Nurse Brooke Johns combs Kathi Wallis’ hair in preparation for braiding at Southern Hills Hospital Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021.
Sunday, Sept. 12, 2021 | 2 a.m.
It is Brooke Johns’ day off from her frenzied 12-hour shifts in the emergency room at Southern Hills Hospital.
But on this recent morning, the nurse paced through the hallways of the southwest Las Vegas facility, not as a medical provider, but as a volunteer hairstylist of sorts.
On such biweekly visits, Johns replaces her medical tools for a brush, comb and sprayer, which she carries in a waist apron. Her compassion for patients remains the same, albeit under less hectic scenarios.
First up was Kathi Wallis, who was lying on a hospital bed, recovering from a broken hip.
“You come here on your days off?” said the 61-year-old patient in a strained voice, among background TV noise and medical-device beeps.
“Yes ma’am,” the nurse replied enthusiastically. “That’s why I can spend as much time as I want on you, nobody is telling me what to do.”
As Johns brushed the patient’s golden locks and gently weaved them into braids, the Pahrump resident spoke about her passion for Harley-Davidson motorcycles. She clarified that the fall that broke her bone happened at home, not riding her bike.
“You are a tough lady,” Johns said at one point. Fifteen minutes later, Johns was disinfecting her tools, sanitizing her hands, and out the door.
“It was so wonderful,” Wallis said. “I feel so much better ... I love it.”
To Johns, 40, the sentiment is mutual.
Her medical career path began six years ago with the loss of her daughter, who died before birth. There’s postpartum depression, and then there’s the type of depression that is augmented by the devastating loss of a child, Johns said.
“I have felt pain, and I have felt lonely, and I have felt grief,” she said. “So, I am (one) of those patients ... when I leave the room, we need each other. I leave a better person.”
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Johns, who was born in San Diego, thought she would become a sports commentator and obtained a degree in broadcasting.
But then came marriage and children, which are not ideal for a career in which personalities often move from market to market looking for a big break, she said.
She situated herself as a stay-at-home mom for her three children. The family relocated to Las Vegas shortly before the death of her fourth child. It’s “difficult when you first move to a place and you don’t have a support system,” she said. “My nurses became my support system.”
On depression-induced sleepless nights, she began to memorize every bone and muscle in the human body. Initially she wanted to be a genetic counselor like the one who guided her through the grief but decided that her new anatomy knowledge would work twofold: as a nurse she could help people both physically and mentally.
Johns obtained a degree from the College of Southern Nevada and is currently enrolled at Nevada State College. Southern Hills Hospital hired her three years ago, and she is a registered nurse in the emergency room there.
Then a global pandemic hit.
Johns said her colleagues haven’t been deterred by the latest wave of coronavirus patients as hospitals have been reaching near capacity recently because unvaccinated residents are becoming sick and dying. Over the past two weeks, Nevada has had an average of 1,054 daily cases, officials said Thursday. Just 63% of eligible Nevadans have received at least one dose of the vaccine.
“Nurses get into the field because they want to help,” Johns said. “(They are) some of the most giving people and team players that I have ever met in my life.”
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Although Johns learned how to braid hair in middle school, the idea to comb and braid patients’ hair came earlier this year when her friend landed in the hospital with a case of COVID-19.
Due to visitor restrictions, ”they’re by themselves up there,” Johns said.
Since she was already a hospital worker, Johns got permission to go see her friend.
When someone is too sick to brush their hair, it often gets neglected.
“It’s comforting,” Johns said. “There’s just something very special about somebody running their fingers through your hair or braiding your hair — it’s very bonding between women.”
Her friend’s hair was snarled and knotted in the back. Johns brushed and braided it, and returned multiple times to retouch it.
“The person that I saw when I walked in the room was a completely different person when I walked out,” Johns said. “I just thought to myself, ‘If my friend is benefiting so much from this, I bet you there’s a hospital full of people that this would help.’”
Johns has been volunteering for six months. There’s a patient who broke down in tears at the sight of Johns, then there’s the one whom she persuaded to admit herself into the hospital after tending to her in the ER.
Seeing her was “very special,” Johns said. Sometimes, braiding women's hair comes secondary to the heartfelt stories they’re able to share. “Hard,” she said. “Life is hard ... and if you don’t have a support system, sometimes that’s what I get to be.”
Johns’ three children are now teenagers, and while she takes pleasure in her volunteer work, she hopes the teens are able to gain a lesson in empathy.
“Words are great, but they only go so far,” Johns said. “You can tell your kids to be good people; you can tell your kids that people are important and that service is important, but when they see you do it, it’s different.”
“And that’s what I hope to be for them … a real, living example so they understand on a visceral level that this is something that will not only help other people, but helps them, (too).”
