If you think Nursing School is all about the terminology and medicine taught in class, you couldn’t be more wrong. When Katie Sirna applied for the School of Nursing’s Lourdes Pilgrimage Scholarship last year, she was a little nervous, but never thought receiving the scholarship would change her life the way it has.
Only two nursing students get picked every year as part of the prestigious scholarship to travel to Lourdes, France and serve as caretakers to “Malades” (French for “The sick”) who want to be blessed by the holy water where the Virgin Mary is believed to have appeared to Saint Bernadette several times. They are joined by thousands of people who are part of The Order of Malta, a religious order of the Catholic Church that serves the sick and the poor.
“Only a certain amount of people even get interviews and when you get picked it’s a big deal,” Katie recalled. “I got picked for an interview and then I was late, it was snowing and I walked in right after I had just showered — I was shaking and my face was red because I was already late and there are like 6 people sitting at a table! They were saying ‘why should you go?’ ‘Why do you want to go? And I said this is not what you get in nursing school This is me, being a nurse in another country helping, and me being a nurse for just one person. So it’s an amazing experience.”
And sure enough Katie was picked to go to Lourdes, but the trip turned out to be so much more than just a learning experience. Katie was accompanying the adorable 7-year-old, Payton O’Brien along with his mother and father to France. Payton had been diagnosed with Osteosarcoma, a type of bone cancer, in his leg when he was 6-years-old. His leg was amputated from the knee down in an attempt to prevent the bone cancer from spreading to his lungs, but the doctors were too late. “He didn’t have a prosthetic leg for a little bit, but they had to run chemo for his lungs,” Katie explained. “So a 6-year-old boy went through Chemo for like a year, right before he got his make a wish on a Disney Cruise, but he was so sick. And it’s just sad — he had no hair and he was just in kindergarten, he was going into 1st grade.”
After he finally got his Chicago Bulls themed prosthetic leg and was cancer free for two weeks, the cancer came back about a week before Lourdes. Payton never let anything stop him though, “He was the superstar of the trip! Everyone knew him and everyone wanted to play with him, but I was his caretaker,” Katie said. “So literally every time someone touched him I was like getaway, he is mine! He was awesome.”
Katie, dressed in the traditional caretaker robe that looks like a mix between a nun gown and a wizard costume, was responsible for making sure the always excited Payton was happy, healthy and enjoying his trip. “He was a 7-year-old boy surrounded by religious people and it was so overwhelming. So I would sneak him off while his parents did stuff and went to mass and do other parts of the program, and we would like run around hotels and pretend we were on secret missions — I was making him feel like he was a kid.”
That’s not all she did though, Katie stayed with Payton every step of the way — including when he was blessed in the Grotto’s holy water. “We brought him to the other side of the Grotto where there is a river. And we got to a bridge and then we just watched him go over with his dad, and I knew what was happening but it kind of felt like letting go of someone. It felt like you were walking them down the aisle, and when you saw the people come back, they were literally a different person. It was weird, they would go over and be their normal selves like how they were, but when they came back they were just energized, and it might have just been because the water is so cold, but Payton got back and was like ‘let’s go!’”
As if that wasn’t enough, since Payton was the superstar of the trip and everyone knew him, Cardinal Dolan who was visiting from New York asked Payton’s parents if he could give Payton his first Holy Communion, even though he was younger than most first communicants. Spoiler alert: his parents said yes!
Katie helped Payton prepare that night, before he received his communion the next day. “I was with him all that night and he said before I go to bed I had to practice my communion. So, of course I was like alright lets do it. So I got a bag of m&ms, and he was on one side of the hotel room, and he would walk up and do his little thing with the hands and then I would say ‘Body of Christ’ and he would answer ‘AMEN!’ And at first he was working on where his hands should go and stuff, but then I think it got to the point where he like just wanted the m&ms because he was like no, no we have to do it one more time and I had to say no more, you’re going to bed!”
The next day in a tiny chapel on the top of the Basilica, Payton made his communion, and Katie was really emotional. “I was fine the whole trip, and then I went up to take pictures and then he went up and got the communion and I had to run outside the chapel and was sobbing outside the chapel saying how beautiful it was. And one of the Knights of Malta came out and was hugging me and was like you’re such a good person and saying all these nice things — I still have the handkerchief, I’m not throwing it out. I was a mess, but I didn’t want him or his parents to see me because they were already so emotional, so I was running behind them.”
Payton sat on Katie’s lap the entire 8 hours back on the plane, they still talk every week and soon Katie is going to fly down to see him. “I’m so happy I went with Payton, because now that makes me want to do pediatrics. This is what I want to do, I want to be with people like Payton. They are so different! Even the families are different, they are so happy. And I missed the kids so much when I left. I had started being like all of their caretakers. I was like ‘no they’re all mine!’ I would hang out with them on my off time and play with them, they’re just so cute.”
“It really was when I left Lourdes that I couldn’t imagine not taking care of children for the rest of my life,” Katie said. “Yes, it’s sad and can be heartbreaking, but I want to make their lives as happy and as comfortable as I can. Now all I want to be is a nurse practitioner in pediatrics (maybe even oncology). I honestly can’t see myself doing anything else with my life and it’s all because of the children I met in Lourdes.”
“Go to Lourdes, it will change your life. And Payton was my miracle, because there are miracles in Lourdes— that is what everyone goes for. And I was just going to be a nurse and get experience, and then I met him, and I got my own Lourdes miracle.”
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