This N.S. woman persevered to become a nurse — just in time for the pandemic

Vanity Thompson has dreamed of becoming a nurse ever since she was a young girl.

It's a dream that stayed with the Dartmouth, N.S., woman even after she dropped out of high school, became pregnant at 17, struggled with depression and became involved in an abusive relationship.

"I dealt with a lot of mental, emotional and physical abuse during that time, so to go to school ... it was really, really challenging," Thompson told CBC Radio's Information Morning Nova Scotia on Friday.

Still, Thompson didn't give up. She was desperate to become a nurse, so she enrolled in the Nova Scotia Community College's African Canadian Transition Program — now known as the Africentric Learning Option — to obtain her high school diploma.

At first, Thompson said she was in and out of the program, continuing to struggle with her mental health, abuse and poverty.

Despite this, Jill Provoe, the former head of the program, refused to give up on Thompson. Provoe once said she didn't care if she had to accept Thompson into the program 1,000 times, she knew the student could do it. 

"From the day I met her, she was focused on being a nurse," said Provoe, who is now the acting vice-president academic at NSCC.

"Vanity is an exceptional person, and it was just about finding the right time and the right space for her to really shine as she is now."

Thompson said she's grateful that Provoe took her under her wing.

"She taught me that as Black women, we all have pain," said Thompson. "It's what you do with that pain and how you challenge that pain, [is] how you become successful."

And that's exactly what she did. Thompson graduated from the program in 2013, which was just the first step in achieving her dream to become a nurse.

She still had a long way to go, which was put off further after she and her now husband — whom she met while in the program — became pregnant the following year.

"I had planned to go right back to school, but of course, life likes to throw you curveballs," she said.

"My daughter had some challenges with her health. She had a seizure disorder [and] she was in the hospital, so that really prevented me from being able to jump right back in to go back to school."