MAY 2021 | 11
CELEBRATE NURSES
Noakes able to advocate for father’s care in
EMERGENCY CONTRIBUTOR: Maria Kirkpatrick
Aslan Noakes is honored to be a nurse. Her skills allowed her make sure her father got the best care when he needed it most. Her father is her No. 1 fan and a former patient, of sorts. In November, her father had a severe hemorrhagic stroke and was hospitalized in Portland. The timing was at the pandemic peak and only one person was allowed to be with a hospitalized patient every 24 hours. Noakes and her mother shared time caring for her father. As COVID-19 numbers continued to climb, only one person was allowed in with patients. Noakes and her mother agreed Noakes would stay and advocate for his care. It was hard to be the one for the family, as Noakes was separated for a time from her 8-year-old son and husband in Philomath. “When you’re the nurse for the family, you’re the nurse,” she said. “I’m thankful that my job was supportive and accommodating.” “Being a nurse is being an advocate,” Noakes said. “When you know the systems in place and what needs to be advocated for, and knowing that you have the power to advocate what’s best for your patient, I think that is my favorite thing about being a nurse.” Noakes has been a registered nurse for 11 years and worked at college health on campus at Oregon State University for 10 years. She did her undergraduate degree in nutrition and food management because she originally wanted to be a dietician. It was during labs in her senior year of study she decided she wanted to do more. While other students were feeling faint seeing their own blood, Noakes found it fascinating. Running tests that came from
machines plugged into patients was not as interesting as the process of putting tubes into a patient, and the reason why they needed tests. “I loved the science and the why behind things, and I wanted to be more hands-on,” she said. “And I love people. So nursing seemed like a good fit.” When COVID hit, Noakes was furloughed from campus health. She hadn’t been working full time, as she also is involved with the Empower Haiti Together program, which she started after traveling in 2010 to Haiti with a medical team. They were responding to the earthquake that hit the island. On her last day at student health, she interviewed and was hired for the position of operations manager at TRACE, a health program at OSU that gathers information about the coronavirus in area communities and on campus. TRACE conducts door-to-door COVID testing throughout the state. Noakes helped set up and design the flow to run COVID testing at four sites on campuses: two at OSU, one in Bend and the other in Newport. “I oversee all staff at all those sites,” she said. “I love people and I love working with college students, so it was really nice to somewhat stay in college health.” Very few people know Noakes lettered in football in high school. It was her favorite sport and she wanted to play; however, the private school she attended wouldn’t allow her to take the field. So she became the best team manager they ever had. “They surprised me during the last game and let me scrimmage. They gave me a letter on senior night,” she said. “I did ‘kid’ sports medicine for the team.”
“I loved the science and the why behind things, and I wanted to be more hands-on,” she said. “And I love people. So nursing seemed like a good fit.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Kelly Lyons
Looking back, she said taping, icing and wound care for football players might be one of the things that led her to nursing. It didn’t faze her when one player came off the field with a broken arm and the bone beginning to poke through the skin.
“The thing I love about nursing is that it is a trusted profession,” she said. “I feel people can be really vulnerable around you and share personal things, and I don’t take that lightly. I think it’s really an honor to be a nurse.”
