In quiet lobbies, sad faces stopped to smile at the girl sitting in the well-worn chair with white sneakers and stonewashed jeans with an elastic top. Noses tickle from the faint scent of bleach and saline that disguised the smell of body fluids that patients left behind. The little girl knows the hospital inside and out. She knows the patients down the hall who are lonely for visitors. She knows the nuns who run the hospital and is a a regular visitor at their home behind the hospital that’s filled with the warm smells of gooey cookies, sticky modeling clay that leaves colorful stains on her fingers, and the sound of water splooshing against the side of an aluminum tank - a makeshift pool for the summer.

“I always wanted to be a doctor,” Brenda said. “I grew up in a hospital because my aunt who raised me was a nurse. The school bus would actually drop me off at the hospital. It was a small town. And I would sit in the lobby, doing my homework.”

“When we were little, my aunt didn't have a babysitter,” she continued, “so they would take us to the nuns. [The nuns] ran the hospital, and they lived in the back of the hospital in a beautiful home. They were so funny, and they'd let me hang out with them. They always had playdough for me, and we’d always make cookies.” 

These experiences set the foundation for Brenda’s future career in the medical field, though her career didn’t begin there.

“When I was little, I [thought I] was going to become a doctor and take care of my aunt, because she took me in,” she said. “But to be very honest, I did not think I had the smarts or the capacity to become a physician at that time. I was in honors, I graduated top of my class and all that, but I really didn't think that I could do it. And doing social work just made sense because of growing up in foster care. I wanted to help people, and I knew what it was like.”

“[Being] in foster care, it's funny because there are bits and pieces from my childhood that I don't remember,” Brenda continued. “In school, I don't remember some of the foundations that were set, and I [wondered], ‘Why are those pieces missing for me?’ And it was because I was in survival mode. My thoughts were not about what I was learning, [they were] about the situations I was in. The other part was self-esteem. I didn't know any doctors.”

Brenda started working for child protective services. At age 29, she went back to school to become a nurse. Now, Brenda has been working in nursing for nearly 20 years, in a variety of areas including labor and delivery, home healthcare and PICC line nursing (a specialized skill in which nurses administer long-term antibiotics or medications that are toxic to a patient’s veins through a special line inserted in the patient’s arm). 

“I feel like there's so much to do and to limit yourself to one thing is a disservice,” said Brenda. “I tell nurses coming into this field, ‘Don't limit yourself. It's gonna be scary to try new things, but try 'em.’”

Throughout her time in nursing, Brenda’s start in social work has helped provide a different perspective and inform how she provides care. 

“That job helped me learn to connect with people and helped me really see a person as a whole,” she said. “I had resources to provide patients and more compassion because I'd been in people's homes, and I'd seen how people lived.”

She continued, “The hospitals that I worked at were always in low [income] areas, and a lot of patients came in [on] drugs and [other] things, and we had to call CPS on a lot of them unfortunately. They knew it, and I was able to tell them how it works. [I would say], ‘I was a social worker and I can tell you the steps you can take. Don't give up.’ And it almost comforted them to know a person like me is going to come see [them]. It's not like this horrible monster is going to come to your house and take your kids. I said, ‘They want to know how they can help you.’ I would not trade that experience as a social worker for CPS for the world. I really wouldn't.”

Brenda advanced in her career, and is now a house supervisor - part of the hospital’s administrative team. But her career hasn’t been without challenges. 

Brenda has a strong relationship with her boss. They’ve worked together for years, moving to different hospitals together when opportunities arose. At first, they had a mentor/mentee relationship, which grew into a friendship over the years. 

“It's funny because we have a friendship, but we're not allowed to have a friendship at work,” Brenda said. “[It] is hard for me to swallow because I take [my friendships] very much to heart. They are my friends for a reason, and I will do anything I can to help them.” 

However, Brenda has received feedback from HR that Brenda’s friendship with her boss makes other staff members feel like they can’t talk to leadership.

“They're like, ‘Well, people are afraid to come to [your boss] because they think you and her are friends,’” she continued. “I'm like, ‘It's not a secret. Obviously I came with her from another hospital. I'm sorry if they took it to the next level of [saying] she doesn't discipline me, because how many times have you written me up? You're harder on me than anybody else. Why don't they understand that? That's their fault. That's not my fault. If they're not willing to go to you, that's your fault. Not mine.’”

Brenda is outspoken and direct at work. While being direct is helpful in a hospital full of emergency situations, it also creates challenges.

“In foster care, they make decisions for you,” Brenda said. “It caused me to not be very trusting of people. I had to fight so much [for myself], and I still sometimes feel [like] I have to fight. Growing up that way, nobody's going to do it for you.” 

Now, Brenda is taking the next big step for herself - obtaining her Doctorate of Nursing Practice. 

“So I will end up being a doctor,” Brenda laughed. “I didn't think I could get into this program. It was still in my head [that] I'm not smart enough. But what I learned along the way [is that] it's not about how smart you are, it's about how hard you're willing to work.”

Her first semester, Brenda was nervous about her writing skills, so she hired a tutor to review her papers for class. School has made Brenda better at asking for help.

“It takes a lot for me to ask people to help me,” Brenda said. “But I learned in school [that] if I'm going to be successful, I can't do this alone. I have to ask for help. I feel like God put me in this opportunity, and I'm not gonna blow it. If I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it all. I’m gonna be all in.”

After she obtains her doctorate degree, Brenda dreams of opening a mobile mental health clinic and traveling to rural areas to offer care. Brenda grew up in a small town, where mental health care was hard to find, and she knows that other youth in foster care experience this as well. 

“I'm so proud to be a nurse,” Brenda said, “because it gives me choices and it lets me help other people.”

Over the years, Brenda has thought that people felt sorry for her because she was in foster care. She didn’t want them to. 

“I am proud that I was in foster care,” Brenda said. “We're way outnumbered by the people who had parents, so I kind of feel like I'm a part of an elite group.”

She continued, “I have a huge Wonder Woman collection. I even have a [Wonder Woman] wrap on my Corvette. People ask, ‘Why Wonder Woman?’ I'm like, ‘Because she sticks up for the underdog, and she's about justice and what's right. And I'm very much the same way.’ It represents who I am. I feel like anybody who grew up in foster care and who's making it - and even if they're not [making it] - we're all superheroes.”

Brenda felt like a superhero a few years ago - when she did an IV infusion therapy treatment for a patient living near a Catholic university. 

”I went to a private university, and I never knew that nuns lived next door,” she said. “One of the companies I was working for sent me there, and [I went] not knowing that I was going to take care of a nun. We started talking, and [it] turns out they knew the nuns that used to take care of me. They got so excited. The first visit there was one nun. By the time I left, I had seven nuns in the room. They'd all come in. We would talk. And it was just the coolest experience ever. I [could not] believe they knew the nuns who were part of my childhood. They'd schedule their whole day around me. going. The nuns were really good to me.”

What’s so different about Brenda and Wonder Woman, or even nuns for that matter? They all come from a land of women with strong ideals, they use their truth like a lasso to fight for what they care about, they love an underdog, and they are ready to fight injustice everywhere. Only superheroes here.