HARLINGEN — She didn’t go looking for nursing, but it found her.
Sandra Gallardo was enjoying a life of health and happiness with her husband and three kids when the cause of medicine tapped her on the shoulder.
“As a child, my grandparents and my parents would say that I was always very nosy because somebody would get cut and I would be there,” said Gallardo, 48. “As the years went by, I didn’t think about nursing. But then in 1993 my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.”
That’s when Gallardo, now an RN/LVN instructor at Valley Baptist Medical Center, found a new calling. She at first took small steps, taking a few courses and becoming a bookkeeper. But within three years she’d begun taking her prerequisites for nursing school.
She did experience some bumps along the way. Her attempt to become a nurse didn’t work out at first, but she continued to persevere. In 2013 she received her certification for licensed vocational nurse from South Texas College, followed the next year by her registered nurse credential.
“It was all my mother,” she said. “She got breast cancer and she pushed me. She did recover. She was in remission for twelve years.”
But life had more challenges for Gallardo. In March 2015, she’d been studying hard to take her NCLEX – National Council Licensure Examination – when she herself felt a lump in her right breast.
“I remember telling my husband, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to do it, I have to pass my NCLEX,’” she recalled.
But she did pass it, the very first time. She had chemotherapy and surgery to treat her cancer and now she just has regular follow ups.
“It’s already been six years and I’m happy to be here,” she said.
Since October, she’s been teaching students in the Harlingen School of Health Professions who are in the dual LVN program at Valley Baptist.
“I’m enjoying it,” she said. “I never in a million years thought that I was going to be teaching high school students. It takes me back to when my kids were teenagers.”
Now she’s taken on still a new challenge. Feb. 13, she ran the 5K in the Harlingen Marathon.
“It went good,” she said. “I’d never done a run before. After I finished I felt happy. I was even like, ‘OK, I can do this again.’”
She plans to run another one in a few months.
