It boggles my mind that I have been in nursing for the last 50 years. I took a 4-month break during Covid to teach and take care of my grandchildren. Those 4 months proved to me that my choice of professions was indeed a wise one. I am not a teacher. Patton said it best at the end of my "teaching" time I don't want teacher Mimi anymore, I want the grandma Mimi back.
In my career I have managed to be at the right place at the right time. I was supposed to be a labor and delivery nurse. I scored the highest on my state boards in that section as I recall. They did not have a night position in L and D but did in the ICU/CCU department. I went there and in looking back I took care of patients for a week that now we would send home with a stent or two the same day. Their life expectancy much greater. I scored sufficiently high enough on my boards that I had reciprocity in all the states so when I fell in love I was able to move to Pensacola. I married my flight surgeon boyfriend, and my marriage lasted long enough to produce my son Joshua. When I first moved, I was placed on a med-surg floor at Baptist Hospital. I was HORRIBLE. I am not a med-surg nurse, so they moved me into the SICU. I really learned so much during that time and stayed until my son was born. I was facing the end of my marriage, was depressed and needed a change. Baptist was starting a Life Flight program which at the time was the third one in the nation behind Denver and Houston. I was still in the hospital (they kept us several days post-delivery) when I went down to interview with Georgia Satterfield. I don't remember much about it but remember having to sign something to release the hospital from liability if my uterus fell out on the helipad. They wanted to start us up right away. My mom came down to take care of Joshua until I could find a qualified sitter. I had my son on good Friday and went to work a week from the following Monday. I had no sick time and if I didn't work, we didn't eat. We learned to intubate, put in chest tubes, do a cricothyroidotomy using a device that looked like a giant fishhook (its name completely escapes me) We ran the inhouse code blues and could put a central line it without much difficulty. We had monthly advanced skills check list that had to be checked off or we didn't fly. We were told our nurses were part of the first 27 to 30 nonmilitary flight nurses in the country. I had so many experiences during my flight nurse time that I could probably write a book. I met Bob Hope and have the picture to prove it. I took extra time off to work as one of the nurses for Universal Studios during the filming of Jaws 2. The pay was incredible, and I was able to keep Joshua with me. They paid for a sitter at the hotel where I was set up to treat injuries. The only time he was not with me was when I had to go out on the barge for the water scenes. I met David Brown(producer and husband of Helen Gurley Brown, the editor in chief of Cosmo magazine) who offered me a full-time job out in California. I still am not sure why I turned it down but did not feel like I wanted my son raised in that environment.
Flying was losing its luster and after a time I became fearful. It was just Joshua and me. I hated leaving him each day and I felt that each time I went up or took a fixed wing transport somewhere that my odds became less and less for my safety. I met and married Stan in 1980 and he moved me to Tulsa, Oklahoma. I worked at Hillcrest Hospital in the Emergency Department, and it was an eye opener. I cannot express how much I learned during that time. I worked with an incredible group of doctors and nurses.... some I am still friends with to this day. I got pregnant in Tulsa with my daughter. Stan took a job in College Station, Texas and Rebekah was born at St. Joseph's Hospital where I was working, again back in the ICU. After she was born, I moved down the street to the Humana Hospital and took over their ED. I loved my time with Humana and lectured about Child abuse and molestation. I was led into that interest in Tulsa and was allowed to develop that interest by Humana. Stan had another job change and moved us to Carencro, Louisiana. I stayed in the emergency genre and would pick up parttime/prn jobs in areas that interested me like physical rehab and psych. For a short time I worked in Geri-psych full time instead of the ED. My final ER employment was in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana where I spent 23 years in a small community hospital. My time there was cut short by covid. My
abysmal ability to manage money proved to me that I still needed to work. So, in September 2020 I started interviewing figuring that no one in their right mind would hire a fat, geriatric nurse who fell down at least once a week. I was surprised at the number of places that seemed interested. My problem was I would finish my interview then go to my car and cry my eyes out. My last interview was at the Heart hospital. I didn't cry but I was scared to death. This was a completely new area for me. Maranda my new manager promised that they would help me. I was a basket case each day. I never felt so inadequate in my whole career. I was in a constant state of dumb ass for months but they never, ever gave up on me. I am in the CV short stay unit, and we have our day cases and those that we prepare for surgery. I work with incredible nurses and truthfully manage up my whole hospital without reservation. They put up with my quirky sense of humor and sarcasm, my constant questions (to this day) my long learning curve and have been able to mostly get the longstanding ER attitude out of my daily patient contacts. There will come a time when Maranda will have the difficult job to tell me that my time is up and that I need to retire. I joke about it but know that time will be here sooner than later. My honest goal is 80. I love my job, my patients and my hospital. I am praying that God will allow me that much more time. Staying home holds no interest to me. All I have ever been is a nurse. It's what I love. As it is now, I can close my eyes, and I am awash in memories. I remember India T. in Pensacola on the med/surg floor. She was young and beautiful, dying of cancer in a time when ovarian cancer was a no hope diagnosis. I held her hand and watched her die. I can still see the trauma patient in the SICU that had a lacerated liver. She lived for 3 months in my unit. It was a different time and what seems now like the medical dark ages. Her parents sent me a Christmas card each year till I moved, thanking me for loving their daughter. I can still see the mother of a young boy, hit by a car that we picked up on the helicopter. He was truthfully dead, and we were suctioning up what looked like lung tissue. His mother grabbed me by the shoulders and said YOU SAVE HIM he is my baby. We flew him in and I unloaded hot. The ER doctor looked at me like I was nuts when I screamed at him that we had to try that I had promised his mom. To his credit and because I was hysterical, he ran a 30-minute code. We moved his little body to a back room, and I escorted his mom to his bedside. I was openly weeping. and watched as she stroked his head and looked at me and asked What should I get a boy who is going to be 10? I have what seems like dozens of memories. Most will not be shared unless I have wine, and no one is recording what is being said. I am happy with the nurse that I have become in my twilight years. I am happy that I still have time to show compassion to those who are afraid. I am grateful that I have the ability to make my patients laugh and ease their visit. I am grateful that the staff that I work with now will likely be my final group of nurses. I cannot imagine working with a better group of people who place patient comfort and care as their top priority. These wonderful nurses had a party for me to celebrate my 50 years. I ugly cried for a few minutes. I am glad that nursing found me. I am glad that I have met people that changed me for the better. I am grateful for all my experiences of which only a partial accounting is in this blog. I believe that I serve God in what I do, and I am grateful.
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