Their house off Lake Mary Road looks thoroughly lived-in, well-appointed and homey, as tidy and uncluttered as any place can be with a toddler and a French bulldog mix scurrying about.
Not a stick of furniture here belongs to Nicole and Derek Pellizzari, however. Nor a single elegant wall-hanging, nor any of the flower arrangements spread across the living room, nor the finely woven throw rug covering the hardwood floors. Nary a plate, cup or fork is theirs, as well.
The toys? Those belong to the couple’s almost 3-year-old daughter, Stella, and that half-gnawed red nylon bone is property of Stan, their squat, snorting pooch.
In less than a week, the Pellizzaris' eight-week odyssey in Flagstaff will conclude. They will pack up their clothes and toys, strap Stella in the car seat and harness Stan, and hit the road to the next stop on their COVID-19 employment adventure: Washington, D.C.
Nicole and Derek are travel nurses, and they alighted in Flagstaff in January from their native north Texas for Nicole’s two-month stint in the intensive care unit (mostly COVID care, now) at Flagstaff Medical Center.
While Derek, 36, has, in his words, “played Daddy daycare” with Stella, Nicole, 34, has been logging 12-hour shifts, four nights a week, caring for patients battling the coronavirus and other serious conditions. Her last shift was Saturday, and early this week, it’s on to Howard University Hospital in D.C., where Derek will be working the ICU for eight weeks and Nicole will stay with Stella.
It is an unusual, nomadic existence for the Pellizzaris, who until late 2020 both worked at major hospital systems in Fort Worth. But a sense of wanderlust took hold, and the road beckoned. The couple sold their home, put everything -- save clothes and toys -- in storage and pointed their car west.
“We’re not chasing money, and we’re not going to do this (indefinitely),” Nicole said. “I had been thinking when I first started (in nursing) that I’ll get a couple of years in (in Fort Worth) and then go travel. I’d always loved to travel. I attended 10 different colleges; I have an indecisive issue, I guess.”
Derek, too, was game.
So they came up with this plan to alternate workloads and see more of America before Stella gets old enough for school and a more permanent address, before Nicole pursues her ambition to be certified as a perfusion technician for heart surgeries, and before Derek returns to the stressful grind of full-time ICU nursing.
Following their calling
What the Pellizzaris have embarked upon is neither risky nor unusual. In fact, in the past year, with COVID raging, travel nurses have played a crucial role in helping overburdened hospitals cope with the influx of patients.
And the travel nurses, because they are at a premium, often pull in considerably more money than staff nurses -- Kaiser Health News reported that some travelers earn up to $8,000 to $10,000 per week. One survey showed that travel nurses, on average, make $88,400 a year, $16,000 more than staff nurses.
In many cases, the "travelers" can pick and choose their work situation, signing contracts for as short as eight weeks or long as two years. They can specify what type of charting system they feel comfortable using, seek a preferred discipline, such as ICU, labor-and-delivery or ER, often dictate their hours and negotiate compensation.
Demand far exceeds supply for nurses these days, and it’s not unusual for a medical center to employ travelers as nearly half its nursing staff. Kaiser reports that, nationwide, there has been a spate of nurses who have quit full-time jobs to travel and earn more money. Nicole estimates that, at FMC’s intensive-care unit, about 40% of nurses are travelers, newcomers who wear special badges noting them as such.
Uprooting themselves and their daughter was no whim for the Pellizzaris. They thought long and hard about the prospect. In the end, they opted for seeking an adventure during this window before Stella’s school-age years take hold.
“We’re spiritual people and we kind of felt God was leading us to this path,” Nicole said. “I remember praying and saying, ‘God, if this is what you want for us, make it easy.’”
Derek smiles at the ease of the transition.
“Everything got put together super quick,” he said. “We put our house up for sale (in November) on a Wednesday accepted one of many offers, and by that Saturday morning, everything was completed. And then she said to me, ‘Where do you want to go?’
