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?
I remember when cartoons were only on Saturday mornings.
I remember when we only had 3 tv stations, and the remote control was...myself and my sister, lol.
I remember when my mom got her first microwave in the late 70's and it was huge.
I remember when we all wanted our hair to look like Farrah Fawcett, and spent a lot of time with curling irons
I remember when Dorothy Hamill won Olympic gold for figure skating, the wedge haircut was popular, and I bought "short and sassy" shampoo to try to make my wedge look just like Dorothy's.
I remember when we wore caps, white uniforms, white stockings, white shoes.
I remember when we recapped needles, the needle boxes were cardboard with a place to cut off the needle before putting it in the box.
I remember working in ICU and we mixed all of our own IV meds, put them in a buretrol and calculated the drip rate ourselves, and let it drip in without a pump.
I remember we added KCL to IV bags ourselves, then put the bright orange sticker on the bag.
I remember when the only time we used gloves was when it was a sterile procedure and then it was for the safety of the patient, not the staff. When we started IVs, we'd have blood run down our fingers, and in L&D when baby was born, you would have to scrub afterwards to get the vernix out from under your fingernails.
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?
Same for me with no cell phone.
No social media...that is the biggest I think. It keeps next door neighbors from ever learning each others names. Why leave the house when you can make friends on the internet.
No AC in a car (maybe we were just poor). It really makes me appreciate heated seats and Nav and satellite radio. I take ac for granted now.
Lived through being poor enough that I lived in govt. Funded apartments by a busy interstate as a kid to making roughly 6 figures a year. Know what? Money matters less than I dreamed after your bills are paid. Odd, that.
I lived through 9/11. That has reshaped our entire nation to the core in many ways.
Cable had 8 channels and there were no cell phones or personal computers when I was a kid. Answering machines with cassette tapes were the in thing.
I remember the summer that AIDS/HIV was first widely discussed in the media because nobody really knew what this was. And your President was Ronald Reagan.
I was an 80s kid; born four months after Reagan was sworn in, I remember Saturday morning cartoons; Sunday morning Kung-Fu on UHF; NWA wrestling and WWF was always confused with the animal WWF.
I had a rotary phone, a black &white TV, played records on Saturday afternoons and knew how to change "the needle" and have a picture of me with Michael Jackson's BAD for my seventh birthday.
I remember being able to make mixtapes with tapes; portable TVs and encyclopedias.
I remember gas being 88, then 98-99 cents.
I didn't know about the Internet until my sister went to college and my mom ended up getting a computer, and the dial up process with AOL.
I remember Trapper John MD, M.A.S.H., and St Elsewhere giving me an idea of what healthcare was all about; and then following a nurse in her whites when my sister was in the ER and sitting out side while she gave an intoxicated man a tetorifice shot in his "butt" (as she eloquently said for the lay person. ) with a REAL needle.
Funny story about my almost-13-yr-old daughter from some months back... I was programming an address into my GPS. I made the comment, "What did we ever do before navigators?" She said, "Yeah, you had to go on Google [for driving directions]!!"
Oh, and my 8-yr-old asked, "Mama, was there such thing as color TVs when you were a kid?" :roflmao:
I was living in Germany (quite West--about a 40-minute drive from the Belgian border) when the Berlin wall came down. :)
My favorite show was "Rescue 911," and it made me want to be a paramedic someday.
I was an Air Force kid, and on foreign soil we had a very limited lineup of kids' shows. I watched Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood after school; and Faerie Tale Theater, He-Man, Smurfs, and some other Hanna-Barbera cartoons on Saturday. We watched some family sitcoms back when they existed. And then, our relatives stateside taped all sorts of cartoons for us on VHS tapes. We got a kick out of all the commercials b/c the AFN didn't air commercials.
Speaking of VHS, my best friend in K-2nd grade had a Beta.
International phone calls were a very big deal; we talked to Grandma and Grandpa once or twice a year.
No internet access in my tiny rural town (post-Dad's-retirement.) I went to college in the fall of 1997 without knowing how to use it.
@ The Commuter...Unsolved Mysteries was my favorite show, as well! I really enjoyed the ghost stories, they were the best! For my ninth birthday, in 1987, I received what we kids called a "jam box." Janet Jackson's "Control" album and The Bangles "Walk Like an Egyptian" album were immensely popular. Big bangs and spiral perms were everywhere! I was in 4th grade when my mom took me to the salon for my first spiral perm. My first rock concert was in Detroit, MI in 1989...The New Kids On the Block! Who was your favorite New Kid?
Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.
My first rock concert was in Detroit, MI in 1989...The New Kids On the Block! Who was your favorite New Kid?
I was not into NKOTB at all, even though all my classmates were. Most of the girls in my 3rd to 5th grade classes had NKOTB-themed lunch boxes, thermoses, binders and stationary.
Back in the late 1980s I was into Janet Jackson, Bobby Brown, New Edition and Paula Abdul, to name a few. By the early 90s Mariah Carey was immensely popular, and I'm sure you remember the Vanilla Ice craze.
) with a REAL needle.
84RN
97 Posts
I graduated from college in 84, so.........
I remember when cartoons were only on Saturday mornings.
I remember when we only had 3 tv stations, and the remote control was...myself and my sister, lol.
I remember when my mom got her first microwave in the late 70's and it was huge.
I remember when we all wanted our hair to look like Farrah Fawcett, and spent a lot of time with curling irons
I remember when Dorothy Hamill won Olympic gold for figure skating, the wedge haircut was popular, and I bought "short and sassy" shampoo to try to make my wedge look just like Dorothy's.
I remember when we wore caps, white uniforms, white stockings, white shoes.
I remember when we recapped needles, the needle boxes were cardboard with a place to cut off the needle before putting it in the box.
I remember working in ICU and we mixed all of our own IV meds, put them in a buretrol and calculated the drip rate ourselves, and let it drip in without a pump.
I remember we added KCL to IV bags ourselves, then put the bright orange sticker on the bag.
I remember when the only time we used gloves was when it was a sterile procedure and then it was for the safety of the patient, not the staff. When we started IVs, we'd have blood run down our fingers, and in L&D when baby was born, you would have to scrub afterwards to get the vernix out from under your fingernails.