 Hi and welcome to Nursing School Explained and the Nurse Interview Series. Today I am here with Ryan Mason. She is participating in this interview. Hi Ryan. Hi, thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much for being here. I'm really excited to hear all your stories. So tell me, how long have you been a nurse? I have been a nurse going on eight years now, but I have worked in healthcare in various forms for almost 15 years. Wow, that's a pretty long time. Yeah, I started at 16 as an EMT and worked my way up. Oh, very cool. So you kind of got to see the pre-hospital setting too. I did. I worked as an EMT all through high school, college, and then a little bit into my nursing career, which was cool because my first job as a nurse was in the ER, so it worked. Oh, awesome. And then once you finished nursing school, were you able to start in the ER right away? I was. That was my very first job. But I had worked at that same hospital as a CNA prior, so I kind of knew my way in. But yeah, that was my very first nursing job. I know exactly how that works. That's kind of very similar to what happened to me. I was in the EMT, but I was a medical assistant before. And then where I was going to nursing school, I was working at the hospital as a CNA, and then I kind of whittled my way into the ER. I was an ER tech because that just was much more exciting to me. And then as I had my degree, they're like, okay, you come to work for us now. And I was glad to accept that. I was really, really happy and stoked to do that. Sure, I'll take that. Exactly. So you had some really good experience in the pre-hospital setting. I did. It was very interesting. And I never had any real desire to work in healthcare until I know my mom, I think, made a joke, because I was a really, really just clumsy kid. And we learned later I have a disability that added to that. But I was in the ER a lot growing up. And so my mom made a joke that I, if I was going to be in the ER so much, I might as well get paid to push the stretcher. And she didn't think I would do it, but I signed up for an EMT class that week and ended up falling in love with it. And I loved seeing the pre-hospital process. And then when I became a nurse, getting to kind of know what they were experiencing out in the field helped me kind of prepare to better assist them once they got into the ER. Sam, love it. Very cool. And how long did you work in the ER? Let's see. I worked in the ER for the first five years. Yeah, first five years of my career. And then from there, how did you continue? I went to, I took a job as an acute care case manager in a hospital and the hospital setting. At first I was just primarily the ER case manager, just going around doing discharges, setting up rides, medical equipment, nursing home placements, whatever anybody needed to get home. And then I eventually branched out and was the acute care case manager for the entire hospital. And I floated to every floor and learned how to do a little bit of everything on that side. And then the last year I actually went back to bedside and was a postpartum nurse. Wow, that's a big change. Yeah. Decided to try something new. The big switch in my career was about three, well three years ago I chose to leave bedside because I became a ambulatory wheelchair user. So I used a wheelchair for the most of my daily living. At my house I kind of get around okay. But the rest of my time I'm a wheelchair user and so I wanted to take some time to adjust. I knew I knew that if I stayed in the ER the second a good trauma or something rolled through the door as I was going to jump out of my chair and hurt myself, hurt a patient, hurt someone else, be of no good use to anyone. Because my brain is so set on being an ambulatory nurse in the ER. This is exactly what I need to know how to do. So I took those two years in case management to kind of learn how to be a wheelchair user, how to exist as a wheelchair user in a hospital setting where patients are not used to seeing their nurse roll into their room and a chair themselves. And then I missed being at the bedside so much and working in the hospital setting and not being able to be hands-on with my patients was just so bizarre to me. So I chose postpartum as something completely new that I knew little to nothing about. I do not personally have children, very few of my friends had new babies. I mean I'm great. I love kids. I have just newborns or a very, you know, subsec little groups. If you don't have one yourself you might not have a lot of experience. So I chose that and it was incredible. Not only did I get to find out I love this crazy specialty of mother-baby care and nursery care, but I also got to do so as the first nurse in a wheelchair at the bedside at that hospital. So it was cool. That is really groundbreaking. It really is to be honest with you. I have not seen a nurse in a wheelchair in my career and I don't think there are many out there and but you have proven that you can do it, you know, and you don't necessarily just have to have an administrative kind of a job. You can be a bedside nurse and I agree with