After graduation from Greenville High School, Christy began to set off to further her education in Carbondale at SIU-C. While there, she was pursuing a degree in “Agriculture Education,” even though her late Grandfather had visions of her becoming a nurse. For those few years, she followed the path set by so many who grew up in the small farming town of Greenville, IL. It would be a short time but a long journey before she realized her true calling.
In April of 2006 while attending SIU-C, she became pregnant with her son (Quentin) now age 7. She continued to work through school and the birth of a child, but soon found it difficult to manage both due to a high risk pregnancy and being a single mother. Within a year, she gave up her prior pursuit and returned home where the needed help from family and longtime friends awaited. She decided it was most important to be there for her son growing up so she sacrificed her education to raise her son and would make plans to return to school when Quentin would enter elementary school.
Now as we know even the best of friends and most helpful of family can only do so much, she needed the type of help that only our WIA grant could provide. In 2011, Christy took the first steps toward fulfilling the vision her Grandfather had for her; she completed the necessary paperwork for WIA assistance and waited. Christy can still recall the phone call and the excitement she felt when she received the news notifying her that she was the last applicant to be accepted. All her dreams were coming true and one day, she was going to have the opportunity to become a nurse.
Christy was always a straight “A” student but had been warned that the nursing program was nothing like what she was used to. Fellow classmates had told her to be happy when she passed a class regardless of the grade and that passing was the accomplishment. She set high standards for herself; however, nursing school required countless hours of studying and many lost hours of sleep. With the lack of socialization of family and friends, nursing school could cause a lot of stress and anger build-up that would lead to her determination to finish strong.
On May 17th, 2014, Christy obtained her Associate’s Degree in Nursing. As her family and friends sat in the audience and watched her walk across the stage, she was most proud to know her son was sitting there cheering her on. She was also positive her Grandfather was also looking down from above smiling because he knew Christy finally reached her potential. This was a goal that she promised him she would achieve and she could not have felt more proud to be called Christy Long, R.N. She now works at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Belleville, IL. With plans of completing their RN Residency Program.