BECKLEY, W.Va. — Brianna Lyons Richmond knew she wanted to be a nurse since she was 10 years old, when she lost her grandma to a fatal heart attack. Seeing the expert care the nurses provided her grandma and their family made a lasting impact on Richmond.
As a native of the Beckley area, Richmond eagerly enrolled at the WVU School of Nursing Beckley Campus after graduating from Woodrow Wilson High School. She was progressing well through the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) program until she started having some medical issues in late 2019. She was a first semester senior at the time.
Severe abdominal pain and a gastrointestinal bleed prompted several visits to the ER, but the doctors couldn’t provide a diagnosis and referred her to a GI doctor. A follow-up colonoscopy found polyps, but after testing, the results didn’t yield anything troublesome.
“I was still going to school. I remember it was finals week,” Richmond said. “I looked nine months pregnant, but I wasn’t. I went back to the ER, where they found free fluid in my abdomen.”
She was transferred to Morgantown where doctors performed a paracentesis, meaning they drew out as much fluid as possible — a total of 32 liters of fluid. After being discharged, genetic tests were ordered, but again, nothing turned up.
“I was studying for my exam on the way back home. I had a final exam the next morning,” Richmond recalled. “I took the exam, but my professor James Messer strongly recommended I go back to the ER.”
Sure enough, the fluid had begun building again and she was admitted to a local hospital for a week. Her professors visited her in the hospital to administer the remainder of her final exams so she wouldn’t fall behind.
“All my instructors were wonderful throughout the process,” Richmond said. “They went above and beyond.”
She was then transferred back to Morgantown for surgery. During the procedure, the doctors discovered that the fluid had caused her left ovary to rupture. They also discovered she had stage 3 immature teratoma — a form of cancer that would attack her reproductive system and leave her unable to have children.
“It was definitely scary. I didn’t really know what it entailed at first,” Richmond said. “They explained that I would need chemotherapy. During this time, I worked in the ER at Raleigh General Hospital. I had worked with oncology patients on an outpatient basis. After chemo, I got a whole new respect for how they were feeling.”
Her treatment plan began in January 2020 and consisted of three types of chemo over the next four months. Sometimes her treatments lasted eight hours a day, making the process even more exhaustive as she entered the second semester of her senior year of the BSN program.
“I was getting ready for NCLEX reviews, getting ready for clinical care. I was just a few months away from graduation, so I was messaging my instructors asking what I needed to do. I was hoping to get in my clinical hours before I got really sick,” she said. “But then COVID happened. Before then, my instructors would visit me to give my exams, but then no visitors were allowed. Everything went virtual anyway, so it worked out, just in a different way.”
For those four months with everything largely shut down, Richmond’s life revolved around chemo and schoolwork. Despite the brutal effects of her cancer treatment, she said her family kept her motivated, along with her personal drive to become a nurse.
“My goal of wanting to become a nurse, seeing how big of an impact nurses make, it kept me going. All my instructors were nurses and everyone at the cancer center giving me chemo were nurses. They were always making sure everybody was OK, and that I was OK. I knew I wanted to do that for people.”
She finished chemo April 20 while COVID was in full swing. And a month to the day later, on May 20, she graduated with her BSN degree. Their ceremony was virtual, but the moment was no less bittersweet for Richmond. And soon thereafter, she passed her NCLEX on her first attempt.
“It just felt like a big weight was lifted off my shoulders. It was a moment of, ‘I did it. If I can do this, I can do anything.’”
Richmond started her career at Raleigh General Hospital in the ER, where she said she enjoyed the unpredictability and trying to make someone’s bad day better.
“Seeing patients on their worst days, you get to be the light in the dark for them. You can help facilitate their care and make things a little better,” Richmond said. “I’ve always said it’s not always about the big things we do or the medicines we give, it’s about the way we care. It’s giving someone a warm blanket when they’re cold or water when they’re thirsty — anything I can do to make someone’s life better and easier. That’s what my nurses did for me, that’s for sure.”
Richmond now lives in Hinton and works at the Summers County ARH Hospital ER, where she was recently promoted to nursing supervisor. She said she believes her WVU School of Nursing education prepared her well for her career and for furthering her education. She is now working on her Master of Science in Nursing to become a Family Nurse Practitioner.
“I would like to work as a nurse practitioner in a clinic, but also pick up ER shifts,” Richmond said. “Ultimately, I really want to teach. I like helping people, and I like teaching.”
Richmond had accepted that she would be unable to get pregnant. She was content with having her two stepchildren, and she and her husband planned to adopt if they wanted to grow their family.
“God had other plans. Around August or September 2020, when I was going to the doctor for another medical procedure, I found out we were expecting a baby.”
She was concerned about the impact of chemo on her body and her baby, but she had a healthy pregnancy, and her son was born in May 2021. During her C-section, she opted for a complete hysterectomy and spleen removal as a preventative measure against future cancer growth.
Unfortunately, the following year in September, she followed up with CT scans and lab work and two masses were found on her colon, the initial stages of colon cancer. An additional surgery allowed for removal of one portion of the colon, and thankfully the cancer had not spread to her lymph nodes.
Since then, she’s been doing well. Repeat scans and lab work have come back clear. She said the experience has changed who she is as a healthcare provider — she is able to share her story to underscore the importance of screening. She also knows first-hand how important a holistic view of a patient truly can be.
“For future nurses, I want you to know that if you can set your mind to it, you can do it. If you want it bad enough, no matter what happens, you can get there,” Richmond said. “I am so thankful for medicine and for nurses. They are the backbone of the medical team.”
One of her instructors at the Beckley Campus, Dr. Peggy Fink, spoke of how inspirational she found Richmond’s story.
“She was determined to be a nurse. When I think of inspiration, I think of Brianna,” Fink said. “She has the heart and soul of a nurse.”
-WVU-
CONTACT: Wendy Holdren
Director of Communications and Marketing
WVU School of Nursing
304-581-1772; wendy.holdren@hsc.wvu.edu