you. I think that ER is probably a little bit rough because it's kind of fast-paced and there's a lot of movement going on and sometimes, you know, like CPR and drugs and all that stuff. So that can be a little bit maybe challenging, more challenging, but sounds like you found your niche. So was the reason that you chose to become a case manager the disability? Yes, it was. I knew I needed something away from the bedside but I wasn't ready to leave hospital nursing and I forgot to mention. So my disability, I have Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which is for anybody who doesn't know, it's a genetic connective tissue disease that causes all of my connective tissues, all of the collagen that my body creates to be too lax or too stretchy. This affects all of my joints, my skin, my wound healing, my organs, every joint in my body dislocates very easily. My both hips, knees and ankles dislocate most times I take a step, which is why I had to become a wheelchair user. So I can walk. I just, my left hip dislocates with every step and so you can kind of see it. So I joke that I walk like a pregnant duck and that's just, that's how I get around. But for me, kind of having to ease into this role, so I slowly kind of lost my mobility over a few years. So I went away from working trauma while I was in the ER and I went and helped open a freestanding ER, thinking that that was going to be an easier job. It was not, but I think I saw more drama at the freestanding than I did at the trauma center, but you just never know what they'd drop upon the front door. But I chose this that I had slowly kind of progressed and lost my mobility. So I was using a cane outside of work, but inside of work I was making do. I just had a little bit of a limp. I had bilateral hip braces, knee braces and ankle braces underneath my scrubs for the last couple years. I mean, just, I looked like I was going into battle every time I was getting ready for a shift. But I loved ER nursing. That's what I wanted to do. And for me, because my disability, I am able to stand and I am like if an emergency happens, I can kind of jump out of my chair sort of. I know myself too well to know that just the ER would hurt myself. I do know of a handful of ER nurses that are in chairs. But for me personally, it was just not my thing. I love in postpartum having that experience because most people in postpartum care don't have that experience as their background. So that was kind of fun to get to kind of use it like that. But yeah, it's been kind of a very cool story. So you have your passion, right, nursing, and then you just kind of find another way of making it happen, which is really cool. Was your management super supportive in this? So really the only issues I have found with the change of nursing from a chair versus ambulatory nursing has been getting my foot in the door as far as jobs go. Once I can kind of get in the door and show what I can do, I don't have much of a problem. The managers, once they've met me or once they've worked with me and once I've finally gotten to that point, no issues at all. But specifically my first bedside job on Mother Baby, I did my interview and it was during COVID that we did this interview. So I interviewed much like this. Now currently I am seated in a wheelchair, but you cannot see that from this angle. I was not used to Zoom interviews and didn't think anything of it. It was my first job interview in my wheelchair. I never didn't think about it at all. So it wasn't until they called back and gave me the job because, oh, also of note, I stopped disclosing my disability during job interviews because I was discriminated against many, many times. It was, I had applied that year trying to get back to bedside nursing. I applied over 20 interviews and job applications. And I got to the interview stage of most of them and now I have as an experience nurse with quite a bit on my resume and I wasn't used to being turned down from jobs. And I'm also not used to hiding anything from job interviewers. So I was immediately like, oh, and I have this experience as a disabled nurse and suddenly the interviews would end. There was never a reason. There was nothing I could ever quote as discrimination. But I learned maybe to not share that at first. So in this postpartum job interview, I did not tell about my disability. I then was offered the job and realized like, oh my god, I do not really want to roll into the unit on my first day and like, surprise! Not really how I wanted to start. So I panic and I call back HR and I call my manager and they're both just like, oh, well, okay, I don't see where that would be a problem. Like if you, you know your body and you know you're capable, capable enough to do this job plus, you know, where you're seated, you're the perfect height to catch. And after a year and postpartum I learned, yes, I am the perfect height to catch. But no, they were very supportive. I ran the only issues I've run into are just once I would get in the door of hospitals and they would love the idea of having a nurse in a chair. Oh my gosh, this is great. We'll