Marty Gordon, NRVsports@ourvalley.org
Sometimes a crisis or health problem leads an individual to realize what they want to do in life.
Nothing could be truer for Brookelyn Kingery of Eastern Montgomery High School.
When she was 12 years old, things changed suddenly, affecting her like she never expected.
“A toss in the air and a crooked landing resulted in a ruptured ear drum, the worst pain I had ever felt, and what would become one of my life’s biggest challenges,” she said.
A visit to the Wake Forest Hospital in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, led to the diagnosis that a ruptured eardrum would require surgery. Doctors informed the family Brookelyn had 70 percent perforation of her ear drum. Her first surgery would take place six months after the injury.
Over the next year, the family had several visits to Wake Forest and she would need a second surgery. Doctors said her hearing had decreased, and a CT scan showed a cholesteatoma, a benign tumor.
Doctors said she lost two of her ear bones. Another surgery meant installing titanium ear bone prosthetics. She returned to middle school unable to hear in her right ear and was given a hearing aid.
“Going to middle school with a hearing aid wasn’t ideal but the struggles in class were far more concerning than what people thought of me. I could not hear, I couldn’t figure out where the sound was coming from, and I often couldn’t comprehend what was being said to me,” Brookelyn said.
Her grades suffered and she failed all of her SOL tests.
“I really started to stress and dealt with anxiety my hearing aid caused me, and I kept having ear infections. By the time I was leaving middle school I had been to Wake Forest more than 25 times. I’d eventually had two more surgeries that unfortunately did not repair my hearing,” she said.
According to her mother, Carie, Brookelyn spent many years going back and forth to Wake Forest where she had four major surgeries. During that time, she built great relationships with the nurses and doctors and decided she wanted to pursue a degree in the medical field as a nurse.
A strong will and plenty of dedication turned her path around. She finished her high school career with a 3.74 grade point average. She passed all of her SOL’s and has been on the honor roll since ninth grade.
Kingery graduated from Eastern Montgomery this past week. She was dual enrolled during high school years and took her Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) course through Christiansburg High School with clinicals at Warm Hearth.
CNAs provide basic patient care under the supervision of nursing staff and assist with daily activities like bathing, dressing, and feeding patients. CNAs often monitor patients’ vital signs and report changes to nurses.
Certification typically requires completing a training program and passing an exam. CNAs play a crucial role in healthcare settings, enhancing patient comfort and support.
Brookelyn was the captain of her volleyball and basketball team and was also named this year’s Eastern Montgomery homecoming queen.
Brookelyn will attend Radford University in the fall and hopes to work at Carilion during college as a CNA while she obtains her nursing degree.
