Today we’d like to introduce you to John Tomko.
Hi John, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I was born two months premature to my parents, who started Bank of Westminster in Anaheim, California. After my father had a heart attack that required a quadruple bypass, he moved our family to Palm Springs, CA, to retire. At the same time, my mother purchased a historic home in Hannibal, Missouri, in 1997, where our family would spend three months each year in the Autumn. After my father had his first heart transplant at Loma Linda University Medical Center in 2004 and his second transplant in 2008, we decided to relocate to Missouri full-time in 2012 to escape the high cost of living after I returned from being an ESL teacher in South Korea for a year. We purchased an old school building we were working to turn into a satellite campus for ESL learning in partnership with Seoul Theological University, but those plans never came to fruition. In 2017, my mother had a hypertension stroke that resulted in kidney failure, and in 2019, I received a certificate of training completion to perform in-home hemodialysis therapy treatments to take my mother out of the clinic and do treatments at home as a volunteer twenty hours each week for the past five years. During my time in Missouri, I have worked as a hospital chaplain and website designer for income to support my family. I frequently received clients from the St. Louis and St. Peters area, where I worked from home in Hannibal and would drive to the city for photography. Today, I am gradually closing my website design business to publish my first book, with plans for two more in the following. My goal for publishing three medical autobiographies is to raise funds for living expenses while I attend the Craigmiles School of Nursing located at Hannibal-LaGrange University. I selected HLGU because their clinicals are local and that allows me to continue to perform my mother’s hemodialysis treatments. My father passed away from a tragic car accident in Hannibal and was flown to Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis where they tried to save him, but he lost too much blood. This traumatic event scared my family, and we have learned to move forward and make the pain part of who we are. I plan to use all my talents to graduate as a BSN travel nurse to help patients in St. Louis, Columbia, Hannibal, and Quincy, Illinois.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
One of the hardest things about being an unmarried homeowner supporting two widows is the cost. My annual expenses are about forty-two thousand dollars, and working freelance is no longer feasible. Like being a single parent supporting two children, you must make more careful choices. A reliable income from an industry that does not see frequent layoffs is the most important focus. Because of all of my healthcare experience, it would be foolish of me not to explore a career switch. Rural communities are struggling to get local nurses and going over budget using travel nursing contacts to fill in the gaps. Regional hospitals are closing their doors without local nurses and doctors, leaving smaller communities without access to healthcare. The greatest barrier is the cost of education and the time requirement. While I am in a position to take out a personal loan to cover what Federal Student Loans and Pell Grants will not cover, the in-person learning demand is forty hours per week for three years. That does not allow for the ability to work and go to school simultaneously if you have dependents. Passive income is the only viable solution at my disposal to pay the mortgage, utilities, and insurance. Because of these barriers, fewer people attend nursing school, so I am making the three-year sacrifice to support my family. At the age of thirty-four, I regret not getting an accredited degree when I was fresh out of high school, but I don’t regret all the experiences I was able to have during those years.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
The greatest investment you can make in this life is in your physical and mental healthcare. I am a vegetarian and swimmer at the local YMCA indoor pool. Good nutrition and exercise keep me off blood pressure and benzodiazepines and help motivate me to work, especially when things don’t go according to plan or emergencies arise. Young people think they will have good health and never wonder if they will wake up tomorrow. As we age, things become less certain year after year. To put a spin on a famous Christian bible verse, for what is a man profited if he should gain a Tesla and need a heart-transplant? The American idea of going into debt to buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t even like is an exercise in vanity. The most important thing in this life is caring for my body and mind. This will help me be in good shape to easily travel internationally, perform my work to the best of my ability, and enjoy my final years with limited strain. The second best investment you can make is learning to budget your life. After insurance payouts and depreciation, how much will a new roof cost you on your home? What is the annual maintenance on your car? What is the true cost of your health insurance if your provider is out-of-network? Studying how you spend your money is going to save you when the unexpected happens, and you have to scramble to find the funds to resolve the latest calamity in your life. The third and final investment is love. Love is the way for human existence. I love my mother and sister and do everything I can to keep them safe and happy. I invest in my career for financial security; I invest in my health to be there for them, and as a result, I am investing in happiness.
What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
As someone who struggles with Weltschmerz or “world pain,” I often fall into depression when I think about what is happening all around me and how there is very little I can do to correct it. This can throw me into procrastination and prevent me from independent learning or networking with professionals. As a personal tool to correct this behavior, I think of Gene Roddenberry’s optimistic view of the future in the Star Trek franchise as inspiration for correcting this behavior. Values dedicated to using reason, science, and logic in understanding the universe, solving problems, and improving the human condition help me better understand my situation in life and what I can do to improve it for myself and the people I care about. Don’t wait for something to happen; learn how to make the change and get after it. Build real in-person relationships and support each other so that when our plans fail, we have support to help us try again.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.johnpaultomko.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johnpaultomko/
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@travelwithtomko?si=HFF691BVkEJLhUoN