advertise. We'll use this like the disability representation. We love it. Then trying to get support on the back end is a little more difficult because the hospitals aren't yet used to employing people with physical disabilities like a chair. They're not used to needing their nursing stations to be accessible. Most of our hospitals are accessible just for our patients, not generally the employees. So those are the issues that I would run into. But I always kind of liked it because I was the one running into these issues and finding them and bringing them to the attention like, okay, if I've got to be the first, I might as well make it better for the next person that comes along. So it was rough. The first little bit when I was working first, the very first hospital as a case manager, that one was not accessible at all. I didn't even have a parking spot for a while. I had to start at ground zero. But it got better and the hospitals are getting better and they're growing and they're learning and they're definitely more supportive than they were when I started this journey four or five years ago just looking into disabled nursing. And I can only imagine if you interviewed on Zoom, just much of like I see you now, you're kind of like this bubbly personality, you're super, you seem super easy going. You definitely know what you're talking about with all this experience. But of course, they want to hire you. And yeah, I mean, disclosing the disability, you know, that's kind of like sad that you didn't have to do that. But I'm just so happy to hear that when you did call them back, that they were like, okay, sure, no problem, you know, we'll make it work. That really sounds amazing. And I really, you know, I've never really encountered a nurse in a wheelchair and I never really thought about the challenges. But what do you, when you were talking right now, what came to my mind is the pixels. It's like, it's like at this height, right? For you, I mean, if you would sit down, it would be hard to get to how do you even get to it? I'm sure that was one of the issues. So I am lucky. And I am so I do a lot of advocacy, a lot of teaching about nursing with a disability nursing from a chair. And I have been on like panels, but most of the time, the people that I'm with are paralyzed and cannot stand from their chair. So in worst case scenarios, I can get out of my chair and stand up. But I never really needed to on at that job because I'm also almost 510. So when I reach, I can touch the top of pixels. And it's fine. I didn't have too much of an issue as far as reaching the high things. But I mean, being so tall and nursing most of my life, I'm so used to getting stuff off the top shelf for my short nurse friends that I never really ran into an issue. Me coming from my ER background, like the postpartum girls were not concerned about this. But as soon as I got there, I wanted to make sure that, yeah, sure, I can reach those pixels medications. But in an emergency, I don't want to be doing that. So I came in and didn't have to change anything, but made sure that, okay, so we have a postpartum hemorrhage like med kit, I want to be able to hit the button and that to spit out at the bottom where I can grab it. Because we found out I am almost always the first person to arrive to an emergency. I'm the fastest. I wonder why with that background on wheels. So we had to make sure like, okay, well, that's cool that you're the first person there, but you need to be able to give the meds too. So we did fix that. But other than that, my one issue that I ran into in the only piece of equipment that I needed altered was specifically for postpartum. So on my unit, we were a level one trauma center level four NICU. So we also I was charged nurse at night over a 36 bed postpartum unit, a well born nursery, a neonatal abstinence withdrawing nursery, and then a birth response team of my nurses that would respond to every birth in the hospital, whether it was on labor and delivery where it was supposed to be, or, you know, elsewhere. So I was over, we kind of have a lot of roles in on this particular unit. When I was taking care of my babies in the nursery, I would have to do, you know, lab work, but the the bassinet would come up to about here on me seated. So I'm trying to like, do one of these, or I'm out of my chair propped up against a counter trying to do this. So I said, you know, I just need a desk chair, a desk chair that raises up all I need just a tall desk chair. And it took so long to get back to I never ended up getting the desk chair because it was seen as an adaptive equipment and I had to go through the paperwork and they want doctors know it's there just for this chair. And it was so funny to me. And this is how I know we've got a little while, little ways to go with disability advocacy in the hospital setting for employees, because it took so long for that. And then I go up to NICU, transport a patient and realize that every single one of their bassinets has two of those for the nurses, two of the highest chairs. So the NICU found out about my issue and gifted me a chair. