PHOTO : BESS BIRD
Karla Theilen is a registered nurse, storyteller and a writer.
When she was eight years old, she made the mistake of telling her father what she wanted to be when she grew up. “A writer?!” She might as well have said she wanted to be a leprechaun, or a unicorn. Ordinary people from Brainerd, Minnesota don’t become writers.
A decade later she told her mother she wanted to become a nurse. “Oh, but honey, I thought you’d do something creative.”
The mixed messages added up to permission to drop out of college, and for the fifteen years that followed she worked as a farm hand, bartender, housekeeper, pet sitter, river guide, mule skinner, trail builder, and fire lookout, ably preparing her for a career in nursing.
ON THE FIRE LOOKOUT WITH BANDIT: BEST JOB EVER IN THE HISTORY OF JOBS, and BEST DOG EVER IN THE HISTORY OF EVERYTHING.
the nurse on wheels
LAST DAY OF COVID ASSIGNMENT #1- NAVAJO NATION
From small medical centers in rural Montana, to big corporate hospitals in the Southwest, she has found that collecting stories is her favorite part of the job no matter where she goes.
