AC Graduate and Cancer Survivor Finds Inspiration in Nuclear Medicine
Ester Perez can hardly wait to take her mother on the road with her as a traveling nuclear medicine technologist for those on their own cancer journey. Perez fought her own rare cancer in her 20’s and is now set to join Amarillo College’s Class of 2025 graduates Friday, May 9.
Perez remembers scan days as some of the hardest in her experience and knows her work in nuclear medicine can make a difference.
“You’re thinking is this scan going to say it has gone everywhere else, or is it going to clear me? What am I going to do?” Perez said. “I can connect with people fast. So, those 15 minutes when I am doing the scan, I really try to tell them, ‘hey things are getting better, medicine is getting better, it’s going to be Ok. We’re going to have hope. Whatever the scan says isn’t going to define you. We’re going to keep going.’”
Perez’ mother initially encouraged her to finish the certified nurse assistant coursework in high school.
“I started it, but I didn’t want to finish it when it got harder,” she said. “My mom told me I could do it.”
When Perez was diagnosed with stage four Hodgkins and Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, she was working as a traveling phlebotomist and toward her nursing degree at AC.
“I started traveling as a phlebotomist with the training I got at AC,” she said. “I got jobs all over the country — Billings, Mont.; Nebraska, Aspen, Colo., Vermont, New Hampshire, Minnesota. I wanted to take my mom with me, but she hadn’t retired yet. She was still working at BSA.”
After her treatment, Perez did not want to work in healthcare again.
“I was bound and determined not to do anything in healthcare. I didn’t want to be in hospitals. I got severe anxiety even being there,” she said. “But I couldn’t quit thinking about healthcare.”
Perez decided she wanted to take care of her mom and needed a higher salary. She was accepted into three of AC’s medical programs including nursing.
She remembered her own experience during a biopsy when the tech who had an Irish accent was especially kind.
“I was awake during the biopsy, and they couldn’t put me to sleep,” she said. “I had a tech hold my hand the whole time and tell me it was going to be okay,” she said. “For years, I thought I made her up in my head until I did clinicals at Northwest, and she was a real person.”
This experience and her affinity for connecting with patients, made nuclear medicine the clear choice.
Now she plans to restart her traveling within the field, along with her mother.
“She’s a true patriot,” Perez said. “She would always tell me America gave her what Mexico couldn't. That inspired me. She has always wanted to see the United States, but she was working. I sent her postcards from everywhere. She finally retired this year, and I’m graduating, so I’m going to take her on the road with me.”
While in her two-year program in nuclear medicine, she started a mobile phlebotomy company that would pick up labs.
“I call it Amardillo Mobile Labs,” Perez said. “I started doing blood draws for people who are too busy to go to a lab or not able to get in and out of their houses.”
When her AC instructors learned she was working and tackling the coursework in stride, they asked her about her study habits.
“I turned all of my notes into a podcast,” she said. “You upload all your notes to it; it gives you a whole podcast. And you don’t even realize you're learning. It’s a conversation.”
Perez will take the stage at 3 p.m. Friday, May 8 as one of more than 1,300 students eligible to graduate. This ceremony will include graduates in health services, industry and public service.
She plans to remind the audience that whoever they serve is going through something.
“We have the honor and responsibility to take care of the most vulnerable,’” she said.
The second ceremony at 7 p.m. Friday, May 8 will include graduates of business, computer information systems, creative arts, education, liberal arts and STEM programs. Both graduations will be live-streamed.