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. So that was the one and only piece of equipment that I needed. And the one and only time that I ran into any issues as far as being a nurse in a chair, other than one time getting stuck in the elevator and being late to huddle. Okay, that can happen to anybody. A few times that kept happening. And then they kept doing construction right in front of the handicapped parking lot. So I'm like, I'm coming. I'm just stuck on the bridge. Oh my goodness. But yeah, what? No, no real issues. And then from a patient's perspective, how did the patients react? I was so nervous about that. Just, you know, coming from an ER nurse background, patients can be very mean. But so cannot know. When I first started in the hospital, I remember the first two months or so, I was using forearm crutches to get around. And when I was using forearm crutches, I got the most comments. Definitely. Like you look like you need this bed more than I do. You know, that kind of thing, because my lymph is so severe, and it would be a lot to see that kind of come into your patient's room. Once I got my chair, I mean, there were a few comments, but I was also a nurse in Backwood Southwestern Virginia. So we'd have some good old country boys who were like, Oh, darling, you sure you don't need this bed? You sure you're my nurse? You are right over there. I mean, that kind of thing. And nothing ever mean or derogatory or what I expected was someone to say, I don't trust her to be my nurse, you know, especially the new moms. I was so afraid that one day someone would, you know, a nurse would fire me because I was in a chair, but never not once because we forget and being a patient most of my life, you think I would have thought of this, but when we're on that other side of the curtain and you are that patient, you know, your nurse is like the one touchstone of humanity that you have in the hospital setting. I mean, you might get lucky that your entire medical team is like that, but like traditionally, your nurses that one, especially, you know, in postpartum in that world, that is going to be there with you at four a.m. when your baby's not latching and you don't know what to do when they're screaming, you know, that you don't care what your nurse, if they can walk up to you or if they just wheel up and take your child, they don't care. And so most of the comments that I've gotten from patients that have stuck with me, I remember the first one, I rolled into a hospice patients room to discuss hospice options. I just remember that and I remember them saying, you know, you are the first person who has come into this room and has been, you know, on my level, which I was like, hey, I can't really help that, but cool. But I'm on my level and, you know, I know because of your visible disability, I know that you know what it's like to be in this bed. You know what it's like to be surrounded by these people in white coats, speaking a language that you don't understand, to be scared to, and you come in and you speak like you do, because, you know, I speak like a nurse who is there to care for my patient. I just happen to be on wheels. The only other times on, most recently at postpartum when I was bedside, the only, most of them have been shocked in awe for my patients, usually dads who are just like, that is the coolest thing I've ever seen. My chair is also covered in rainbows and I used to have it covered in lights as well because I was night shift and so it looked like a rave when I would enter the room. But there was that. I usually, I had a system that I would, even if some of the rooms were smaller and I would just walk and use the furniture if I needed to in those rooms and leave my chair at the door. But I always made sure that when I would come in each time to meet my patients that I was in my chair that first meeting, because I got a little scared if you walk in and then you come back in a wheelchair that freaks out a little. So I learned that. I had a dad that thought that I was sick and offered to help push me down the hallway and I'm like, oh, that's okay. I'm just going to this room and it was his room. So that was, that was his marriage. That was fun. But other than that, it's mainly been, I've gotten to care for moms that also have Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and so for them to see me and see me working in the hospital, that was incredible. And then the last couple weeks that I was at my job, I ended up getting floated to another unit for staffing and it was the spinal cord injury recovery wing. So I got to enter these rooms as, hey, I'm going to be your nurse today and I'm in a wheelchair and almost every single room, somebody burst into tears and I was just like, I'm not prepared for this. So far, I mean, my disability has done a lot for my life. I mean, completely changed my life, obviously, but it's a lot for my nursing career. It's made it so much harder, but it's made me so much of a better nurse because of it. Absolutely. Yeah, I can imagine. And what you're saying that the patients, they know that you can relate to them, right? And