My backpack now sits in the corner of my room, stethoscope, thermometer, blank nurses notes for multiple agencies that my agency did cases for. Time slips....don't need them anymore. Pens.....I always was running them out of ink because we still used narrative notes for the most part. A clipboard.....needed it to write on, couch arms don't work. Hair ties... never could find any to put little girls hair up for school. A few magazines....was always going to read them. Hand lotion, hand sanitizer, a comb for my hair, emery boards, for my nails, if I broke one. A little journal for when I got stressed, and it was better to write it than say it. My name tag. Gloves in a sealed plastic bag, because the box was too big. My nurses scissors from February of 1979....kept them all these years, a memory mostly from when it all started. My first initial and my last name engraved by a fellow classmates husband so we could identify them if we misplaced them. Band-aids....no one ever had band-aids, and siblings needed them sometimes too, for booboos
35 years? 35 years ago, February of 1979, I put on my "school clothes", got pens, pencils, notebooks, and paper, kissed my kid, and then hubby, and went to nursing school. I was scared to death, never was a very good student in high school, and my father's comment still echoing in my mind.
"Why do you want to do that, you'll never finish and you'll just have to pay back all that money."
My student loan was for $1200, that covered everything. As I sat at my desk that first day, I wondered if what dad said was true. New faces, some inviting, some not so friendly. But that day I decided I was going to prove dad wrong.
The weeks went by, and at the end of our first 10 weeks, my average was 74.75. I got to stay in school by one half of a point, because if it had been .25, I would have been gone. I studied so hard, forgoing visits with friends and family to sit at my kitchen table and study. We had a month off in July, and then it was back to school. Things got easier; it was half over and I was still there.
All of a sudden it was over. I was graduating, I really was going to be a nurse! Graduation, we got our diplomas and then they were giving out awards. My most dreaded clinical instructor goes to the podium and starts talking about the "Most Improved Student" award, telling how this person had worked very hard, in clinical and classes, on and on, yadda,yadda. I just wanted to leave and go to my party my parents were giving me. Much to my surprise, I got the award. My average was now about a 90.
When we got to my party, I walked over to my dad and handed him my diploma, and said this is for you. He looked at me puzzled. I said, you told me I'd never finish, and every time I thought about giving up, I remembered what you said to me, so then I would work harder.
I passed my state boards as they called them then, with no problems. I finally could sign, LPN, after my name!
The years went by, I worked at nursing homes, a hospital, all kinds of places. About 1985 or 1986, I went to work for what we call here, a home care agency, to do shifts as an LPN. And that is when I had to buy a backpack. I did a few adult cases, but my dream had always been peds, and I did peds exclusively after I had been there a short while. I learned lots trachs, suctioning, feeding tubes, feeding pumps, apnea monitors, and my scariest, a vent. Me and my backpack traveled together all over my area.
But now I am retiring, and my backpack sits in the corner untouched, because I don't have the heart to empty it out yet. God Bless, and if you do peds home care, don't forget your, BACKPACK!
