I'll be gone. So?

I didn't find out for a month. Well, it was five weeks until she came back from Peru and she called me on the phone because I thought there was a post in remembrance, a post 5K. I thought, I'm going to do this.

And she called me that morning, and she said, Oh, by the way, if you don't have an oncologist, you better get one. That's how you tell me? Okay. So now I'm an oncologist? So I called her first one I could think of.

And he happened to have a cancellation, and he was actually a hematologist for, like, leukemia. And so he looked at the paperwork and said, oh, I think you need to see the book.

breast specialist because she does these and so I did and she said well

You have the brain perineoplastic cerebellar syndrome, so you're going to have to take this chemotherapy and you'll lose your hair and this and then scheme a schedule. And I might...

My neurologics and films continued to go downhill. They were going slower, but they were still going downhill.

So I got another doctor, which I could not find him. I ended up getting 18 rounds of chemotherapy, but no radiation. But I did have to go on a steroid treatment for like four years.

I steroid every month for four years, and I gained 45 pounds. Jamie, when you received this very extremely rare diagnosis, how did you process that? I mean, what did you think? Of course, and really, my husband has been my best advocate ever.

because she's been doing a lot of research. And really, I kind of accepted it. You know, he was watching every YouTube video and listening to everything, reading everything he could get his hands on. And I was concentrating on just not dying.

And my sisters were doing their best to find out anything they could find out. And one of my sisters, Katie, found out that the world expert was at the Mayo Clinic. And usually it's so hard to get in there just to get to be seen as adults.

A chief called the neurology department at the mail and gave them a brief job synopsis, and the nurse said, well, you know, apparently, oh,

I'm expert as visit right now, but he'll call you back. And he called back and like, and now I had no put in five days.

And so we went up there, and my sisters Katie and Jenny came with me to the mail, and I was there for 12 days with testing procedures and everything. I thought I was the world's expert, and he said, of course, if you'd only been here sooner, I know.

I worked at our largest...

level one trauma center in this whole region. We've had patients that we just could not take care of here that we had to transfer to Mayo or Vanderbilt. But Mayo is kind of like the gold standard. They know about things that the rest of us just don't know. So, you know, you think the best of the best within a state and you think of all the states in the United States and really the best of the best in most states,

don't know about these rare conditions that can happen. I've taken care of patients before that doctors are just literally scratching their heads and they're just like, we've got to get this patient out of here. We don't know. And I feel like this is what people don't understand. And I love this is part of the reason I was so excited to get you on the show to talk about

your condition and highlight. Number one, I obviously wanted to talk about the tragedy that happened, but I also wanted to highlight this very rare condition that you have and what you went through because this could happen to absolutely anyone. And I think everyone, we all assume

that if something happens to us, we can just go to the nearest hospital, go to the nearest large hospital, especially if you live in a large city. You live in Orlando, for crying out loud, surely in Orlando, you have access to a large hospital with anything in the world, all of the providers, all of the specialists that could handle it. And no, that is not the case, people. This is what I want you to understand, how important it is

for you to be emphasizing to your legislators how important it is for funding for research, for medical research and for our hospitals. We do not put emphasis on this. And so when we get in situations like this, you're vulnerable.

Jamie is very fortunate that she had family members. She had a husband and she had sisters who were advocating for her because she would probably not be here today. Just based on the story that I've heard you tell, Jamie, I 100% believe, based on your story, what you've said,

On this episode of this podcast that you would not be here today if it were not for your sister calling the Mayo Clinic, if it was not for your husband advocating for you, because you could not speak for yourself in this situation. Nope, I couldn't. And I didn't feel good because I was too chemo.

And I just, you feel dirty all the time. And I didn't want to be talking and learning anything. You're very blessed. You're very blessed to have family that have been taking care of you. That's amazing. It's wonderful. The disorder that I have, the perineal plastic syndrome, is serious.

1% of 1% of breast cancer cases can also be cervical cancer or ovarian cancer. But only women and only a few doctors have heard of it. And most people, well, most women that have had it were women.

pretty old and their cancer was very advanced like it was at least a year or four and so I mean the cancer was first and then they found the needle blast but I was the opposite as I was like 20 years younger than anybody else

One of my doctors said was, I don't fit in any of the boxes. If you need to fill out a box, you have to put me as a tone because I don't fit in any of the wires. Yeah, and health care providers, doctors, nurse practitioners, PAs, doctors,

people that are, you know, DOs, people that are going to be going and assessing you and trying to diagnose, trying to figure out what is going on, look at your symptoms and figure out what's going on.

That's what they're looking to check boxes, right? They're just like, okay, you have these symptoms. They want to put you in a box. They want to because that's what they know to do. That's how they, that's what they've been trained to do. That's all they know how to do. And it's, you can't blame them for that because what else are they, you know, that's how they have to do their job. They have to rule out things. They, they have to, you have to look at the big picture. Like if somebody comes into the hot, to the ER with slurred speech, with, you know,

They're ataxia. They're not able to move the way that they were before, especially if it's very subtle. It's weird that it wasn't on one side of your body, though. That's weird. But, you know, I guess we're just going to

We're just like, well, maybe this is a weird presentation. But you're wanting to put her in a box. You got to put her in a box, right? I look like I'm wasted drunk because I couldn't walk a straight line. They thought I was drunk. But it's funny because I don't drink at all.

Well, I really appreciate you for coming on and telling your story, Jamie. This is just truly been eye opening for me. I appreciate all the conversation that we've been able to have and the awareness we've been able to bring about all these different issues for people. I hope it's been eye opening for people. I hope especially new nurses and even nurses who might be thinking of going into maybe being a nurse practitioner where you might be seeing people come in and with

different symptoms that you immediately want to put into a certain box. Remember Jamie's story. Remember how these things can happen. People, not all diagnoses fit into the standard ones that we want to, you know, semi-stroke trauma. We want to put everybody into, you know, the, those columns like, is it a semi-stroke or trauma? Okay. Well then is it a, you know, it's like we want to just put everybody into a,

A box and not everybody fits in a box. But, but we do need to try to remember what, how would you feel if it was your family? How would you feel if it was you? And remember to treat people with respect. Don't make assumptions.

when people come into the emergency room and they do, you know, have maybe these unusual presentation of symptoms. Jamie, is there anything you wanted to say to tell people? Any last words that you, any last thoughts that you have? I want to just promote my book. We'll put some information down in the description. The newspaper, I do have a pen name. It's Kelly Sorensen.

But my books are called nursing did to me. That's why I am the way I am. And this is why I am. Because how many times have people said to you, why are you like that? Well, nursing did it to me.

Just to even go into nursing, you kind of have to have a little bit of a different, you know, kind of personality, you know. So I feel like we're all kindred spirits. We're all like that. We're all a little different.

Well, thank you guys. Thank you, Roger. Do you have any last thoughts, Roger? No. Thank you, Jamie, for sharing your story. I mean, that tragedy was, it was a very sobering part of our community and the impact that it has has been everlasting and

I can't imagine what it was like to be in that trauma center during that period of time. So I commend you for the care and support that you gave to the patients that were coming in.

I'm sure it did not go unnoticed, even if people did not come back and say thank you. I'm sure that many people have said thank you just from the care that you and the others there gave. So thank you very much for taking care of our community. And I love you and I appreciate that.

You guys be sure and check down in the description of this episode for Jamie's, for links where you can go to see what the books that Jamie has written and ways that you can support her. And of course, you can always send me an email at Tina at good nurse, bad nurse.com. If you have any thoughts about the episode before we leave, I always have to remind you, even if you're a bad girl or a bad boy, be a good nurse.

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