A Conversation with Alyssa Diaz: Pediatric Nurse and Children's Book Author

Welcome to this edition of Cardinal Perspectives—an in-depth conversation with alumni, students, faculty, and staff of The Catholic University of America.

Today, we’re featuring a conversation with Alyssa Diaz, B.S.N. 2021. After graduating from the Conway School of Nursing, Alyssa began her career as a pediatric nurse at Children’s National Hospital, located just down the street from Catholic University. During her time there, she encountered young patients who required, or already had an implanted port—a small, surgically implantable device placed in a large vein, usually in the upper chest or arm. These ports provide long-term, more comfortable access for medications, blood draws, and IV fluids.

As Alyssa explained the purpose of a port to children, she was inspired to write Penny’s Port—her first children’s book. Penny’s Port tells the story of Penny, a nine-year-old girl with an implanted port, who helps young readers understand why she has one, how it works, and shares tips to make infusion days easier. The book not only educates patients and their families but also promotes body positivity for children at any stage of their port journey.

Outside of her work as a nurse, Alyssa enjoys traveling, exercising, baking, and spending time with family and friends.

In this episode, we sit down with Alyssa to talk about her time at Catholic University, her journey as a pediatric nurse, and the process of writing and publishing Penny’s Port.

Hi, my name is Ann Vogel. I'm the assistant director for young alumni engagement at Catholic University. I'm here with Alyssa Diaz, Class of 2021. We're here to talk about her experience at the nursing school as a student, as well as her new book, Penny's Port. Welcome, Alyssa.

Thanks for having me. Annie and I go way back, so I'm happy to be with you.

Yeah, thank you. So, tell us about yourself. Where are you based? Do you have any hobbies? And can you talk a bit about what you do for work?

Sure. I'm originally from Old Saybrook, Connecticut, and I'm an alumni. I graduated in 2021.

Since then I've been working at Children's National Hospital. I work in a surgical care unit with pediatric patients. I love it. I love what I do every day. It's really great working with the kids and the families.

I've lived in D.C. now for eight years and I love it. I like to run in my free time, travel, try new places to get food… all that.

Thanks for sharing. Can you tell us about your time at Catholic University? Is there anything particular that stands out to you, either with nursing or just with student life? And then can you share the most important lesson or concept you've learned from your nursing student days?

I think the thing that stands out to me the most with the nursing school is I was able to go abroad for six months. I went to Australia and it was such an awesome experience. I loved it so much. I still talk about it to this day—the different trips I went on, the things I learned there. It was a really great experience.

And I'm really glad that Catholic gave us the opportunity to go to a different country for six months. They definitely see the value in going outside of your bubble, seeing a new culture, new environments.

I know they now opened the program to go to Rome, which is awesome. I was just talking to one of the nursing professors about that the other day, and it's just awesome. I'm really glad that they value getting students out of their comfort zones.

Also, the Martin Luther King service days, and just all the service opportunities in general—we did homeless food runs, stuff like that—that really helped me. I've always valued charity work and getting involved in the community. Doing that really inspired me to come here in the first place. And, with my love of nursing, it just instilled that caring for others.

That's so amazing. So I guess with that, is there any insight or advice you'd like to share with current nursing students as well as fellow young alumni nurses?

The nursing field is huge, so you can do so much with your degree. You don't have to do bedside forever. There are so many different fields in nursing, whether it's with adults, babies, children, or if it's different body systems. You can do really anything. It's not all bedside.

You can do stuff in education, like I'm doing with my book—something creative. I've always loved to write and read and be creative. I remember when I first started nursing, I thought, “oh, I'm gonna have to give that up as I become a nurse, because it's more of a science field.” But that's definitely not the case.

I was able to use my creative mind and put that into use—take my experience as a nurse and put it into something to share with others. The world's your oyster, whether you're in nursing or not! Specifically, in nursing we can do so much with the knowledge that we have in our degree.

You can go back to school, you can do stuff within your field, do education and advocacy. You can be a school nurse, you can be in the hospital, you could be in a clinic. You can do so many different things that make you happy.

Sometimes it can be a lot at the bedside, for sure. A lot of people can get burnt out, but you don't have to switch degrees entirely. If you still have a passion for nursing, you can put it towards something else within that field that still helps others and makes you happy.

That’s such insightful advice, and I'm sure people really appreciate that perspective. So let's talk about your book, Penny's Port. Can you talk about what inspired you to write the book and summarize a bit about what it's about?

I got inspired to write this book because I had a patient who I was caring for, and she was getting a port. For those who don't know what a port is, it's a tube that's placed under the skin on your chest and it connects to a vein. It's a little squishy part under your chest.

To get infused with medicine—which some kids need for things like genetic diseases—they need to take this medicine regularly to stay alive. Some have to take it every two weeks, or every week, depending on what works for their body. So they get these ports because, unfortunately, if you have an IV, which most people get when they're in the hospital, and you get them a lot, it can cause damage to the veins. A port is more durable. If you're getting infused a lot or need frequent blood draws, it's a good thing to have so you're not constantly getting poked with needles.

