The Stewarts: Joanna RN, BSN

It still makes me feel so weird to think that I am done with my bachelors degree. I feel like it went so fast that before I knew it, I was done.

I thought I was crazy for starting my new RN job at the same time I was starting school but everything worked out just fine. I was so busy with orientation and working and coming home to do homework that the days just raced by.

At times it was so boring because I felt that all I was doing was school and work. I would literally sit in front of the computer for hours on my days off, poor Mike had to give up his wife once again for school.

I decided to double my work load and took two classes the entire time instead of the recommended one. I wanted to give up at times because I was literally SO sick of school but Mike was always there to encourage me and tell me "you're almost done, just keep going!" Oh what I would do without that guy!!

I am absolutely in love with this picture because you can tell how overjoyed Mike was for me to FINALLY be done with school. Since he met me six years ago, I had always been a student. I would have never been able to finish all of that boring and hard work without Mike, Walt, and Marcia who constantly encouraged me and listened to my whining!

Sometimes I think, why can't I be like normal people and be satisfied with my LVN degree? That's because Mike and my in laws had high expectations from me. They knew I could do it, sometimes even more than I knew it myself.

Marcia was my rock throughout nursing school, She was the person I would vent to when the teachers were rude, the assignments ridiculous, and I seriously didn't want to go to school anymore to be insulted and ridiculed. She helped me preservere and I will forever be thankful to her for that!

But of course, I knew that an associates degree would just not be enough. Walt engraved in my head that a BSN would be the lowest I would go. He wanted nothing more for me than success. After hearing it so many times from him, a bachelor's degree was not a question after finishing my ADN. The day of graduation I started my first course at University Texas Arlington. I wanted to make him proud!

I have literally completed every single life goal I have set for myself now (Except for having a little family of course) When I was in high school I always knew that one day I would have a Nissan Altima, it was my dream car! And that was the very first car I purchased on my own. Mike has helped me accomplish every single goal on that list and I am so thankful to him for always being so supportive. Mike is so kind and loving to me, I don't know what I did to deserve such an amazing guy to do life with. He helped me with my dream car, buying a home, getting my bachelors in nursing, and even getting my dream job in the ICU. I mean, even down to having a golden retriever dog that I always wanted when I was little!

Graduation was in Texas Arlington, and for a minute I thought, why go? But I knew I had to. I wanted my mom to see that all her hard work as a single mom and all those years of hardship were paying off. I owed it to her for always working so hard for me. I wanted her to see me walk.