Like grandmother. Like mother. Like daughter.
If you’ve walked the halls of the Children’s Hospital of Orange County in the last 50 years, you’ve likely had a chance encounter with at least one generation of the nurses from this family tree.
Lezlie Brown-Zoller began her CHOC career 51 years ago as a nurse in the Orange hospital’s pediatric intensive care unit. Her daughter, Meghen Reahm, joined CHOC in 2002 and as a daytime nursing supervisor oversees staffing safety and the flow of patient admissions and discharges. Reahm’s daughter, Erika Hertz, is now working at CHOC as a patient transporter while she completes her nursing degree at Cal State Fullerton.
“I was 21 years old when I started at CHOC,” Brown-Zoller notes. “Erika’s turning 21.”
In 1973, the idea that Brown-Zoller, fresh out of nursing school, would have a granddaughter one day working at CHOC never crossed her mind, she said. But over the last five decades, the hospital dedicated to helping children flourish has also grown into an institution that has shaped the lives and families of its longest-tenured employees.
“I make a joke — I had my first husband when I started here. Now, I’m on my second husband, I have three kids and 11 grandkids,” Brown-Zoller said. “If that’s not growing up, I don’t know what is.”
A chance application
Brown-Zoller and Reahm found their way to nursing careers after caring for an immediate family member. In Reahm’s case, it was caring directly for her mother. For Hertz, it’s all she’s known.
Hertz recalls growing up with CHOC talk at the dinner table – tales of what Mom and Grandma encountered on their daily shifts. “Now that I’ve been in nursing school, I have my own stories to share,” she said.
But long before Hertz joined the staff, or even her mother for that matter, Brown-Zoller and CHOC were just getting started together.
In the early 1970s, CHOC was still — like many of its patients — in its infancy.
Around that time, Brown-Zoller’s younger teenage brother began experiencing abdominal pain. His family took him to the nascent hospital to find out what was going on.
A CHOC doctor discovered the teen had a Meckel’s diverticulum that required surgery. Brown-Zoller, then in her last semester of nursing school, took an immediate interest in her brother’s medical care.
While visiting her brother at CHOC, she absorbed the details around her, she said, taking mental notes on medical devices and patient care.
“I was always intrigued by the machines and how fast the ICU moves and that kind of stuff,” Brown-Zoller said. She was especially impressed with a young CHOC nurse, Carol Cox.
“The thing that I saw in her that I wanted to bring when I came into the field was truly the compassion,” Brown-Zoller said. “She really seemed to care about my brother. He was a teenager, and, you know, teenagers aren’t always the best when they’re not feeling good. But she always stayed thorough and upbeat.”
Cox, who was not too much older than Brown-Zoller, encouraged her to apply for a job, but CHOC wasn’t exactly on Brown-Zoller’s radar.
“CHOC was a tiny, tiny little hospital,” Brown-Zoller said of the facility that had just opened in 1964. “We didn’t even have our own HR.”
So, when she decided to apply, she had to walk across the street to speak with a hiring manager at nearby St. Joseph Hospital.
He called the director of nursing at CHOC right in front of her, saying over the phone, “We have a live wire here. Would you like to meet her?”
Brown-Zoller said she was hired on the spot.
When CHOC eventually did get an HR system, Brown-Zoller was labeled as employee number nine. Cox was number five. And the two of them are part of a group of 10 veteran CHOC nurses who continue to meet every month.
While Brown-Zoller retired from full-time nursing duties in 2014, she still works at CHOC as a spiritual wellness practitioner, helping families with the psychosocial aspects of medical care — such as legal and emotional ordeals “you’re not taught about in nursing school,” she said.
The next generation
Reahm also grew up with CHOC talk at the dinner table, which she jokingly said scared a few boyfriends away. They couldn’t handle eating while hearing about the unappetizing sights and smells of the ICU.
“Unless you live it and literally breathe it, no one can appreciate that table talk,” she said.
Although she had more of a stomach for blood and guts than either of her sisters, Reahm didn’t aspire to nursing until her mother suffered a traumatic injury while driving a quad bike on Bell Mountain in the High Desert outside Victorville.
“I knew I had this desire to take care of things, but I always thought I’d go the animal route,” Reahm said. She described her mom’s accident as the “trigger point” that changed her trajectory.
Brown-Zoller suffered severe abdominal wounds when she was pinned between a boulder and her all-terrain vehicle.
She had a hole in her small intestine and her pancreas was leaking fluid — not realizing the extent of her injuries she insisted her family take her home to comb her hair to fix her messy “helmet head” before proceeding to an emergency room.
She spent 22 days in an intensive care unit, followed by an extensive period of rehab. Reahm’s sisters shied away from the wound treatment, but Reahm said she clung like a shadow to the home health nurse, eventually taking on some direct care for her mom.
The aha moment that she had the right stuff for this career came, “oddly enough,” as she cleaned her mother’s vomit from their bathroom floor, she vividly recalled. Once she realized she could handle that, the senior in high school knew she could handle any gruesomeness the hospital floor could throw her way.
One year later, she was in nursing school at Cal State Long Beach. “I never looked back,” she said.
Though Brown-Zoller’s path to a CHOC career was spontaneous, any nursing role at the children’s hospital today is a coveted gig. In fact, beginning a nursing career in Orange County can be a highly competitive ordeal. Hertz was one of 40 students out of more than 2,500 applicants accepted into her cohort in Cal State Fullerton’s nursing program.
She got teary-eyed talking about what it means to follow in her mother’s and grandmother’s footsteps.
“I’ve looked up to these two women all my life,” she said. “I knew I wanted to be a nurse from the stories I heard from my mom. I just don’t want to let them down. I just want to make my own path in a way they will be proud of.”
Turning to them, Hertz added, “I feel very lucky to be a continuing legacy — a third generation — because you guys have done such incredible things.”
Mother’s Day lessons
But it turns out that even in this family there is no such thing as a nursing gene. Reahm has two sisters, neither of whom pursued healthcare. Hertz has two younger sisters with no interest in the field. In total, Brown-Zoller has 11 grandchildren, and Hertz is the only one pursuing nursing.
So, this Mother’s Day, the matriarch was clear that her family’s story is one of unconditional love.
“I think we are very blessed to have Meghen and Erika have the passion in their hearts to continue down a path of healthcare, but what would I say to other mothers? Embrace your children,” Brown-Zoller said. “Love them, facilitate their growth and let them know you’re in their corner, always.
“My other grandchildren aren’t going to be nurses,” she said, “but I love them and want to support them in any way I can.”
