My father locked me out of my own graduation so my stepsister could take my seat. He thought I was “just a nurse’s assistant.” Minutes later, the Dean announced me as the keynote speaker and top research grant winner and my family’s smiles vanished.

My hands were always raw.

Even as I stood on the cracked concrete driveway, I could still smell the harsh medical sanitizer clinging to my skin. After four years of hospital shifts, chlorhexidine had become my perfume. My back ached like fragile glass stacked too high, each step threatening to break it after another punishing twelve-hour shift at the university …