“WHY do you have to work mommy?” is a question that diagnostic radiographer Camille Plummer, 29, has had to answer from her three young boys.

“I have to work so that I can help you financially and also offer my services to persons who need it,” is her response.

It is an answer, Plummer says, that the boys have come to accept because they understand that mommy does x-rays.

She rises at 4:00 am each day and is off to work by 7:30 am.

“I have to wake up at four, study, express milk and leave for the baby as well as have family prayer in the morning. And hopefully, I am out by the latest 7:30. Then I am at work,” Plummer told Career & Education in a recent interview. “The latest I sometimes leave (work) is at 6:00 pm, and then I get home at about 7:00 pm with enough time to play with the boys, bathe the baby, and talk and read to them.”

Her youngest child, Klae, was born in January and although she spent time with him before returning to work in June, Plummer admits that she is missing out.

“I am missing out. I am the last to see that he is rolling over and sitting up. The fun thing about babies though, is that they try and keep you filled in and they make you feel so special,” Plummer mused. “As soon as you get home, everybody is excited, the baby is jumping – and they really do fill me in.”

At the same time, Plummer notes her love for her job, which she says has helped to make her a more caring person.

“I have become a lot more sympathetic to the needs of other persons,” said the past student of Glenmuir High School and the School of Medical Radiation Technology. “I have always been the caring type, but being a radiographer helps me to care a little bit more – by actions, not just through words. I am able to understand and meet the needs of persons.”

Plummer, who has worked as a diagnostic radiographer for nine years, added that her most fulfilling moment on the job is interacting with patients.

“Especially when the kids come to me very reluctant and ask if it hurts, to have them leave with a smile on their faces, that is what makes my day,” Plummer told Career & Education. “My most memorable moment is facing a very challenging patient and being able to use what I have learnt to create the impossible.”

And so the 29-year-old finds herself faced with the challenge of balancing work, with her family life. So far, she is managing to keep it all together, thanks in part to the support of her mother and husband. She also considers that having only male children is a blessing.

“I have all boys, which is good, because they are close to their dad. He teaches them to respect and love me, to open my door, because he always opens my door for me, and so on,” said Plummer. “And although I sometimes feel like I am missing out because my mommy stayed home when I was a kid, the role that I am not able to play, mommy does well playing it for me. And so far, I have not had the need to put the baby in day care.”

The flexibility of her job also helps make her life that much easier. Her job as a diagnostic radiographer, she said, complements her life as a career woman who is family-oriented and actively involved in the church.

“Radiography allows you to go home in the evenings and I do not have to work odd shifts. I can choose to work on weekends and to do extended duty. Other than that, it allows me to spend a lot of time at home with the kids – weekends and nights – especially with the young baby,” Plummer said. “I am tired, but not too tired to be able to spend time with them.”

At the same time, she finds creative mechanisms to remain in touch with her family, including family prayer every morning. She also hosts what she refers to as “family home evening” or “family games night” each Monday, and has a weekly date night with her husband Jonathan.

“We start with a spiritual lesson to teach the children gospel principles, have them display a talent, then fun and games and we end with refreshments (treats),” said Plummer of the family games night.

The weekly date night, she said, is something that her church – the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – encourages for married couples and is a critical element in their relationship. Her husband, to whom she has been married since 2000, is the president of one of the districts of the Church, which consists of Linstead, Clarendon and Mandeville. He oversees five branches.

Meanwhile, so adept is Plummer at her job that she copped the first South East Regional Health Authority (SERHA) chairman’s employee of the year award earlier this year. She was selected from a field of some 5,000 employees. SERHA is the country’s largest health region, representing some 47 per cent of the population and servicing some 1.7 million patients yearly from the parishes of Kingston, St Andrew, St Catherine, and St Thomas, in its 89 health centres and 11 major hospitals. On the job, Plummer interfaces with about 700 patients at the Spanish Town Hospital on a weekly basis. Still, she manages to cope with being not only a mother and wife to a man of the gospel, but also the fourth of eight children, one-half of an identical twin and a career woman through her drive to do better today than she did yesterday.