yeah, that spinal cord injury, that had to be real tough, that floor, but then again, I mean, when they are still in the acute care setting, it's still new to them, you know, and to kind of the new diagnosis, that's got to be really rough. But then maybe they just see, okay, she can do it. There's a glimmer of hope that I was able to do whatever it was that I was doing before too, right? Because she can do it and she's functioning just fine, just like any other nurse that I had. So that's kind of cool. Yeah, that's kind of cool. And then when you and I talked before, you also mentioned that you did some like work with students before or like orientating or preceptorship. So tell me about that. Oh, yes. So I love to teach. So I feel like every like role I end up precepting or something. So I was a preceptor on my last unit. And so I love getting to teach new nurses because especially now being in a chair, because you have this brand new nurse to a unit and they show up in their preceptor is in a wheelchair and their minds are just completely blown. And I love it because I know if I was them, my brain would be like, I'm sorry, what is happening? Who are you? And how is this going to work? And I love it, like it's so much fun because by the end of the day, like if I've done my job right and I haven't, you know, been in a terrible mood, like I will probably be the touchstone that they relate to disability or to wheelchairs for the rest of their careers. So instead of it being this cold static thing that we learned about in like, you know, this tiny little chapter in nursing school, it's a real life human being that they can remember is capable and able to do way more than you'd expect. Super cool. So are you thinking about maybe going into nursing education to some degree? I am thinking about it. I run a social media platform where I share a lot of education and I've kind of taken to doing it that way. And I've loved it so much. I'm definitely thinking about maybe going back to school. Very cool. Maybe we'll talk about a teaching career later. All right. So now that you've worked, you know, that you shared all your work experience, if you think about a new grad coming straight out of school, what advice do you have for them? What is it that you know now after all the stuff that you've been through that you wish you would have known when you first came out? My gosh, I think about this one a lot because I don't think there was anything that I've ever done in my entire life that was as scary as my first day as a brand new nurse in the ER. Because I mean, like, I didn't even know how I'm looking back now. I'd never started an IV. I barely knew how to draw up medication. Like it just and so my advice to my new grads and to everyone that I teach is just that feeling that terrified I don't know anything about anything feeling is completely normal. And every single nurse is felt that way. And if they say they have it, they're lying because they felt it at some point. I thought I was the dumbest person in the world when I was a brand new nurse. I thought I would never be able to rattle off these disease processes or be able to look at a CVC and know what it means just by the values. You know, these are not things that nursing school teaches you. It is, but not the way that you learn when you're actually practicing. There's just so much of nursing that you learn hands on. And as terrifying and scary as that is, that was just the mantra that I had to repeat to myself that my preceptor kept telling me that this is normal, that no one expects you to have all the answers as a new nurse. Most of the time we don't expect you to know much of anything as a new nurse. If you do, it's even bonus. It's just such a scary time. And I just always want my new nurses to know that they are not alone. And that 99.99999% of the nursing population wants you to succeed and wants to help and be there for you with any questions that you could possibly have. And I think that's another important part, too, is ask questions. Because, you know, there are, and those are few and far in between, but there are some students as well as new nurses, they're either afraid to ask the question because they don't want to look dumb per se. They don't want to look like they don't know what they think they should know. Or they kind of like, well, I've already learned that I don't need to kind of look that up again, right? So that and I always tell them it's okay to ask questions. Everybody asks questions. I've been doing this for 15 years. I still ask questions because that I nobody knows everything, right? It is okay. And it's better to ask those questions than not to because the outcome for the patient could be so much worse if you don't just ask that one question. What I always tell people is when you get that feeling that when you go into a patient's room and you're like, I don't know why, but there's something I can't put my finger on and you just want someone else to lay eyes on that patient. That feeling right there, you listen to that feeling. And I don't care if you come up to me and you're like, I don't know