Well, it wasn’t quite that easy, the couple admits. But they put their trust in one of the major travel-nurse recruiting agencies that trawled job openings nationwide, and then the two mulled what would be a good fit. Since they were just starting out as travelers, they wanted the minimum contract, eight weeks, just in case the situation wasn’t to their liking.
“When you try to pinpoint where you want to live, it’s more difficult than you’d imagine,” Derek said. “The first (job) that came up was Duluth, Minnesota.”
Too cold.
“We decided, nowhere north,” he said.
“I just had this weird thing inside me that said Arizona,” Nicole said. “I started seeing everywhere Arizona, on license plates, whatnot. I was thinking Phoenix. But we had to be able to find housing. We didn’t want to go from a house with a yard (in Fort Worth) to a tiny apartment.”
“A lot of travel nursing is a single population, your younger or older nurses who can easily move around,” Derek added.
“And that,” Nicole interjected, “is when our recruiter said, ‘OK, this isn’t Phoenix, but …'”
Why they chose Flagstaff
But an opportunity in northern Arizona was a distinct possibility. Nicole explained that since Arizona is considered a “surge state,” meaning battling increased cases of COVID, they are able to give incentives on top of nursing pay to lure help. The northern Arizona region had seven hospitals in its jurisdiction, but Nicole and the recruiter requested Flagstaff. Otherwise, she might go elsewhere.
A deal was struck, and Nicole signed on for eight weeks, starting in early January. The couple had heard a lot about Flagstaff. They were drawn to its mountain town mystique and they said they looked forward to trying out the craft breweries they had read about. Best of all, they found a house to rent for two months that was fully furnished, with a backyard for Stella and Stan.
They were just about to pull down the gate of the U-Haul and drive west when Nicole got a call telling her that her request to work a 12-hour day shift would not be happening. FMC, she was told, needed help at nights.
“They were going to schedule me how they saw fit, because I was there to fill holes,” she said. “I like days, so this was a monkey wrench, for sure. But I was raised by the whole suck-it-up-buttercup generation. My dad made us tough. We’re not whiny people. And the money was an incentive, also the small town and the weather being perfect. I told my recruiter I can do anything for eight weeks. So we said, ‘Let’s do it.’”
They pulled into Flagstaff on New Year’s Eve, having taken two days to drive from Texas. They found the house in the dark, unhooked the U-Haul trailer, brought a few things inside this sparkling two-story house they’d rented and then realized they were hungry. They called several pizza places, but were told it was a two-hour wait.
“We had forgotten it was New Year’s Eve,” Derek said.
So they got back in the car and looked for an open restaurant. They ended up going to the drive-thru at Freddy's on Beulah Boulevard. They wanted to load up on hamburgers and ice cream, celebrating their arrival.
“We bought about 37 bucks worth of (food), and when I reached back I discovered, hey, I left my wallet on the counter,” Derek said. “(He said to Nicole) ‘Hand me your wallet. She says, ‘My wallet’s on the counter, too.’ So I tell the young girl at the register, ‘Can you just set this aside for us. We’ve got a house right over her, and I’ll run back and grab my wallet.' The girl goes and talks to the manager and just hands us the food, says enjoy yourself. They comped it. That was incredible.”
Welcome to Flagstaff, indeed.
Learning the FMC culture
The real test of whether the couple would like it here revolved around Nicole’s working situation at FMC. Both had read up on travel nurses, and they’d heard stories about how full-time nursing staffs resented the travelers parachuting in and making much more money than the regular nurses. Adding to that, Nicole was worried about working night shifts -- which she’d never done.
“I remember sitting at home with (Stella) that first day, waiting for (Nicole) to get home and praying it went well,” Derek said. “And I remember saying, nervous, ‘Babe, how’d it go?’”
It went well, mostly. Nicole has nothing but kind words for the nurse managers and staff at FMC. But she does admit it is a stressful environment that took some adjustment. Nicole said FMC has many travelers, each coming to the job with their own style of nursing.
