Nurse Fulfills Dream, Working In Hospital Where She Was Treated For Cancer
By Stephanie Stahl
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Amanda Giardinelli has a unique perspective as a registered nurse at St. Christopher's Hospital For Children in Philadelphia.
The young nurse who was once a cancer patient as a child can truly tell the little patients she now takes care of that she knows how they feel.
The 22-year-old first came to St. Christopher's when she was just seven years old after being diagnosed with leukemia.
"Without the nurses who took care of me, I wouldn't be here," she says.
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It was her experience as a patient that inspired her to become a nurse.
"I've only ever wanted to work here," says Amanda.
Fourteen years after her treatment for cancer many of the nurses who took care of Amanda are still working at St. Christopher's.
Her mother kept a scrapbook of Amanda's days in the hospital that she shares with those same nurses.
Pat Sigg is one of the nurses who treated Amanda.
She remembers one of the first nights after Amanda was diagnosed and admitted to her floor.
"It's wonderful that she got to grow up and have such a wonderful life after what she went through as a patient," says Sigg.
Now many years in remission, Amanda is paying it forward as a nurse with a unique understanding of her young patients.
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"I hope to give back what the nurses gave me and it's a sense of hope and comfort," she says. "And when a child comes here, I don't want them to be scared, I want them to know that we're here to take care of them."
"She can bring something to this job that none of us can do because she's been through it," says Sigg. "She has a personal story."
Amanda knows what it's like to be little, sick and scared.
"I know how to talk to them and I know what they're scared of because I was afraid of the same things," said Amanda.
Having just started her nursing career, Amanda is working with a variey of different young patients.
She eventually hopes to go back to school to become a nurse practitioner and work in oncology with young cancer patients.
