joyful2beeblogs

Now, the nursing staff wears scrubs on all the floors because nurses sometimes get “pulled” to other units. With patients with highly contagious diseases or blood splatter like in the Emergency Department, white uniforms are highly impractical. The nurses caps, often called our “glory,” also went by the wayside because they often needed readjusting, which took away from bedside care time; they got caught on IV lines; and some caused thinning hair because of the bobby pins required to keep them in place.

The shoes are now good walking shoes and the color may vary, depending on the hospital. In nursing school, we had to keep our white leather shoes clean and polished. Now that too has gone by the wayside. Nursing shoes can be any good walking shoes of whatever color, depending on the hospital’s rules. Good quality shoes are recommended, considering all the walking staff members do in a hospital.

To check a patient’s temperature, now, depending on whether the hospital is up to date and can afford the more modern equipment, thermometers now can scan your forehead, check your temperature through your ear or ear lobe.

When I started nursing in Greenville, SC, in 1973, we used the butterfly needle to give fluids instead of the needle in the Teflon coated IV catheter. The butterfly needle with a tiny tube attached caused problems because sometimes they had to be placed in the vein in the crook of the arm. Also, the tubing or needle could clot off, and the patient would have to be stuck again.

The problem was if the patient was restless or confused, the patient could bend his arm and stop the flow of fluid until the IV clotted off. In which case they had to have an arm board on to keep their arm straight, so the short needle wouldn’t pierce the vein and/or the skin, causing fluid to leak into the site of their arm if the needle came out of the vein.

Thankfully, the “powers that be” decided the Angiocath or some kind of small vein sized catheter, became the “needle’ of choice. The good part about this is in the insertion of it, the needle was inside the catheter with just the needle tip inserting into the skin and then the vein. After the intravenous catheter was left and the needle removed, the intravenous fluids were attached, and the good supply of fluid that was ordered by the doctor, could be administered quickly if a patient was going into shock or badly dehydrated. Also, the catheter gave some degree of flexibility to the arm of the patient before the intravenous needle clotted off from a bent elbow.

When I started nurse’s training in 1969, the staff had just been taught about “milk leg” and why patient’s got clots in their legs after some surgeries, childbirth, or long-term inactivity.

After I could work on the floors as a student nurse, I was walking a patient. She had just had a cholecystectomy (removal of her gall bladder or gall stones) a few days earlier. I knew she needed to sit on the side of the bed and, what we called “dangle” her legs, to get the patient up a little at a time. Then she felt well enough we started to walk down the hall.

She was walking slowly but suddenly acted dizzy, I asked her, “Are you okay?”  She said, “Yes.” but suddenly fell backward. I called the head nurse, and we started cardiopulmonary resuscitation to no avail.

Because of the complete bed rest for several days post-operatively, her leg(s?) had probably released clots or part of a clot that had formed in her calf or calves. The clot, or a piece of it, had gone to her brain or heart and killed her almost instantly.

I felt terrible, even though I was doing what I had been told to do. After this experience, if I was walking with a patient , I would ask them often if they felt dizzy or weak. No one else ever fell or passed out or died while I walked them down the hall. But I never depended on how stable another patient was, based on their stating they were alright. I would check them with my eyes to observe their stability.

Another humorous incident occurred while I was on the obstetrics rotation of my training. My Care Study was in her twenties, and I believe this coming baby was her first child. I was observing the delivery as part of my education.

As the baby came out, I saw its little bottom coming out first. When he was cleaned off and held so the mother could see him, I noticed that his hips were bent at a 45 degree angle to his body. He was a breech baby, meaning he came out bottom first. No one seemed to worry so much about that as they were worried about the baby’s, what’s called, “loving cup” ears. The nurse and I were afraid the baby was deformed somehow. We both gave a sigh of relief when the tall, handsome father came to see his son, we smiled broadly. The baby had the same ears as his father had. Deep sighs of relief when we realized the baby was fine.

Nursing is a profession that is full of surprises, stress, humor, and joy.