why. Well, you just look at this patient. Like I just have a fee. Absolutely. And if a nurse tells you no, then find another one. That's not a great one. I don't know. That kind of, you don't quite have those nursing skills to really put your finger on what it is yet. But you know, and you know more than you think you do. And listen to those feelings, for sure. That gut feeling, yeah. Nursing. And then what is your most memorable patient interaction? So I have two that I always go between on this one. But I think my very first patient I ever cared for on my own was probably one of my most impactful. I was still in nursing school. And so with my disability, I was diagnosed when I was 16. And there's very little research about it. But I did know from that age that I would most likely end up in a wheelchair at some point. I didn't know anything really about that. I didn't even consider myself disabled back then. I had a shoulder that would dislocate every once in a while. That was really it. So I didn't think much about disability. But my very first patient was as luck would have it, a spinal cord injury. A brand new spinal cord injury was ejected from a vehicle and left hanging out of the driver's side window, fractured at T12, complete spinal fracture. And I was his, oh, he was 21. So was I when I was a nurse in school. And I was his first nurse the day that he woke up and realized he was paralyzed. And I was the first nurse who had to clean him up when he had a B.M. on himself. And now looking back, I would like to punch my clinical instructor for ever giving me a patient that emotionally were surrounded as a new nurse. However, once years, years later, I got over like the trauma that was that entire shift. I still have like, I found it when I moved in this house. It was almost, almost 10 years ago now that year. And I still have where I was writing out his care plans, because I was just so he was, I remember he was the quarterback of his high school football team. And suddenly he's the spinal cord injury and the first nurse that's taken care of him is his age. And it's just this horrible uncomfortable feeling. And all I knew is I did not ever want my patient to feel that way. And I mean, I tried as much as I could. But having a 21 year old, I'm sure I didn't leave much of a dent on him, but he did on me. And I knew that I wanted to be like the nurses that I saw on the unit that could just enter a patient's room. And it didn't matter if it was an outcome like that, where nothing looked very bright, or if it was a brand new baby that was wanted and needed, you know, it didn't matter. They walked in that room and immediately the patient feels cared for, feels safe, feels like they can ask any question that they want. You know, if they have a freaking VM on themselves, I don't care. If I come in the room and you're sitting there topless breastfeeding your patient, I don't care. I want you to feel better about your stay in the hospital, whatever you're doing, because I was your nurse that day. And that is what that very first patient taught me. And now years later, here I am in a wheelchair myself working primarily with a lot of spinal cord injuries. And I think about that patient every single day. That is pretty cool. That is a very cool story. And it's, you know, a lot of times, maybe we think that we make an impact in patients' lives. And we do, but many times they won't remember us, especially in the ER, right? They'll kind of remember, oh yeah, somebody came in and they did this and that and whatever. But some of these patients, they leave a lasting impact on us. And not only because of their story or their injury was so severe, but for that like emotional vulnerability. And I think it's how you pick and choose what you learned from that and go forward helping the next patient that makes this profession so special. Absolutely. Absolutely. She's my favorite part. That's awesome. So when you're not currently looking for jobs, what do you do in your free time to kind of balance work, life, stress and those kind of things? Well, I am in the gym a lot. That is my main weight lift. It originally started out with just a way to protect my joints from my disability. And I was absolutely not traditionally athletic growing up at all. Turns out my legs just don't work. It's not that I don't like sports. And as soon as I got a chair and started trying adaptive athletics, I like it quite a bit. So about a year ago, I started doing Spartan races. And I do that with an adaptive team. I do the actual obstacles completely on my own, but I get some help pushed through the terrain on an off-road wheelchair. So that's really cool. And then I just moved here, moved to San Diego from Southwestern, Virginia. So I am also currently just living up all of these opportunities that I did not have growing up in the sticks. I also dabble in the performing arts. So auditioning has been a big chunk of my time just for fun. Because, you know, why not when you're 30 and have an RN career, what can go wrong? So I can definitely see how you would succeed in some sort of an acting career, be the lively