It's a little squishy thing under the skin, it connects to a vein, and then from the vein, it goes to the heart. The medicine then goes through the bloodstream and throughout the body. It's for kids to get medicine or chemotherapy, even.

So my patient was getting a port. She was one year old and had a genetic disease. She had been getting IVs for the longest time and needed to reach 10 kilograms to get a port. She finally reached that weight, and the day came for her to go in. It’s a procedure that requires sedation—they go into the operating room to place it. Her parents were very anxious. They were only a year older than me at the time, they were young parents. The mom wasn’t even from the U.S. She didn’t have family support here; it was just mom, dad, and the baby.

They were really anxious. I knew they were coming in because it was a scheduled procedure, so I thought, “let me try and make it a positive experience. They're probably stressed and scared.” I found a book on Amazon about ports and gave it to them with a little note inside. But as I read through it, I felt like I could make something more descriptive, with more of a story. It was cute but very basic, and I felt I could create something even better.

That's what started my journey to write the book. I was able to find a publishing company and they helped me with the whole thing. It was definitely a process—it took about a year to get this going, but I’m really happy with how it turned out.

I even let the parents know. I haven’t seen them again, but I told one of the doctors to let them know I wrote the book and I want to send it to them. I'm working on getting that out to her just to say, “Hey, you were my inspiration for this book.”

And yeah, I just hope it helps a lot of kids.

That's an incredible story. Thank you for sharing. And it's just amazing that you were able to get it going and do it. You did mention a bit about the publishing process—could you talk a bit more about that?

Yeah, sure. I actually found the publishing company randomly. I was walking through my hospital one day, and a patient had written a book with his dad. It was sponsored by the hospital, so they were giving it out for free. At that time, I already knew I wanted to write a book. I’d been planning it for about three years. I had it in my head but didn’t know how to go about the process.

I had tried Googling places to publish or whether I should self-publish, but then I saw that book and noticed the publishing company—it wasn’t even far away, it was in Landon, Virginia. So I thought, it’s close, I should try. I reached out to them and heard back. They were interested in hearing more about my story. They asked for a draft, so I wrote it for them. I even found pictures on Google Images to show them the style I wanted.

They liked it and said they’d love to move forward. I signed a contract with them. My editor helped with everything—she handled the grammatical side of the story. Then I got to choose from 10 different illustrators. They told me to pick a style I liked, and that artist would make a draft. I picked two, got drafts from both, and chose the one I liked best. I’m really happy with how it turned out—she did great.

A lot of the medical stuff was tricky. People don’t always know what IV poles or IVs or ports look like, so I had to be very specific. I sent the illustrator photos of medical supplies to make sure everything was drawn correctly. That back-and-forth with the illustrations took the longest.

Once the illustrations were finalized, I uploaded it to Amazon—and that was it.

That's great. I didn't realize how many steps it took, but the hard work definitely paid off. Can you share what your vision is for the future of pediatric healthcare and perhaps educational content that you might create in the future or for any other nurses who are considering doing that?

Well, from what I've heard from more experienced nurses and doctors is that pediatrics has been changing a lot in the last few years, with more education and science advancements and everything. We're finding more cures to things. We're finding more medications that help kids live longer. There are going to be things that were making kids pass away years ago, but now they're able to live longer. Which is great and gives them more of a better life with the medications and cures we're finding. I think there's going to be a lot more kids around to care for and more things that we can do to help them.

That's something in pediatrics that I've seen. Years ago, a kid with this disease wouldn't be living anymore, but today they are. So that's really inspiring to see.

What do you envision educational content looking like if you or other nurses plan to share more of it?

I think the idea of books is great. Kids love books, so having those graphics for them to read is a good tool. And also, I think social media now—I actually have a social media page for this book. Social media, reaching out to kids that way to help educate and tell the stories. And now I've seen different kinds of patient populations raising awareness on their accounts and showing, like, "Hey, this is what a day in my life is like." Just giving more of an insight on how that is.

I love listening to that stuff and seeing it because I can get more into the patient's head. Maybe they don't feel comfortable saying that stuff in front of a nurse. They can say it online and give us more of an insight of, "This is how I feel, this is what this pain is like, this is what my every day is like." Stuff like that helps to make me a better caregiver and to help others be more cognizant of, "Okay, this is a certain disease. This is what they're dealing with. This is how they feel on a day-to-day basis.” Social media and the Internet in general spreads a lot of information.

I'd love to make another book. I'm hoping to do one about G-tubes, which is a tube that goes directly to the stomach and gives kids (and adults) feedings because sometimes people can't eat, for whatever reason. On my floor specifically, we get G-tubes, and it's a whole process making sure the parents know how to do the feedings, how to hook it up, what happens if it comes out, how to clean it, how to put a dressing on it. So there's a lot that comes with it. And if you have a book that's easy to read, easy to understand with graphics, that helps make it more fun, enjoyable, and have the kids say, "Hey, this kid has one too. It makes me feel more seen.” Which is what Penny’s Port does.

