2015 DELEGATE NARRATIVE

I chose to share Miss Vivian Watson' s Presentation. I have personally known her for about 40 yrs. All through this time she has always presented herself with honesty, kindness, and graciousness. She always had a "Hi or Hello" for all the folks @ Congress.

Her presentation was wonderful. It made me laugh and cry. What a terrible situation to be born 7th of 8 children in the poor Mississippi 'mud fields' and to be born th both a cleft lip and a cleft palate.
Her parents could only afford to have her cleft lip repaired, not her palate. Vivian wanted wanted to be a nurse because she felt she knew how to help people. She had been in need and been helped. Folks told her she couldn't be a nurse because no one could understand her.

She worked all of the time that she wasn't in school. At age 18, she was able to arrange surgery fix her cleft palate. Then she did goto nursing school - a genuinely changed person. For the next 50 years Miss Vivian participated actively in AORN, serving as ombudsman for the last 10 years. Vivian officially retired at the AORN Seminar this year in Denver. We will miss her 'Bunches'...