NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — For more than 15 years, Registered Nurse Alice Gates has worked to support veterans at the VA Hospital in North Little Rock.
But recently, her life was turned upside down after a life-saving back surgery left her paralyzed from the waist down.
“Being in the hospital gave me so much. I think of a better perspective of my patient's experience,” Gates said.
Gates knew early in life that she had a love for nursing, but also for veterans. She explained that she has always had a calling to take care of others, however, she couldn't commit to joining the military.
“All the males pretty much in my family, my uncle, my grandfather, my father was in the Navy and Coast Guard. I graduated in 2002, so it was right after 9/11 and so a lot of people were going into the service," Gates described. "I didn't want to get yelled at. I didn't want to shoot a gun. There were just certain things that didn't sound pleasing."
Gates went into nursing, and one day she made a visit to the VA during rounds, and said she "absolutely fell in love with the veterans."
It’s been well over 15 years now, and Gates has grown as a nurse, gained friends and family, and even been named one of the Great 100 Nurses of Arkansas by the Great 100 Nurses Foundation last year.
However, it was during that same year that she started to face a new challenge.
“It just turned. It turned life-changing. And yeah, I never would have imagined," Gates said.
In the spring of 2022, Alice developed consistent pain and loss of feeling in her lower back and knew something was wrong.
“Nurses are the worst patients. So, I really just kind of like brushed it off, you know, like, oh, it's, it's... I'm being a wuss or I'm not resting well enough. And then in the summer, I started getting the weakness really bad. And I mean, like just lost feeling of the legs and fall," Gates explained.
After months of medical appointments to search for a cause, her diagnosis was finally revealed— Gates had a tumor in her spinal cord.
She underwent immediate surgery to remove the tumor in December, but the surgery unexpectedly left her paralyzed.
“I really thought that I was going to go back to work like a week after my surgery. You know, I was obviously... I always say maybe steroid delirious because I was like, take it out Bada bing, bada boom back to work,” she recalled.
It turned out to be the complete opposite. That hopeful week turned quickly into over five months.
Gates said that the tumor was twice as big as they initially thought it was. The tumor had stopped the flow of the spinal fluid and ultimately left her with more damage than just the tumor.
“It's just been wild and waking up in horrific pain not being able to feel, you know, my legs, just very frightening experience," Gates said.
She exhausted her leave in January, and the stress of every day and medical expenses burdens her family, but Gates said she’s been taking it step by step.
“My paraplegia is incomplete paraplegia. So, I can't feel but the muscles are there. They had some atrophy, you know," Gates explained.
If you didn’t know her story, you could at least appreciate her smile. Her positivity towards others has become exactly what she needs to move forward.
“I think you go through like kind of the mourning process because you're mourning, the old Alice. But I've said goodbye to her. I am a new Alice," Gates said.
She doesn’t know what her new normal will look like, but she said that she’s ready to relearn a life and career that she fell in love with many years ago.
“You know I tell people because they're like, you're up, you're paralyzed. You can't feel your legs and you're out. But I'm like, Yeah, I'm running on stubborn. That's what I'm running on today is stubborn," Gates explained. But it's really sheer endurance and persistence. And I was not going to leave my profession.”
Gates returned to work at the beginning of June and started seeing her first new patients on Tuesday, June 7.
She’s been going to physical therapy and is now able to leg press 150 pounds and reported she's happy with her progress.
She added that if the feeling and ability to move freely never happens, she will continue to adjust and work through whatever comes her way.
"I'm very persistent. I'm all about persevering. But, like I tell my patients, you just do your best," Gates said.
You can show your support to Gates by visiting her GoFundMe here.