Sharon Sullivan went into nursing for the stability.
She was working full-time as a hairdresser and making good money. She completed cosmetology classes during high school and styled hair through her 20s and 30s. It was flexible and social and she had a loyal base of clients.
But shortly after her son, Ayden, was born, life got complicated. She and her husband got divorced. Her daughter, Katie, was not quite 3. Her parents both got sick — her dad had lung cancer; her mom had a heart attack — within a few months of each other. Her dad passed away in October 2008 and her mom died the following May.
She started to wonder if styling hair was going to be enough to build and sustain the sort of life she wanted for her kids. She wanted affordable health insurance. She wanted to save for retirement.
“My motto when I got divorced was stability,” she said. “My life felt a little out of control and I wanted something stable.”
She was touring Chicago Public Schools to choose a kindergarten program for her daughter when a message from one of the principals struck a chord.
“He kept talking about how education is so important and you need an education and it just rang in my head,” she said. “I’m like, ‘Oh my god. I need an education.'”
She enrolled in the nursing program at Malcolm X College.
“When I was in the hospital with my mom, the nurses took such good care of her and I thought, ‘I could see doing this,'” Sullivan said. “And when we had hospice for my dad, the woman was so amazing. She was able to tell us exactly what was going to happen. And I always had an interest in science and the body. That’s always been fascinating to me.”
She completed her associate’s degree at Malcolm X and enrolled in Purdue University’s online program to earn her Bachelor of Science in nursing. She continued to style hair and raise her kids. She added job-hunting to the list.
In late 2018, she landed a nursing job at Community First Medical Center on the city’s Northwest Side, and she’s worked there ever since. When we first started hearing what was happening, I had a lot of fear. I thought, ‘This is not what I signed up for.’Sharon Sullivan, a nurse
Her kids are now 11 and 14. Her ex-husband passed away three years ago.
And now she’s working at a hospital during a pandemic.
“When we first started hearing what was happening, I had a lot of fear,” she said. “I thought, ‘This is not what I signed up for.’ I wanted to help and I wanted to nurture people and help them get well, but to this extreme? Where it’s a risk to my life and I’m a single mom? That made me nervous.”