“Working nights was new for me,” she said. “Being here was new. Working four days in a row every week was new. Here, they have two mandatory overtime shifts in a schedule (for six weeks) because they are overwhelmed.
“I was a little worried at first (at FMC). You lose 45% of your staff and you bring in all these travel nurses and they are making a lot more than the staff nurses, so there might be some animosity there and you lose more staff. The dynamic is really strange. So I anticipated them being very snide and non-helpful. But they’ve been amazing. I’m talking top notch. I’ve had no issues. The manager’s been amazing.”
Being a travel nurse isn't cushy, not by any stretch. They have to be nimble and adapt to new procedures, practices and culture. Just learning names is tough enough. And patients might fret about the continuity of care, with nearly half the nursing staff new on the job.
“Travel nurses have to be flexible,” Nicole said. “We had a procedure on the unit putting a line in. I’m asking (the doctor), ‘Do y’all have this and this (caps for a catheter).’ He said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ It’s different ways of doing the same thing, different equipment.
“I felt bad. I never want to make anyone feel bad but (implying) well, we did it better. I never wanted to say, ‘That doesn’t make sense.’ I don’t know, I’m not a doctor and maybe their way is better than how I’ve been doing it. The doctor said to me, ‘I know you’re a traveler and it’s good for us to have you; I encourage you to speak up because that’s how we grow.’”
Nicole’s eyes widened retelling the story. A doctor? Asking a nurse’s opinion?
“I never had a doctor say that to me,” she said. “That was great.”
Life as a stay-at-home dad
While Nicole was toiling at FMC, Derek was adjusting into life as a (temporary) stay-at-home dad.
He liked the respite from the high-pressure nursing situation he had left behind in Fort Worth, where COVID patients were dying every day and the toll it took on him piled up. He had been an EMT for several years before getting his nursing degree, and was used to patients being in extremis, but he was getting a bit burned out.
So rearing Stella for two months was a nice break. Derek’s a snowboarder and also found time to go up on the mountain when Nicole wasn’t working. But mostly, it’s been Derek and Stella spending time, 24-7.
“A town like this is great for folks our age (30s),” Derek said. “But COVID times for a toddler? Not the greatest. It’s hard trying to find things to do. We’ve spent a lot of time at playgrounds. With the elementary school close, we time it so she’ll be at the park and get to mingle a little bit (with other kids).”
But Stella had been going to a Montessori preschool in Texas. No such option for them here, with in-person schools shuttered. Derek said he begged a local gymnastics studio to let Stella practice with other kids, but social distancing protocols prevented it.
“Not having that interaction has affected her,” Derek said.
Nicole: “She’s saying things like, ‘I miss my friends and my family.’ She’s very grown up for her age. We don’t want her to be a weirdo, basically. She’s very teachable and intuitive. School really brought that out in her.”
“When we came here,” Derek added, “we thought, ‘Well, there’ll be something.’ There’s nothing.”
But they knew the situation was only temporary. They are hoping that their next stop, Washington, D.C., will yield more social interaction for Stella. Derek, this time, will be the traveling nurse and Nicole the full-time caregiver. His eight-week contract at Howard University starts March 15.
“We’re super excited, but both of our families are, like, 'Why?'” Derek said. “They said, ‘Don’t you realize how unsafe it is there?’ But the world is unsafe. Even being from small-town Texas, we’ve both been to D.C. and we’re looking forward to it.”
And if it doesn’t work out, well, it’s only eight weeks.
The couple hopes to alight in Houston closer to summer in the long term. Nicole has applied for a highly sought-after, two-year program at the Texas Heart Institute. If accepted, she’ll start in the summer, and Derek will sign on as a travel nurse at one of the many area hospitals.
Neither will have trouble finding nursing positions, given the shortage.
“The good thing about traveling is you’re kind of getting a taste for other areas, the type of place you might want (to settle in),” Nicole said. “Being here, even this limited amount of time, I can see this lifestyle and the way this town is. And it’s great. I’ve loved the people and hospital and staff.”
But now, it’s time to move on.
