Медсестра-онколог из Blue Ridge Cancer Care делится историей: как личный опыт борьбы с раком укрепил её преданность пациентам

For Blue Ridge Cancer Care nurse practitioner Jolee Preston, caring for cancer patients isn’t just a profession — it’s a passion. “I have said to my patients, my family, my friends, my coworkers, that cancer patients are the best patients you could ever work with,” Preston said. Her connection to cancer care runs deep — and it started long before she ever stepped into a clinic. “My grandfather got diagnosed with cancer when I was 12 years old. I just remember the hospice nurse coming in, taking care of not only him, but all of us,” she said. That hospice nurse was Dr. Shirts — the same provider Preston would eventually grow up to work alongside. Under his guidance, she found her calling. A perspective few providers have. Preston spent most of her career understanding what it meant to practice from both sides of the bed — as a caregiver and as a family member who had received devastating news. Then came a moment that changed everything. “I was diagnosed with renal cell cancer. I know how it feels to wait on the pathology, to question every speck of my future with my family, with my work, with my job. Now I know how it feels as a patient as well. So, it deepens my love for these patients, but it deepens my love for my job because I was able to come back to work, and I’m very fortunate for that,” she said. Her own diagnosis gave Preston a rare and profound perspective — one that has only strengthened her commitment to the patients she serves. “The way I look at it is these patients have been given devastating news. I know how it feels to sit in that chair as a family member and hear that news,” she said. ‘Cancer doesn’t just work from 8-5’ Preston is healthy now and continues her work at Blue Ridge Cancer Care, bringing a prescription of perspective and a healthy dose of compassion to every patient she sees. “Cancer doesn’t just work from 8-5. It’s all day, every day. I try to make myself present,” she said. That presence, she believes, is its own kind of medicine. “I hug my patients and I tell them I love them, and I mean it, and I mean it,” she said. Have an ‘everyday hero’ in your community? Nominate them in the form below: