(WBBM NEWSRADIO) – This is National Nurses Week and a west suburban nurse continues to help deliver babies after beating two life-threatening conditions.
Ten years after Nancy Polizzi went through chemotherapy for breast cancer, she was diagnosed with early congestive heart failure.
In October of 2020, as the pandemic raged on, she had surgery to install a heart pump.
Polizzi says it took about six months to regain enough strength to go back to work as a labor and delivery nurse at Northwestern Central DuPage Hospital.
In December 2021, she was put on the transplant list and a heart became available three days later. She said the phone call telling her the news woke her up from a brief sleep after working a 12-hour shift.
Because all of her adult children had COVID, the single woman drove herself the roughly 50 miles from her home in Montgomery to Northwestern Memorial.
“I was so frustrated and said, ‘you know what, I work 12 hour shifts. I just drove myself home from work. I’m going to just pack up the car and drive downtown myself,’” Polizzi said. “And that's what I did.”
It’s that kind of spirit she relied on to return to work three months later.
The 62-year-old says she appreciates every day - especially witnessing the miracle of life in the delivery room.
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