Balancing act: Marisol Pelaez

Marisol Pelaez got her first taste of the health care industry by attending a health occupations class at Harlingen High School.

Now she’s married, a mother of three children and is nurse manager of the Independent Rehabilitation Unit at Valley Baptist Medical Center-Harlingen.

“When I was in high school, I was in the drill team, I was a Cardette,” she said. “That took a lot of time. I was in the New Directions Club in ninth and 10th grade and I was even nominated as one of the homecoming representatives and I got to ride in the parade on a float,” she said. “That was neat.”

After high school, she went straight into the registered nurse program at the University of Texas-Brownsville, Pelaez said.

“That’s a two-year program. I received my associate’s degree,” she said.

“I’m currently back in school trying to get my bachelor’s degree in nursing.”

She went directly to Valley Baptist after she finished her requirements as a registered nurse, Pelaez said.

“I rotated through here as a student nurse,” she said. “The rehabilitation really caught my eye, so I’ve been here since 1997-1998.”

At first, she was a floor nurse in rehabilitation, then became charge nurse in the same department and then was the admissions coordinator, also in the rehabilitation department.
“Then I was in case management on the orthopedics floor,” she said. “Currently I’m nurse manager for the inpatient rehab.”

She and husband Jerry Gamez have three children, Jonathan, 12, Alexandria, 8, and Samantha, 6.

So with work, school and family life, time is precious, she said.

“We like to garden so we have made our own home garden,” she said. “We have three dogs. We like to go to the Island and just walk on the beach, spend time with the children. But we have big dogs, so they don’t get to go.”

At home, she likes to collect figurines of dolphins, anything with dolphins. “I have a lamp that’s dolphin-shaped,” Pelaez said.

“We like to watch movies at home,” she added.

Last summer she took her two daughters to Washington, D.C., to the Smithsonian Institution.
“It was really educational and they really liked it.”

Sometimes she enjoys “girl’s night out,” Pelaez said.

“My sisters and I try to meet maybe once a month. We try to get together,” she said. “I have eight sisters. It’s kind of hard with the children. That’s always nice. … Just the adults. But I can only be gone for about an hour.”

She also has four brothers and her parents, Pelaez said.

Her family is getting bigger, she said. “I’m the oldest girl and it’s starting to grow,” she said.
Several members of her family work in the medical field in the Rio Grande Valley and Houston, she said.