Long Island moms put others first on Mother's Day
A mother’s dedication to helping others inspires her sons own career paths.
More Stories
Mother’s Day is meant to celebrate moms, but for many women who are working essential jobs, it is also just another day on the clock.
One of those mothers is Carol Drago, an endoscopy nurse at Northwell Plainview Hospital.
While many families spend the holiday together, Drago spend her Sunday preparing for patients. Her day included getting the endoscopy room ready and calling Monday’s patients to guide them through their upcoming procedures ahead of time.
After 41 years as a nurse, Drago says working on Mother’s Day is not always easy. Still, she says caring for patients feels like an extension of being a mom.
“Working Mother’s Day can be hard, but it is rewarding too because you’re their mom while there are patients here in the hospital,” Drago said. “It’s a give and take, but it’s always good.”
Drago is also the mother of two sons, one who works in human resources for Northwell Health and another who works as an emergency room nurse at a different hospital.
Both say it was their mother’s dedication to helping others that inspired their own career paths.
"My youngest son was supposed to be a police officer and a year into school he turned around and said 'I want to be an ER nurse like you,'" Drago said. "My other son, I never thought would be in the medical field, but he said he always respected me working and caring for patients and he wanted to embrace a role in a similar capacity."
Drago planned on ending her Mother's Day with a FaceTime call to her family and said she looks forward to celebrating with them later this year.
