I'm a 30-something, and havent experienced much more than the general membership here, I'm sure, but I get the most amazing "stop and think about this for a second...." moments when I consider how much our world has changed over the lives of us all.
For me - I've lived without a cell phone. I was in high school when people who had pagers were considered to be drug dealers. I grew up with Oregon Trail in my teens. Most people didn't have computers at home. The mountain I lived on didn't have cable TV, so we had only 3 channels. Our roads weren't paved, and Saturday afternoons were spent jumping into the river swinging off vines. Call waiting and caller ID were a really big deal, but we didn't get them because they cost more money.
My grandma tells me they didn't have wheelchairs. She was a nurse in her white cap and skirt and tights. She had an alcoholic, abusive husband at a time when that was shameful to even mention. My grandpa tells me no one on his street had a TV. It was a really big deal when someone got one, and everyone whispered about it.
My 90-something patient told me about how so much of healthcare took place at home because you really, really had to be messed up for mom to go get the horses and carriage ready to go to the doctor. She got in big trouble once when she broke her arm falling from a tree.
What have you lived through? What pieces of history stay with you?
Born in 1975, in Japan, within days of the Saigon airlift.
Watching Fraggle Rock on HBO, when HBO was a new concept. Getting our first VCR that had a pop-up slot for the tape. Movies on video tape costing $100, and having to put a credit card on file to rent them.
Being super jealous of the kid down the street who had an Atari, and then a Nintendo.
My parents getting divorced like SO MANY did in the 80s, and having to live through being that experimental generation where neither children nor fathers had any rights.
Seeing ET and Return of the Jedi in the theater. The Challenger explosion.
The revival of Disney in the early 90s with The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin.
The beginnings of the Internet and getting my first email address in college.
Getting married when the terms "husband" and "wife" were still allowed on marriage licenses. Getting in on the tail end of the VBAC surge before they became nearly impossible to have.
9/11, while my husband was overseas and having no idea whether I should fear more for myself and the kids stateside, or him. Eventually sending my husband to fight in one of the wars spawned by it.
Michael Jackson dying. The Boston Marathon bombing.
Malala winning the Nobel Peace Prize. I was trying to think of a happy one to end on....
I lived through one of the biggest TB outbreaks in the state as the sole designated TB case manager for that locality. Lived on permafrost. Hope that won't give away where I lived.
I remember working for an MD and one of the "jobbers" (pharm reps) came by monthly to give staff free Fastin tablets so we could stay thin. I think I have a leg now that weighs what my body did then.
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Lev, MSN, RN, NP
4 Articles; 2,805 Posts
Well...this is a multigenerational site isn't it?? :)