Can you isolate one event that put you on the career path you’re on today? For Kali Froese, it was an otherwise troubling experience that took place in Norway.
Froese was born and raised in Winkler. In 2018, she graduated and travelled to Sweden to do a year of Bible school. This is where the story begins.
An unexpected change of plans
“On my way to Bible school in Sweden, my dad and I did this grad trip where we went to Iceland and Norway,” she says. “[It was] a lot of sightseeing. It was a lot of fun.”
While travelling, Froese’s father required an unexpected hospital stay when the pair was in Norway.
“We woke up in the morning . . . and he wasn't feeling well, so we knew we needed to go to the hospital,” says Froese. “They ended up bringing us in right away . . . . We knew we'd need to stay overnight.”
For Froese (as it would be for anyone facing a medical emergency in an unfamiliar country), it was a harrowing experience.
“I didn't know Norwegian, and I was only 18 years old,” she says. “I had no one except for my dad there, so I was pretty frightened to be all alone in Norway, knowing that they were going to take him away for a procedure later.”
A light in the darkness
As Froese was coming to terms with what was happening at the hospital, a calming presence entered the scene in the form of a nurse.
“She was so kind and so joyful. When she walked into the room, I instantly felt so much peace to see her face,” she says. “I never really considered how much of an impact that a nurse can have on your life, but they're really meeting you in your worst moments, and she just helped me feel so much better in that situation.”
One of the kindnesses that the nurse extended to the pair was finding them their own private room to stay in while Froese’s father received treatment. This was a relief to Froese, who says she initially planned to sleep in a chair in the emergency room.
Instead, the nurse made sure that she had her own bed.
“It was such a beautiful extension of grace on her behalf because she really didn't need to do that,” says Froese. “A simple gesture by her made that whole experience so much better for me."
An inspirational experience
For Froese, far away from home in a sudden situation rife with uncertainty and fear, the nurse’s above-and-beyond care left a profound impression.
“It just got me thinking how one day of a nurse's life can impact almost the entire life of another person,” she says. “Now I look back on that experience and it's positive. It's not negative anymore.”
In addition to changing her attitude toward an experience in Norway that could have been entirely negative, the kind acts have also affected Froese’s future.
“I had never really considered nursing before that, but going forward, I had this little seed planted in my brain that maybe I want to go into the healthcare field one day and have the same impact on other people's lives that the nurse had on mine,” she says.
Jump to today, and Froese has nearly completed the nursing program at the University of Manitoba. She is in her final practicum.
As Froese reached the end of her schooling, the calming presence in Norway began to occupy her thoughts again.
“I thought, ‘I should try to track down this nurse and see if I can get in contact with her and tell her how much her care meant to me,’” says Froese. “I know that when patients tell me how I've impacted them, it really means a lot.”
A search across seas
To try to establish contact, Froese sent a few emails to the Oslo Hospital in Norway. She outlined the situation in these emails hoping that someone could find the nurse. At first, she didn’t hear anything back.
“I thought, ‘Okay, well, whatever. They probably get a lot of emails and maybe they didn't understand the English,’” she says. “Just recently I thought . . . I should give it another shot, so I reached out one more time.”
For her last attempt, Froese wrote out the whole story, added pictures, and gave as much information as she could to describe the nurse, including what she looked like and which day she was working.
This time, she received an email back.
“I got a reply back that said . . . ‘thank you so much for your story. It's been really encouraging to our staff here and we think we know which nurse you're talking about. If you can send us some more information, then we'll track her down for you,’” says Froese.
For Froese, the reply was a bit of a shock.
“That was just crazy because I didn't really think it was going to be possible to even know her name again,” she says. “I got super excited about the possibility of meeting her.”
A new connection
The hospital in Oslo not only set up a Zoom call with the nurse but also invited a local news station to cover the story. For Froese, it was nerve-wracking to finally be waiting at the computer’s loading screen after so much time and a big search.
“I was super nervous . . . because she's been this figure in my life that I've always talked about. Everyone asks [why I became a nurse] and I always say, ‘There was this nurse in Norway, and she really impacted me,’” she says. “I could see on the computer it said [something like], ‘they're just going to let you join soon,’ and there was so much anxiety in that little moment watching the little loading symbol because, I'm about to meet my idol, right?”
In a full circle moment, Froese says that as soon as she saw the welcoming face on her screen, she immediately felt calm.
“We were both pretty emotional when we saw each other. She was deeply touched by the letter that I sent, and she was just emotional that she had such an impact that now I've decided to make this my career because of her,” says Froese. “She was very touched by it, and I was also very touched that it was even possible to meet her.”
The nurse remembered Froese and her father and recounted her version of the events a few years ago. She also had advice.
“She was able to share some of her nursing insight with me on how to care for patients and encourage me in my future profession,” says Froese. “It was super cool.”
Froese connected with the nurse on social media, and the two now keep in contact.
“It's the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” says Froese.
A portrait of Anne
Froese says that there is sometimes a fear that meeting one’s idol won’t live up to one’s expectation, but the nurse, named Anne, absolutely did. Froese sees this both in her conversations with Anne and Facebook comments on the posts about the pair’s reunion.
“She looks like she's such a kind person. Everyone who's commenting on the story says ‘Oh, you deserve this so much,'” says Froese. “[People say that] there's no better nurse to have this story written about.”
Froese says that Anne is tall, blonde, and loves to hike. She is also a mother.
“I thought she was a seasoned nurse, but she said she had only been working for about three years before I met her,” says Froese. “She has adult kids who are travelling the world and doing university, so that's why we connected when I first met her. I was travelling the world, and her son was travelling the world. We had this little connection point there.”
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Since the reunion, Anne has not stopped inspiring Froese. She says the Norwegian nurse is “everything [she] envisions” in the perfect nurse.
“I think that patient-centred care is the most important thing. You always have to think about who's in front of you first,” she says. “Sometimes we can just think about the medical side of things. While it is super important — that is the reason why people are in the hospital, of course — you have to remember that there's actually a human being in front of you who has feelings and emotions and a life and a family. I just felt that [Anne] really saw me in my situation and not just as a family member who's sitting in the chair.”
A bright future inspired by an act of kindness
Froese will take what she learned from Anne in this regard into her own nursing career.
“I really try to meet people where they're at and hear what they're saying aside from their medical diagnosis and to treat them with the love that Christ has given me,” she says. “That's the most important . . . to my nursing practice.”
Froese adds that this principle is also relevant to life overall.
“Never underestimate the impact that you can have on someone in just one interaction, because whether you work in healthcare or something else, whether you're a mom or you're a student, whatever it is, you can impact someone so much just in a few minutes of interacting with them just by being kind and having love,” says Froese, adding that the action can have far-reaching effects.
“Especially if you have Christ in your heart, you carry such a power to impact people in a positive way,” she says. “That's been something that's been encouraging to me — to know that you can really impact someone even in their worst moments.”
Froese encourages others to embrace kindness in moments big and small. It can spread further than imaginable.
~With files from Robyn Wiebe~