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Nadine Wilhelm Nelson nursed for more than 50 years before becoming paralyzed about 18 months ago, the result of a brain aneurysm.

But sitting in a recliner in her nursing center room, Nelson still displays the same fiery passion for nursing that she exhibited as she fielded telephone calls from the news media or carried infants in her arms to waiting moms.

In October, District 2 of the Virginia Nurses Association paid homage to Nelson by naming two scholarships for her. They will be awarded in 2007.

The district also presented Nelson a plaque that now hangs in her room at Brian Center Nursing Care in Fincastle.

It recognizes Nelson's "exemplary nursing care to her patients and meritorious leadership in the Virginia Nurses Association."

One of the $400 scholarships will be awarded to a nursing student in the associate degree program at either Virginia Western or New River Valley community colleges.

The second will be given to a student in the baccalaureate degree program at either Jefferson College of Health Sciences or Radford University.

Nelson, 83, would like to see her only daughter-in-law, Christy, a nursing student, get one of the initial scholarships.

"I would pay for her education myself if I had the money. If I weren't sick, I'd have the money because I was going to keep on nursing forever," Nelson said.

Nelson, a graduate of the old Jefferson Hospital School of Nursing, spent most of her career at what is now Carilion Roanoke Community Hospital, where she was known not only to patients but also to their families and to the news media as an official hospital spokeswoman.

She worked her last five years at Lewis-Gale Medical Center. Her specialty was pediatrics, but she's worked in every area of nursing.

She was a nursing student when she met her future husband, Page, then a patient and now her "saint."

Nelson was instrumental in reviving District 2 of the nurses' association, said Virginia Burggraf, a Radford University nursing professor.

The district, Burggraf said, "was somewhat floundering at the time."

But Nelson, who's been active in the state association more than 40 years, "was vibrant and passionate about nursing and keeping the district alive," Burggraf said.

"The supervisor in me took over," Nelson recalled of her efforts for the professional group, adding that the lack of such an organization was detrimental to nurses.

Nelson helped develop programs for continuing education and getting college seniors involved in the professional association.

She also was instrumental in getting student nurses discounts on their professional association dues, Burggraf added.

"She may be in bed and not on her feet ... but she's still a nurse," Burggraf said of Nelson.

Nelson, who can't remember not wanting to nurse, said she feels her legacy is that she was a caring, professional nurse. "You can spot a professional nurse wherever you go by the way she talks and carries herself," she added.

"I am a caretaker. I love taking care of people. I was known for my caring and my follow through [on patients]," she said.

"The thing I notice most is people don't follow through" or aren't as compassionate in their careers even though computers and other advances give quicker treatment information, Nelson said.

She tries to be a good patient, Nelson said, but she thinks some of her nurses are intimidated when they learn about her past.

Page Nelson said it's been difficult for his once-active wife to be confined.

"She knows enough about nursing to know she's trapped and can't do anything about it," he said.

The scholarship, he said, boosted Nelson's spirit and fight.

"It was a deserving honor for her," Page Nelson said. Nelson initially was treated at the University of Virginia by the same neurosurgeon who treated the late actor Christopher Reeve when he first was paralyzed in a horseback riding accident, he said.

Nelson suffers some lapses with dates but she's still a nurse first, even to the point of insisting on being properly dressed daily and being polite to her own caregivers.

She spent time at two other Roanoke Valley facilities before moving to the Brian Center, closer to the Fincastle farm where she, Page and their four sons grew Christmas trees.

Although he suffered a stroke not long after his wife, Page Nelson still visits Nadine Nelson nightly to "put her to bed."

Of her husband's care, Nelson said, "he's a saint."

Her regret is that she can't nurse "but I feel like God has something left for me to do," Nelson said.

Noting that many women don't survive brain aneurysms, Nelson said she's fortunate to be alive. "God was good to me. He took away but he gave me something back: life."