A nurse with many gifts

There are many facets to Elizabeth Petrell

BY ELLEN GILLETTE

Nurses routinely identify and treat belly ailments, but not many are also belly dancers like Port St. Lucie’s Elizabeth Petrell.

Born in Plymouth, Mass., Petrell’s family has historical ties to John Alden of Mayflower fame. Another famous relative, selectman James T. Frazier, is honored at the Frazier Memorial Pier where the replica Mayflower II is docked.

A self-described “math-o-phobe,” Petrell gravitated to literature in school. Her father was a welder; her mother worked at a hospital as a lab tech, then as a medical transcriptionist. As a teenager, Petrell worked at various restaurants.

The family moved south during Petrell’s junior year of high school. “My parents were looking for the geographical cure: ‘Let’s leave the state and start over,’” she explained. “And that doesn’t work. Three or four months in, they were arguing non-stop. When my father moved back to Massachusetts, I stayed here with my mom.”

After Petrell’s graduation, her mother moved to New Hampshire. Soon, Petrell and her boyfriend joined her.

MILITARY CAREER

Petrell was working as a hotel chambermaid when a friend mentioned the military. “I didn’t go to college right out of high school,” she said. “I wasn’t ready. I thought, ‘I really don’t have anything going on — I’ll talk to the recruiter.’ He made it sound so great, I was like, sure, I’ll join.”

Looking back, Petrell said the decision to enlist in the Army was “spontaneous. I didn’t think about the little idiosyncrasies that came with it, moving 3,000 miles away from home as a teenager. I was 104 pounds, teeny-tiny. Nobody thought I could do it.”

Basic training was a life-changing experience. “I threw a live hand grenade,” Petrell said, “repelled down a 60-foot wall, slept an hour at a time for three days straight, learning what sleep deprivation does to your brain. I did things that I never thought I would do, things I didn’t think I was capable of.”

Petrell was 19 when she marched at graduation. “It was one of the proudest moments of my life. I couldn’t believe I made it. I thought,‘I’m a soldier.’” 

Shortly after, Petrell married her high school sweetheart, who joined her at her first duty station in Germany. “Germans don’t call it Germany, though — it’s Deutschland,” she said. “They’re good people, welcoming. It gave me a different perspective, being outside of the United States and encountering other people. It gave me an appreciation for travel and an appreciation for other cultures.”

The military did have its challenges. As a young, petite woman, Petrell wasn’t always taken seriously as the unit armorer. She dealt with sexual harassment. “But it brought me a lot of great things, too. I was able to get my education and medical care through the military. A lot of benefits.”

After her marriage ended, Petrell worked as a unit supply specialist at the Department of the Army near the Pentagon in Alexandria, Virginia. 

Eventually, juggling a long-distance relationship and pregnant as her enlistment neared its end, Petrell had decisions to make. “You have to have a family care plan in place if you stay in the military as a single parent,” she said. “If you get deployed, someone has to take custody of your child. The thought of leaving her for a couple of years...I didn’t want to do that.”

CIVILIAN LIFE

Two weeks before Petrell re-entered civilian life, her promotion to sergeant came through, with promotion to motherhood a few months later. Working from home as a medical transcriptionist, Petrell moved to Missouri with her daughter’s father and earned an associate’s degree. “We gave it a good try,” she said. 

By the time the relationship ended, her mother was back in Florida. Petrell and baby moved in with her. She worked for optician C.R. Lait until her mother was diagnosedwith cancer.

“One of my biggest passions as a nurse is advocacy,” she said. “When my mother was sick, I had to advocate for her. Now, I have patients thanking me for explaining things.”

After surgery and recovery, her mother returned to Massachusetts where most of Petrell’s family lived. She was torn, not sure where to settle. Following her mother north, she worked and went to college, but it took only one winter to convince Petrell that Florida was the better fit. “I’d had seasonal depression as a child,” she said, “but I didn’t know what it was. Everything was dead and dreary; I got chilled to the bone. And I missed Florida — my heart is here.”

Other than a few breaks working as a mortgage originator and travel agent, Petrell focused on ophthalmology for 15 years while completing studies for a bachelor’s degree. Furloughed from her job during the COVID pandemic, she entered an accelerated nursing program at Keiser University.

At the time, her father was on dialysis, not doing well. When he decided to let nature take its course, the end came quickly. “I started my second semester of nursing and two weeks later, flew back to say goodbye,” Petrell said. “Knowing he was proud of me kept me going.” 

BELLY DANCING

Petrell graduated, preferring the challenging, busy work of an ER nurse. One day, she spotted an ad for belly dancing lessons. On impulse, she signed up. “It didn’t come naturally,” she said, “but I just kept at it.”

Belly dancing is an ancient Middle Eastern and Egyptian art form, sometimes misunderstood in the West. Now an advanced performer, Petrell enjoys sharing its history while dancing professionally for birthday parties and corporate events. 

“It’s very different than nursing,” Petrell said with a laugh, “bringing entertainment, getting people up dancing. And it keeps you in shape.”

There were times when self-doubts kept Petrell from trying new things, but no more. Currently, she is finishing a nurse practitioner program.

“You should never stop growing,” she said, remembering the time she took her daughter to audition for a play. “I was in my 30s. I’d always wanted to do that kind of stuff but I was too insecure.” Encouraged by one of the women at the theater, she landed a role herself.

“That’s my advice to anybody who’s struggling with self-limiting thoughts,” she said. “I hear people say ‘I wish I could do this or that, but I’m too old.’ Stop saying that. I went back to school at 50. You’re never too old to learn, to grow, to start a new career or a new hobby. The only person stopping that is you.”

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ELIZABETH ANN PETRELL

Age: 53

Lives in: Port St. Lucie

Occupation: nurse, performer

Family: daughter Ariana; Lily [a Siberian Husky] and Yeti [a Himalayan cat]

Education: John Carroll High School, Class of 1990; AA from Columbia College in Missouri; BA in Psychology from Florida Atlantic University; BS in Nursing from Keiser University; working on Master’s.

Hobbies: karaoke, theme parks, travel, community theater

Who inspires me: “My daughter is an amazing person —generous, thoughtful, hard-working. And there’s a poem by Sylvia Plath, about all the things she wants to do and can’t, and I’m like, that’s literally me. ‘Sylvia, you get me.’” 

Something most people don’t know about me: “I love writing poetry and would like to publish a book of my poems. I’m also DJ and used to sing in a band. And I was in a film [Rotten Mangos, 2016].”