Sometimes the port, it's under the skin, it can stick out and people can feel self-conscious about that. But in the book she's like, "Oh, I have a port. And sometimes people see it and they ask about it, but it doesn’t bother me too much. I just educate them on what it is and what it's like to have it, why I have it. And it reminds me of how I'm brave."

So it's really to help with body image and encourage kids to share their stories, and show how their differences are nothing to be ashamed of. It makes us all unique and different.

That's incredible. Thank you for sharing. And then I guess as an alumna, how do you see Catholic University fitting in with all of that? You talked about the innovation in medicine, the research, the cures that have been found.

I had a great experience at Catholic University. And with more things that we're learning, I just know that they're going to inspire more nurses. Even in their undergraduate program, their graduate program, I see the new technology they're using and just new things we're finding—they’ll be teaching that to the students and that'll help them be better nurses, to inspire others.

And even in the research departments—I don’t know much about it—but I'm sure Catholic is doing different research, with medical drugs or diseases, stuff like that. I'm sure they're doing a lot of stuff to help the outside world.

When you were a student here, did you have a particular favorite class?

Yeah, I did a program called the Spanish for Health Care Certificate, which was throughout my four years at Catholic. I did different classes—it was about 15 credits, I believe. It was just different Spanish classes. It started with very basic Spanish, but they focused on health care words. We did parts of the body and different professions, stuff like that. Then it went to conjugation and the normal stuff, but mostly focused on health care.
We also learned about different diseases and the names of them and how to better educate. I also learned about health literacy in Spanish, different barriers that there can be with Spanish-speaking families in the hospital, and religious and cultural beliefs that can sometimes create a barrier in health care.

That was my favorite class. I mean, it was a bunch of classes in one, but it really helped me because I get Spanish-speaking families all the time. Sometimes we have interpreter devices, but honestly, sometimes they don’t even interpret that great. And we have in-person interpreters, but they can be hard to get, and sometimes it takes time. So if I need to say something quickly, I can use the Spanish that I learned to talk to them, even if it's just a little bit. I'm not fluent, and it didn’t teach me to be fluent, but it taught me words and phrases that I can understand and speak.

So I have a better time connecting with the families. That makes it really enjoyable for me because it can be really scary at the hospital, and especially if you don't speak the language, it just makes it ten times worse. I love being able to speak to my Spanish-speaking families and use what I know. Also, sometimes you’ll hear them talking and you hear it and think, "Oh wait, do you not understand something?" And you can kind of help them better because sometimes culturally they don't want to ask for much help or they just say, "Oh, everything's fine." But you can tell it's really not.

So yeah, the Spanish for Health Care program was awesome. Shout out to Jennifer Maxwell—I love her. She was a great teacher. She helped bring this program to life. That program is the most impactful because I use it every single day.

I would say with at least three patients I have a week, their families are Spanish-speaking. I work three times a week, and get about three to four patients a day. So just the fact that I have at least three patients a week that speak Spanish, it's really impactful to be able to use what I know from that class in the health care setting.

A specific time that I’ve used the Spanish for Healthcare Certificate in my job—there are a lot of examples I can think of. One time there was a patient I had who was not doing well. She had a fever, her heart rate was high, and her monitor just kept going off. I didn’t have an interpreter device in the room at the time. Like I said, we get a lot of Spanish-speaking families, but we only have so many interpreter devices, which are basically little iPads on wheels that we bring around. I couldn’t find one because they were probably all being used.

Her daughter was there, all the alarms were going off, she was febrile, sweating—did not look good. Mom had a really concerned look on her face. And I was able to kind of explain to her in Spanish, "She has a fever, that’s why her heart rate's high. I'm going to get the doctors, we're all going to assess her, we’re going to come up with a plan to help her." I was thinking of antibiotics and something to bring down her fever, like Tylenol. I was able to say all of that in Spanish—maybe a little broken—but for the most part I was able to get the keywords. I was able to say words like dolor, which is pain, fiebre, taquicardia—like heart rate. I was able to say words like that and she understood.

I saw the look on her face. She was like, “Okay, this is what’s going on.” She was able to better understand. That was a really great moment, like, “Okay, wow. I used something I learned in school to help a family.” That was probably one of my favorite moments.

Great. And we're here in the brand-new Conway School of Nursing.

I wish I could have taken classes in the Conway School of Nursing, but I'm really excited for the students to enjoy it and take advantage of it. It seems like there are a lot of new developments that are going to help students become even better nurses.

Well, thank you so much for joining us, Alyssa. We really appreciate you sharing your Catholic University story, your nursing experience, and your experience as a new author. We’re looking forward to seeing your vision for the future of nursing take shape—both for Catholic University graduates and for pediatric healthcare in general.

Thank you so much.