By Joshua Phelps
The Scene staff
Jennifer Nichole Williams has been suffering from asthma since childhood, but it wasn’t until four years ago that she became familiar with the term “respiratory therapist.”
“I didn’t realize they were the ones taking care of me,” said Williams, 29, now a student at St. Louis Community College at Forest Park.
The discovery prompted Williams, who already was attending Forest Park, to begin taking prerequisite courses for its respiratory care program. She will receive her associate’s degree in May.
Williams already has a job lined up after graduation. She also plans to earn a bachelor’s degree in health sciences by taking online classes at University of Missouri in Columbia.
“Everything is happening so fast,” she said. “Everything is turning for me. Everything is changing.”
Williams’ career choice surprised her family because they thought she had found her niche as a singer.
She attended musically inclined schools, including Central Visual and Performing Arts High School in St. Louis, and performed at venues ranging from nursing homes to the Fox Theatre in St. Louis.
Williams’ mother, Bettie Williams, wanted her to major in music in college. But she and other family members supported her decision to enter a health-related field.
“I saw how she suffered from respiratory issues and how she took her pain and made it her purpose,” said Karen Metcalfe, Jennifer Williams’ aunt.
Williams hasn’t completely turned her back on music. She plans to release a single, “Turn to Me Again,” this summer.
Asthma diagnosis
Williams was diagnosed with asthma at age 3 and spent a lot of time in the hospital growing up.
“I was diagnosed as a severe asthmatic, meaning my asthma attacks were only induced by specific triggers, such as pollen and so forth,” she said. “I can just be reading and have an asthma attack.”
St. Louis ranks 30 in a list of the most challenging places to live with asthma, according to the 2018 Asthma Capitals Report by the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America.
Williams’ mother, father and sister all suffer from asthma. Bettie Williams’ condition is less severe, but she understood what her daughter was going through as a child.
“I went to the school many days to get her, and (the staff) got to know me very well,” Bettie Williams said. “I went there twice a month when she was having a bad attack.”
Jennifer Williams’ condition worsened as she got older.
“I began to get what they called recurrent respiratory infection, and I didn’t understand why,” she said. “I had to go to a specialist.”
“I can remember being on about 13 medications at one time,” she added. “That was a really rough time for me.”
‘Uphill battle’
By the time Williams started elementary school, her asthma was so severe, she had to stay indoors for fear of triggering an attack.
“I had to start undergoing what they call immunotherapy,” she said.
That is a preventive treatment for allergic reactions to substances such as grass, pollen and house dust, according to the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.
The treatment involves gradual doses of allergens that help patients build up a resistance.
“I was going every week,” Williams said. “I would get two injections in each arm. Originally, it was supposed to be short-term, but my body kept reacting to it.”
Williams said the reactions got so bad that welts wrapped around her arm. When she was 19, doctors had to reduce her dosages.
To get by, Williams took a regimen of over-the-counter and prescribed allergy medications, but that wasn’t enough to keep her reactions at bay.
“It’s been an uphill battle,” she said. “I wouldn’t say it’s completely gone. I still go through it.”
Life change
Williams has been working as a personal care assistant for 10 years and a certified nursing assistant for three. Her life changed direction in 2015, when she had to take a patient suffering from breathing problems to the hospital.
“I was watching (the respiratory therapist) and watching what she did with the equipment and how she was taking care of my client,” she said.
Williams decided she wanted to become a respiratory therapist.
Since that time, Williams has been dedicated to her studies while continuing to work part time as a CNA. Her mother said health care suits her.
“She’s a helper,” Bettie Williams said. “She always tries to help somebody.”
Jennifer Williams has missed a few classes since January of 2017, when she was diagnosed with a form of rhinovirus that triggered her asthma symptoms.
But she has persevered in pursuit of her degree.
“She’s an A student,” her mother said. “She’s on the honor roll, and she was inducted into the National Honor Society (in high school). She kept her grades up, and she loved to do her school work. She is focused.”
Williams said her experiences with asthma have actually helped her connect with patients on a more personal level.
“I had the ability to understand what (the patients) were coming from,” she said. “So I was able to utilize that to give encouragement to them.”