Cathy A. Harrison was mobilized a month after signing up in 1990 for the U.S. Navy Reserves during Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, spending her first nine months of service on active duty.
It also was the first nine months of her marriage.
"We were just back from our honeymoon in Bermuda; we were both in shock," said Harrison, recalling the notice to report to active duty.
So much for training one weekend a month and two weeks in the summer, as most reservists did before the 2001 terrorist attacks on America.
The nurse anesthetist from Midlothian had made a commitment and, called to duty, she was ready to go, Harrison said.
"I believed that I had something to offer and wanted to serve my country in the Navy Reserves."
Now a Navy captain, she also is the commanding officer of the Reserve's Operational Health Support Unit in Bethesda, Md., supporting Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
The first nurse anesthetist to serve as commanding officer, Harrison works with military physicians, dentists, nurses and medical service corps officers and corpsmen who provide health care to wounded military personnel, active duty and reserve members and their dependents.
She travels to Bethesda at least once a month in that capacity. The appointment is for two years — through Nov. 30, 2013.
"I have been blessed with so many great opportunities," Harrison said.
Her career as a nurse anesthetist for private practices and in the U.S. Navy Reserves took her from the Richmond area to mobilizations for Operation Desert Storm in 1990, Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 and Operation Enduring Freedom in 2007.
In addition to her commanding officer post, she slips between roles as a nurse anesthetist for a plastic surgeon and a periodontist in the Richmond area to nursing instructor at Bryant & Stratton College in Chesterfield County.
"My passion is practicing anesthesia, but I am fortunate to have been in positions to work with students and share the skills I have acquired over these past 30 years," she said.
Debra Crowell, a nurse midwife who trained with Harrison in the same reserve unit, said Harrison encouraged her to become an officer in charge.
"She is a mentor and also a friend," said Crowell, executive officer of the Reserve Operational Health Support Unit in Portsmouth.
Harrison, 56, also is president of the Virginia Association of Nurse Anesthetists for 2012.
"I see myself as a mentor and facilitator," she said.
"We're focused on making sure patients in Virginia are provided the best care. … We're trying to see where Obamacare will lead. We're trying to keep a positive attitude. We're here. We're on the front lines."
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Harrison's father was a career Navy sailor, who retired in 1968 and moved the family from Norfolk to a farm near Asheville, N.C., where he raised cattle and grew vegetables.
"My mother was the perfect 1950s and 1960s homemaker," Harrison said.
Harrison's course for life was set in the summer of 1972, when she worked as a high school student in a pediatrician's office, answering phones and filling in charts.
She was invited one day to accompany a pediatrician while he made his rounds at St. Joseph Hospital in Asheville.
There, she observed an anesthetist at work and said she knew then it was a career that would make her proud.
"It's not only one of the most rewarding careers but one of the most exciting, providing patient care as an advanced practice nurse."
Harrison earned her nursing diploma in 1976 from the Mercy School of Nursing in Charlotte, N.C.
She arrived in Richmond in 1977 to begin her course work at Medical College of Virginia — now Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine — that would lead to her certification as a nurse anesthetist.
"I graduated in 1979, took the board exam, became board certified and that was the beginning of a wonderful anesthetist career," she said.
"There still is a great demand for nurse anesthetists," she said, explaining that they provide 65 percent of anesthesia care in the United States, with the rest provided by anesthesiologists and anesthesia assistants.
The career requires a bachelor's degree in nursing, a minimum of one year in critical-care nursing and a grueling 27-month program for a diploma in nurse anesthesia.
"Being a nurse anesthetist encompasses the whole of nursing from the moment you meet the patient and establish a rapport, alleviating their fears and anxieties. When they go into the operating room, I let them know that I will be there the entire time."
In post-operative care, she ensures that patients are comfortable, awake and stable. That might mean providing solace beyond nursing care, such as a warm blanket or holding someone's hand. "I never shy away when someone says, 'Can we pray?' "
"Cathy is a delight to work with because she is such a team player," said Kathleen Mullen, a nurse for Douglas S. Rowe, a plastic surgeon in Henrico County.
"She's an excellent educator and an encouragement to me. I've started my master's degree, and she tells me not to give up," Mullen said. Harrison works with Rowe and Mullen at the Plastic Surgery Center every Wednesday.
"Cathy is one of the few nurse anesthetists in the Richmond area well-versed in the type of anesthesia we use, which is deep sedation," not general anesthesia, Rowe said.
"It's a real craft to get patients in the right place," he said.
If too much sedation is given, breathing machines are sometimes needed, he said. If the sedation is not deep enough, the patient might get agitated.
"She is a class act, a great nurse anesthetist, very knowledgeable and capable," said Rowe, who has worked with Harrison for years, beginning when she was with private anesthesia groups that served local hospitals.
In 2000, Harrison formed her own company, LCH Anesthesia, named for Lyn, Cathy and Harrison — her husband, herself and her son — to give her flexibility.
Her husband, Wallace Lyndon "Lyn" Davenport, manages the biomedical department at Johnston-Willis Hospital.
Their son, Harrison, is a junior at James River High School and, following his mother's lead, he is a senior enlisted leader for the Navy Junior ROTC program.
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Harrison, 35 at the time of her first deployment, was assigned to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, where she taught nurse anesthesia students and provided anesthesia services to active duty and retired military personnel and dependents.
She was called back to active duty in 2003, this time for four months at the Portsmouth Naval hospital.
"We back-filled for the members of the anesthesia department who were deployed with the Fleet Hospital to Kuwait," Harrison said.
Again, she taught nurse anesthesia students and provided anesthesia services. With so many staff members serving overseas, operating room services there had been scaled back. "Within a week of our arrival, we were operating a full capacity," said Harrison, who was mobilized with about 70 reservists.
In the fall of 2007, Harrison was called up for 13 months to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.
She was assigned to the Army hospital as a nurse executive for the Navy, which took her out of her role as a nurse anesthetist and into an administrative role.
She started as a nursing supervisor. Within a month, she became director of education and training, and a month or so later, she was director of clinical nursing.
"Even though I wasn't involved in direct patient care, I had access to the whole facility, and I made rounds every day. … It was a wonderful experience."
She set aside time every Sunday, after attending church and settling in at work, to check in with her son and husband through Skype, a service that allows users to communicate by voice, video and instant messaging over the Internet.
"He and his dad managed extremely well here in the U.S.," she said.
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The future presents opportunities for the civilian and military forces in how they will provide care for a large group of wounded warriors, she said.
"In Desert Storm, we didn't have as many casualties … and we didn't get the type of injuries that we're getting now out of Iraq and Afghanistan."
Her role as the commanding officer of the Operational Health Support Unit in Bethesda focuses on how to provide that care.
"We're one Navy," she said. "We are not making the distinction between active and reserve as we did in the past."
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