I've been a nurse since.....(fill in the blank)

[meanmaryjean]

I was admitting a patient the other night into the PICU, and the parents were VERY anxious. Rightfully so. Our attending, in an effort to make them more at ease, said, "Meanmaryjean has been a nurse for over thirty years and is our most experienced nurse!"

As is sometimes the case, I discovered that I have been a nurse longer than the parents have been alive. But it got me thinking, so I offer up this thread for you 'more experienced' nurses (and those who aren't if you want).

I'll start off by saying:

I've been a nurse since before there was an internet. Before AIDS. Before Elvis died.

How 'bout you?

[canoehead, BSN, RN]

I've been a nurse since before computers, before IV pumps, and we still had smoking rooms for patients, right next to the nurses' station.

[NickiLaughs, ADN, BSN, RN]

LVN since before hurricane Katrina (march 2005) and RN since 2009. My ultimate goal is to participate in the crust old bat society, but I have a long way to go. Still trying to get out of the job hopping phase.

[Cheyenne RN,BSHS]

I remember the first movie Elvis ever made (Love Me Tender). Etch-a-sketches, slinkys, and the modern creation of Barbie dolls who had bendable knees (wow, so life like- they could sit AND bend their knees). I remember the first talking baby doll Chatty Cathy, or was it Miss Beasley? I know I only got the Barbie doll. My favorite cartoon was an old black and white Crusader Rabbit that came on the one tiny TV we had on the only station we could get. Michael Jackson was a little kid like me and I had the Jackson 5 records with the extra plastic piece you could put in the middle of the 45’s so they would fit the turn table of the record player.

Phones were modern if you… a) didn’t have a party line and b) had a really long cord so you could talk while you laid on the floor whispering and giggling. After I got older I decided to be a nurse. And.

Nursing has changed……oh my…..in 30 years of nursing it was before gloves, before AIDS, and before computers. One RN would cover the entire hospital and did all the IVs and the blood, opened all the charts, and made rounds with the doctors. You also covered the ER and the ICU and signed behind the LPNs. Nursing assistants worked the newborn nursery and stayed with the ICU/ED/and laboring patients if the nurse needed a break.

Blood pressure machines were heavy old rolling sphygmomanometers and thermometers had mercury in them and we would play with the mercury when we would drop one. Abdominal binders and Montgomery strips held many an abdominal wound closed. We mixed our own ICU drips in glass IV bottles and calculated the drips twice to be right. We also set up the vents and gave our own respiratory treatments because respiratory did not work anything but day shift.

Heat lamps were good for new mothers after their episiotomy, sitz baths made your bumm feel better, and maalox & methiolate (pink in color) and sometimes mixed with sugar was what you put on bedsores! GI bleeding was handled with strong tea enemas (for the tannic acid in them I think). Your uniforms were crisp white dresses, old cloggy shoes that laced up, and caps. And you had better wear your cap. I have been nursing since......Oh my, I do feel old!

[JBudd, MSN]

I still have my Chatty Cathy!

[Cheyenne RN,BSHS]

I should have used the persons quote. They were saying they have been a nurse since their second favorite ice skating pair won the Olympics I think and so I was asking who their first favorite couple was.