Kacey Thomas poses next to a medical cabinet with her 4-month-old daughter, Audri.
CHATHAM — Kacey Thomas knew she wanted to be a nurse from an early age. It was her dream; a career she had always respected.
Years later, she is living out that dream at the Daniel Drake Center for Post-Acute Care in Cincinnati.
“I wanted to be a nurse from kindergarten,” she said. “I always looked at nurses as people who took care of other people. They always put themselves last and I thought that was a pretty noble quality. As an adult, I decided I would go back to nursing school.”
Thomas parents are Bobbi Jo and Pete Welch and she raised in the Germantown area of Bracken County.
In 2005, she graduated from Bracken County High School and began attending the Maysville Community and Technical College before becoming a certified nursing assistant. She was the first person in her family to attend college.
She worked as a CNA for six years before going back to school for nursing.
“I went to MCTC for a couple of years and then I got married and we started a family,” she said. “When my son was about two years old, I went back to school for nursing.”
She began attending Christ College and graduated from the nursing program in 2014. From there, she began an internship with the Christ wound care center.
“I’d always heard about the Daniel Drake Center for Post-Acute Care was doing great things,” she said.
Thomas began working at the center on the ventilator-dependent floor and worked her way up, first as a charge nurse and now the house supervisor.
As house supervisor, Thomas is responsible for making sure staffing is adequate, she checks in on her staff, collaborates with physicians about patient changes, helps nurses on the floor.
“I’m involved in a little bit of everything,” she said.
While working at the center, Thomas also made the decision to return to school to obtain her bachelor’s degree in science and nursing from Chamberlain University.
One of the most rewarding aspects of her job is celebrating little victories with patients.
“You may see patients who have been on a ventilator for months and they start to come off, they start to talk or walk,” she said. “It’s just so rewarding to see them slowly get back to themselves.”
While a rewarding career, there are also difficult moments.
“I’d say that in the area I’m in, it’s not just the physical toll it can take on your body, but the emotional toll,” she said. “I’ve had some emergency room experience and both jobs have kind of been emotionally draining. You’re there for your patients. You see them at their best and you see them at their absolute worst. You take that home with you sometimes. It’s kind of hard not to do.”
Balancing home life with the job can also be tough.
She and her husband, Nick Thomas, have two children, 11-year-old Jack and 4-month old Audri. He travels for work and they run a farm.
“It’s been tough,” she said. “He travels a lot for work. Our son was two when I went back to nursing school. With my drive, I can kind of clear my head before I get back home to my family, but it can be draining. I think nurses are a rare breed. They can juggle a multitude of things.”
Thomas also said it helps that she has a support system with her family. Her mother-in-law is also a nurse.
“I can talk to her and she understands what I’m going through,” she said.
There is one piece of advice Thomas has for anyone interested in becoming a nurse.
“Stay humble,” she said. “Never forget where you came from. If you were a CNA, remember that they’re your eyes and ears. And always try to put yourself in your patient’s shoes.”
