Nurse of the Week: Atlanta Nurse, Amelia Ballard, Now Works Where She Was Treated for Cancer as a Child

Amelia Ballard who was hospitalized for more than two years as a young child had already beat leukemia twice by the time she was 5 years old. After undergoing several rounds of chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, little Amelia had a grueling road to cancer recovery. However, the young cancer patient who underwent so much at such a young age still remembers good days, happy moments, and lots of love amongst all the bad.

Now 23, Ballard has been cancer-free for several years and will be returning to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta as a pediatric nurse in the emergency room department, rather than as a patient. Amelia’s goal is to provide the best care possible to her patients, paying it forward by providing each of her patients and their families with the kind of care and compassion that was shown to her and her family.

Ballard credits her parents and the hospital staff with ensuring that her long stretches in the hospital provided her with as much normalcy and optimism as possible. Her mom says that Amelia was born with a joyful spirit; however, Amelia must’ve gotten her joyful character from her mother. Ballard remembers her mother only taking photos of her when she was smiling and on days she felt ok, showing those photos to her on days when she wasn’t feeling well. Her mom also gave Amelia something to look forward to once her cancer treatment was over by always discussing the future, whether it was just five minutes or even five years.

The hospital staff was just as supportive to young Amelia, trying to make the scary hospital settings as comfortable as possible. With doctors and nurses always offering emotional support and attempting to bring warmth and cheer into the sterile surroundings, Ballard trusted her caregivers. Her family and the hospital staff even joined forces to throw her a Lion King themed party for her fourth birthday.

Ballard’s experiences battling cancer encouraged her decision to work with children and become a nurse. She graduated from Georgia Southern University’s nursing program this past December and has been working as a nurse at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta’s Egleston location for a few months. Amelia says working in an emergency department means you have to be ready for whatever comes your way and she has a lot to learn, but luckily she also has great people to guide her.

An RN and assistant manager who works alongside Ballard in the ER department recognizes that Ballard’s chosen profession in pediatric nursing speaks to the influence nurses had on her as a young patient. She has a special compassion and understanding for patients after having experienced it firsthand. Ballard plans to eventually go back to college to become a nurse practitioner with a specialty in pediatric oncology, a profession that many find too emotionally difficult, but Ballard doesn’t see it that way. She says, “These kids have a lot of potential…I want them to know that there are good days ahead.”

Thank you Amelia, our Nurse of the Week, for your compassionate contributions to the field of nursing and pediatrics.