person that you are and with all your facial expressions and your body language, I can see how that would be a very fitting career for you. And who knows, you know, it might even be like a not only a second career, it might be maybe there's a switch ahead of you. I'm so far finding ways to combine the two is making me very happy. For example, the very first audition that I got since moving out here was, or is, that's coming up with GoodRx. And they're looking for nurses and healthcare providers to actually share their experiences using the GoodRx program, which as an ER nurse, I use every single day. So I was like, oh, let me combine my loves. Perfect. Perfect. What comes to mind too is Nurse Blake or something like that. Right? Yeah, exactly. You know, comedy tour or something like that. Yep. I can see you on stage doing something like that, getting the crowd riled up. When I just got back from a trip to Bali with several other nurse influencers, anyone's looking to follow another nurse in a wheelchair, the seated nurse on Instagram, Andrea Delzell, one of my really good friends. And so it was she and Katie Duke as well, was there with us. And so we were all just talking about the same thing, trying to combine nursing and education and social media and how we're using that. And it's so cool that we're in this kind of time where we can kind of get the education out there in a way that did not exist while I was in nursing school, most of us. Absolutely. Right. And then just to know that there are like many people and so much is done on social media nowadays that you can reach so many more people. And I definitely know of the seated nurse also. And I kind of follow her story. She's very cool. And I'm so glad that you two are friends because I see how you can get along. But it's just nice that we have social media platforms where people like her and you can tell a story and there might be another nurse out there who's like, or maybe somebody who is not even a nurse yet and they are in a wheelchair and they think it's impossible. But now they see, wait a minute, you know, and these ladies are doing it. So I can too. So that's super cool. I had no earth. I mean, when I first started thinking about going back to bedside in a chair, I immediately turned to Instagram to see, okay, well, has anyone else done this? Is it just me? And like, let's see. And Andrea was the first person that I met. And we have since become very good friends because of it. But she also introduced me. If there is anybody watching and listening that is disabled and wants to once to work in healthcare or say you're a healthcare provider who has become disabled for one reason or another, the National Organization of Nurses with Disabilities, or it's N-O-N-V dot org non dot org is a organization that both Andrea and I are a part of. But they assist not only nurses, despite the name, but they assist all kinds of healthcare workers, trying to with disabilities, trying to get into the field or just getting into nursing school can sometimes be a huge struggle because they do have, you know, those physical requirements that are very hard to see around. But there are ways and the National Organization of Nurses with Disabilities has been really helpful to both Andrea and I. And they're not just for mobility limiting. They're also for blindness, deafness, anything you can possibly think of in between. They're a really good resource. That's super cool to know. And I'll make sure to add that in the comment or the description of the video below. So people that are interested can can follow that as well as I want to add your social media pages too, because you have so much to offer and you're just a fun personality, I think any aspiring or existing nurse would just benefit from following you on social media too, as I do too. And I've seen your posts. So Ryan, I really want to thank you for coming out for sharing your story and being so uplifting, because I think sometimes when we talk about, you know, disabilities, it can be quite, you know, almost like a dark subject for some people and if it's newly diagnosed or if there's some that you're just starting to work with, it can be very daunting. And so I really want to thank you for your spirit, your positivity and keep doing what you're doing because you're going to be awesome. And you're going to find a job, whether it's at a hospital or in comedy, whatever it is, and it's going to be awesome. And I'm going to look forward to seeing those Instagram stories of body. Thank you so much. And then you for what you're doing, I have totally been deep diving on your videos. And I'm just like, I needed this when I was in nursing school, I'm sending to all of my nursing school followers. And I keep you go, this is such a follow. Well, thanks. Yeah, I have a few more videos for critical care coming out. So those will be right up your alley. Definitely. Give me a little pressure on, see if I remembered. All right, well, thanks so much. I'll see you around. And I'll put all the links in the description below. All right, sounds great. Thank you so much. Thanks, Ryan. Take care.