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?
Specializes in Emergency/Trauma/Critical Care Nursing.
I lived through falling on a glass milk bottle and breaking it with my right elbow (three stitches);
I lived through jumping into a lake and landing with my right knee on a broken glass coke bottle ( butterfly stitches per my mom the RN, doc out of town at the time);
I lived through falling down a 14-steps staircase...three times over the years;
I lived through getting bit by a Burmese python on the right hand;
I lived through being bit twice through the left thumbnail by a skunk. Treated by the Vet with Lugol's solutuon, no infection + very quick healing;
I lived through getting bit by a lizard on the heel of my right hand;
I lived through several car accidents....once in a car that flipped onto it's roof , no injuries (a corvair, no less!);
Being t-boned by a van, no injuries;
I lived through an accident while sitting in a cab on my way home, and a car came barreling through a blind corner/redlight...t-boned us and sent us through a plate-glass drugstore window, no injuries;
I lived through 4 months with severe mono;
I lived through breaking the crap out of my left ankle, slipped on a dewy, grassy hill and landed on my ankle, had a trimalleolar repair and a torn tendon bundle repair.
I lived through 8 solid hours of retching r/t Morphine drip after that surgery.
I lived through ten to twelve years of The Menopause Fom Hell;
I lived through an emotional breakdown; treated in 2 & 1/2 week outpatient clinic, with follow-up care with visits to a psychologist, over several years and later follow-up care for relapse.
I lived through someone who thought was my best friend trying (ineptly) to blackmail me to break up me and my then boyfriend, now my husband of 25 years.
I've lived through 40+ years as an LPN.
I continue to live.
I can only imagine your insurance deductibles! Lol.
Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.
joanna73--
Do you remember sitting in a restaurant, waiting and waiting for the waitress (not 'wait-person') to bring your food; and the surest way to get your food to arrive was to light a cigarette? Like it was a law of the universe or something!
What was up with CD players in car trunks? Was that random car models, or was that really a "thing"?
that was really a 'thing'. I think it was because CDs were new and if you wanted to put on in your car you had to put it in the trunk b/c there was no where or way to put it in the dash like they are now.
My instructor told me she remembers when patients were allowed to smoke in their rooms.
I remember that and I'm only 45. I remember moms being able to smoke in their rooms on the maternity floor (my best friend had her baby in 1987 and she could smoke in her room. she didn't, but she could have)..but only the mom, dad and visitors had to smoke in the waiting room area on the floor.
I was born in 1970. I remember 8-track tapes that were played on a huge stereo with a record player. We listened to Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and the Bee Gees. I remember Sesame Street in the mornings and Little House on the Prarie at night. Cartoons were on Saturday morning. Loonie Tunes, galore. Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn, and of course, and Road Runner. I loved Schoolhouse Rock and American Bandstand. My dad took me to the library every week and I would take home so many books I could barely hold them all. I remember getting an Atari and the advent of cable television. Prior to cable, we had three channels. I was in elementary school when Ronald Reagan and John Lennon were shot. When VCRs first came out, no one was buying them because they were expensive; if one wanted to watch a movie on the VCR, one could rent one at the video rental store, VHS or Beta. I could go in the store as a child and buy cigarettes, if I so desired; I was sent into the store, on occasion, to purchase cigarettes for one or both of my parents. It seemed that the whole world smoked. I remember that when I went to kindergarten, we would pray everyday before lunch; when I started first grade, no one was allowed to pray because it was declared unconstitutional. I remember going out to play with my friends; we would ride our bicycles all day, stopping to replenish ourselves with cold water from the hose. I remember the Berlin Wall and the Gulf War. I remember Jimmy Carter and the hostages in Iran, long gas lines, and all the grown ups talking about money and inflation and where was the world going to anyway? I know exactly where I was and what I was doing on 9/11. I remember Sunday School and how everyone knew the lesson or you would be in trouble; the Sunday School teacher would tell your parents, grandparents, or the world in general. If you got in trouble at school or church, you were in trouble at home. I remember picnics, huge booster shots, pencils with lead, and doing citations by hand.
There was the 1964ish NYC World's Fair that all grammar school kids within bus tour distance attended.
All the 1960's big fanfare about the Beatles and which Beatle was the 'dreamiest'. I liked Ringo. My Mom bought me their first album when LPs were in mono (not stereo).
Then there was the big fad with CB radios and chatting with truckers as you drove along the highway. And everybody had a 'handle'. There were the 'road games' that kids played on long auto trips - counting red cars or VWs, spying out-of-state car license plates.
The movie, Jaws, came out in 1975. That was forty, yes 40 years ago! Watched it again the other night.
"Blue' movies were the Media films of the 50's & 60's.
And STOCKINGS. Not pantyhose. Stockings were secured to garter belts (or girdles) with those funny little clips that would dig & cut into your posterior/lateral thighs when you sat on hard surfaces. And there was the time when stockings were SEAMED. I still think SEAMED stockings are THE sexiest!!
'Frederick's of Hollywood' advertised in all the magazines. As a kid, I could never figured out why chubby women all didn't buy their clothes from 'Frederick's' to make them all so sexy and slimmer!
Christy1019, ASN, RN
879 Posts
I can only imagine your insurance deductibles! Lol.