For nearly two decades, Shaye Larry, RN has poured compassion into her work as a nurse. With 19 years in the field, she has supported countless patients — but like many long-serving nurses, she has also witnessed how much the healthcare landscape has changed.
Today, she balances her nursing career with her flourishing bakery, Jastiny’s Treats, where her creativity shines through custom cakes and elegant dessert artistry. And this Friendsgiving 2025, she joins us as a featured dessert judge — bringing her love for sweetness and celebration to The Nurses Lounge community.
A Heart for Care & Honesty
Shaye speaks with refreshing realism about her career. Nursing has shaped her deeply — and while she cherishes the impact she’s made, she also recognizes the emotional and physical toll the profession can take.
Artist: Terri Brewer
Over the years, she has watched patient expectations shift and the care environment become more demanding. She remains grounded in empathy, but she also understands the importance of boundaries. In her words, you can care deeply without giving away your peace.
She has learned to offer compassion without trying to solve every problem or absorb every burden — a lesson many nurses are learning in this season of healthcare.
Baking as Healing & Purpose
For Shaye, baking is not just a business — it’s therapy. It’s creativity, calm, and freedom.
She began baking as a young girl alongside family members, like many southern women who grew up in kitchens filled with love and flour. But during the pandemic, baking became her escape — a gentler space when the world of healthcare grew overwhelming.
What sets Jastiny’s Treats apart is her love for sophistication and artistic freedom. Shaye listens to her clients’ inspirations but brings her own style to every dessert. Weddings have become her favorite projects — being trusted to sweeten one of life’s most meaningful moments is a privilege she doesn’t take lightly.
Her daughter following her footsteps into nursing is a full-circle moment — proof that strength and service run in the family.
Resilience, Advocacy & Self-Trust
After a sudden medical episode in 2023, Shaye found herself not as a nurse — but as a patient. And the experience changed how she sees the system she has worked in for nearly two decades.
Advocating for herself became essential — and frustrating. She quickly learned that sometimes nurses must use their knowledge, voice, and persistence to receive the care they deserve.
She trusts her body and listens when something feels off. She also knows now more than ever that nurses deserve to be heard — as patients and professionals.
Mental Health, Solitude & Recharging
Shaye has been open about living with anxiety, especially social anxiety. But she continues to stretch herself — even attending networking events alone to build her business and confidence.
Her coping tools are simple and powerful:
- Quiet
- Music
- Rest
- Time at home
- Baking as therapy
Sometimes the best self-care is stepping back and choosing silence, softness, and stillness.
Her message to nurses and caregivers facing invisible battles:
Protect your peace unapologetically.
– Shaye larry, rn
Listening to your body and spirit is not selfish — it’s survival.
Life, Faith & What Grounds Her
Faith guides her through challenging chapters. When she doesn’t understand a season, she trusts that clarity will come later.
Her grounding forces? Music and her daughters. They remind her of who she is beyond her scrubs and her apron.
Shaye doesn’t claim to have every answer or legacy mapped out — and there is power in that honesty. She is still writing her story, and she is doing it with grace on her own terms.
Her advice to other nurses dreaming of business ownership?
“Try. You won’t know what’s possible until you take the first step.“
Taste Her Talent at Friendsgiving 2025
We are thrilled to welcome Shaye as one of our Friendsgiving Dessert Competition Judges! With her eye for detail and passion for beautiful desserts, she brings a level of artistry and taste we cannot wait to showcase.
Explore her work or place an order at:
👉 www.jastinytreats.com
Follow along on social — and prepare to vote for your favorite Friendsgiving desserts this fall!
Celebrating Shaye
Shaye’s story reminds us that healing doesn’t look the same for every nurse. Sometimes it looks like a quiet kitchen, a whisk, soft jazz, and choosing rest. Sometimes it looks like reinventing yourself while still honoring where you came from.
We are proud to feature a woman who cares deeply, creates beautifully, and protects her peace fiercely.
Here’s to Shaye — and all the nurses who are learning that evolution is a form of self-love.
Join The Lounge & Support Nurses Like Shaye
If Shaye’s journey inspired you — imagine a whole community of nurses like her.
At The Nurses Lounge of Central Arkansas, we connect, uplift, and celebrate nurses building lives, legacies, and passions both inside and beyond healthcare.
Join us for:
🌿 Supportive community
💼 Professional & entrepreneurial growth
🎉 Events like Friendsgiving & Nurses Week
💛 Nurse-owned business spotlights
🍰 And yes — delicious moments with leaders like Shaye
👉 Become part of The Lounge today:
https://loungenurse.com
Together, we don’t just survive nursing, we create lives worth celebrating alongside it.
Nurses helping eachother fight burnout in healthcare
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