Hard times couldn’t stop UNMC nursing graduate

Fallon Switzer still remembers getting the email.

It read, “You’ve been offered a seat in the UNMC College of Nursing Kearney Division BSN Program, Class of 2024.”

She was eight-and-a-half months pregnant. She already had a 5-year-old child.

She was unstoppable.

“I just remember sitting on the couch, and I’m just bawling,” she said. “I cannot tell you how long I stared at that email. I was just so honored that I was picked, because this is a prestigious school.”

The email arrived at about 6:30 p.m. The slightly stunned and teary Switzer had filled out the paperwork and paid her initial fees by 7 p.m. She had her seat. No one could take it from her.

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When Switzer, 29, receives her Bachelor of Science in Nursing Degree Thursday night at the University of Nebraska at Kearney’s Health and Sports Center, the UNMC nursing graduate will have reached the latest milestone on a winding, at times heartbreaking, journey.

It will be a far cry from where she was as a teenager, with her mother recently passed away and in the foster system. Now more than a decade later, Switzer has achieved the latest step in her journey as a health professional.

As a child, Switzer dreamed of becoming a veterinarian. But after a failed gastric bypass surgery, her mother developed an addiction to painkillers. By the time she was 15, Switzer and her mother were essentially homeless, moving from house to house as her mother’s addiction problems worsened.

“We literally bounced around from people’s couches to strangers’ homes to living in hotels. So my freshman and sophomore year (of high school), I did not have a permanent residence. I did not have a stable life. It was … it was rough.”

As a mother today, Switzer can look back and sympathize with her mother’s struggles. And at the time, she tried to help as best she could.

“She depended on me a lot almost for everything.”

Today, Switzer wonders if her passion for nursing was born from those experiences.

“My mom was in and out of the hospital a lot; she was in and out of the ICU a lot. And, ironically, I do have a passion for the ICU. I also just naturally have a service attitude – I feel better inside when I get to take care of somebody. Maybe taking care of others fills a part of me because I wasn’t able to take care of my mom, if that makes sense.”

When high school ended, Switzer didn’t have the money for college. It was her now-husband, Jessie, who found a free CNA class being given by the Grand Island Veterans Home VA.

“I was really upset that I wasn’t going to be able to afford vet school,” Switzer said. “My husband knew that I love medicine. He said ‘Why don’t you give the CNA a try?’ I had no idea what that was. Thankfully, the VA was giving out free CNA classes. And so I ended up getting my CNA completely paid for by the VA. I’ve been a CNA for 11 years.”

Switzer also received certification as a medication aide, allowing her to get a job with an allergist. It was the allergist who first told her, “Wow, you would make a great nurse.”

Her professor at Central Community College, where she was taking classes, agreed. In fact, he told her, she should go to UNMC.

“I took all of the pre-reqs that UNMC needed to get into their BSN program,” Switzer said.

And then the email came.

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Switzer filled out her acceptance documents immediately, but in the weeks following, there were some doubts. UNMC would be more expensive than Central Community College, where she had done her pre-reqs and which also had accepted her.

But in the end and after talking with her always-supportive husband, Switzer chose UNMC to get a bachelor’s degree in nursing.

“I told my husband, ‘I can do this.’ He was great. I knew it would be hard, but I thought, ‘I really want this.’ So I thanked CCC for accepting me, but I was politely declining. It’s been history ever since, and I don’t regret one minute of it.”

When Switzer receives her degree on Thursday, she’ll have her husband – “my absolute biggest supporter and, honest to God, the light of my life” – and two sons with her. Her in-laws. Her father and brother.

She also will have her UNMC professors and classmates.

“No matter how hard life is kicking you down, you have to find your tribe of people. And your tribe is out there,” she said. “I was absolutely terrified going into nursing school. I was not expecting the level of support that I got. It was an amazing experience. These professors really are changing the future of nursing. But I always felt like they truly cared about me and my wellbeing over anything.”

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On its website, the UNMC College of Nursing points to the paths some of its graduates have taken.

“Many of our graduates are practicing as nurse practitioners, clinical nurse specialists, teaching at universities or working at various clinics, hospital systems or organizations across the nation,” the website reads.

For now, Switzer is a travel CNA/CMA with Good Samaritan Society. She just accepted a position with St. Francis in Grand Island.

“In their emergency department! I’m so excited for this journey,” she said. “I can’t believe I’m going to be an ER nurse. I’m so thankful for this life.”

And for now, she’s not thinking of promotions, advanced degrees, research or leadership positions.

In the future, who knows? She has her BSN, and all the doors that degree opens still are in front of her.

And after all, she is unstoppable.