Nursing in my 3rd year

I can't remember which order I did my last few placements, but I think it was ward A (female surgical), then ward R (mixed medical) and finally ward H which was children's. 
Ward A was great and I remember doing my C assessment, which was total patient care. I chose a lovely lady who had liver surgery and she was also blind and deaf, so I learnt how to do finger spelling on her own hand. 
Ward R was brilliant and I remember some funny moments, especially on night duty. I worked on R with a very good friend of mine from Rhodesia - well that's what it was called in those days! Once during there was one of those scary ward rounds where the medical students all stand around the beds and get questions fired at them by the consultants. I remember 2 particular medical students who both liked each other a lot, but neither of them let the other know about it. So my friend and I crawled under the patient's curtains and tied their shoe laces together, so when they tried to walk away from the patient, they fell into each other's arms. It was very romantic. The whole ward was laughing about it for ages. 
When I did night shifts on R, we had a very nice Night Sister who covered our ward. However there were a couple of moments when I discovered her rough edges. I was friends with the switchboard operator and she taught me how to pull the plugs out and put new ones in - we didn't have computers in those days. R was at one end of the hospital and switchboard was at the other end. The hospital was all on one floor and during the night I used to cycle from R to switchboard (via the canteen of course), but I usually managed to get away with cycling along the corridors in the night, except when I nearly knocked the Night Sister down. 
Ward R had some slightly confused elderly patients and one man was convinced that he had canaries on his curtain rails at about 2 am. So of course I had to get the ladder out and catch them. The Night Sister appeared and asked me what I was doing. I was very honest and told her that I was trying to catch canaries.

moving into my 3rd year as a student nurse

When I did my nurse training, we had an exam at the end of each year, to qualify us to move into the next year. The second year was a white belt and the third year was blue belt and white cuffs. I managed to fail my second year exams, but as my next placement was to be the operating theatres, it didn't matter too much to me, because no-one would notice that I was still in second year uniform. 
I spent 8 weeks in the Queen Mary's operating theatre, which was great fun and I learnt so much anatomy. However I have a lot of allergies and I was allergic to the J-cloth hats, the paper masks and the gloves (all gloves were latex in those days). After a couple of weeks, the rash on my face was so bad and my eyes were so swollen that I couldn't see, so I had to go off sick. 
The other big event that happened in theatres was a flood. Queen Mary's had a stream nearby and one day we had just started operating on a 4 year old's tonsils and all this muddy water appeared under our feet. It rapidly rose to the tops of the surgeon's boots! We finished the operation and then had to close theatres to clear the mess. We used the large portable suction machines to suck up all the muddy water until the fire brigade arrived. We then had to re-sterilise every instrument and put them away. 
I passed my second year resit exam and I'll tell you about my next placement soon

end of 2nd year nursing

My last placement in my second year was a ward for children with disabilities, which was brilliant. I can't think of any funny stories about this ward, but I do remember one of my friends who was working on female surgical, charging a redivac bottle. This was one of the old-fashioned glass bottles, which had rubber 'ears' that stood up when it was charged. My friend put the oxygen tubing into the bottle instead of the suction.... Apparently it took ages to clean up all the shattered glass! At least it was an empty bottle!
I also remember smuggling a hamster into the nurses' home. We weren't allowed pets, but somehow I managed to keep her and hid her away from the cleaner. Another student nurse decide she would buy a hamster too and we put them together in the cage to keep each other company, but neither of us realised that the other one was male. It was more difficult to hide 6 hamsters!

more nursing stories

My next ward was a mental health ward at Queen Mary's Roehampton. I didn't like this placement, and I thought ECT was horrible. That's all I'm going to say about it! 
I loved my next ward - it was ITU/CCU at Queen Mary's (for non-medical followers, ITU = Intensive Therapy Unit or Intensive Care and CCU = Coronary Care Unit. It was brilliant doing one-to-one care. We did have a cleaner who thought her hoover was more important than the ventilators and she sometimes 'pulled the plug'. I worked on Christmas Day on ITU. I was looking after a child who was unconscious after being very ill and she woke up to a massive pile of presents.

Some stories from my nursing training - maybe not for the squeamish!

I've got to my second year, which started with Maternity at Queen Mary's, Roehampton. Then specialist surgery, which was ENT and plastics, made more interesting because it was adults and children together. 
My most memorable was the elderly care ward, which was in St John's Battersea - a converted workhouse. We had to move in there, which was a bit dire. The nurses' home was literally crawling with bugs. I discovered that the cockroaches came out of hiding when it was dark, but scampered away if someone put the light on. I went in the kitchen one evening and managed to catch about 10 under a jar. I hung around and when the next student nurse walked in, she didn't realise I was in there, switched the light on and I carefully lifted the jar. I'm sure the patients could have heard her scream!!
The ward I worked on was short stay/acute admissions. Short stay was about a month! We had a lady who was 104 and she used to pretend she was dead by burying her face in her breakfast and slowing her breathing down. Her breakfast was bread and marmalade and porridge, which she used to mix together in one bowl. Her mum used to come and visit her, well, she told us the lady was her mother, but she was the housekeeper really. One morning, the patient told me she really was going to die that day and she asked me if I could keep her company. I told the ward Sister about the request and I was told that I should get on with the morning washes, but that would be fine, so I sat with the lady all morning and held her hand. We talked about past times and then she died. I felt so priviledged to be with her and honoured that she had asked me for company. We missed her a lot, but we knew she was happy and didn't die alone.  

Some stories from my nursing training - maybe not for the squeamish!

I started training as a nurse in 1980 after a struggle to achieve 5 'O' levels. On my first day, I had to learn how to make my hat, using a foot and 2 hands. It took some practice, but I managed eventually. I then did 8 weeks of introductory block, followed by my first ward, which was men's orthopaedics and thoracic at the Royal Masonic Hospital, Hammersmith. I loved the ward and the patients. My role as 1st year (or 'half belts') was to clean the sluice, polish the bedpans and do all the patients' observations. We were sometimes allowed to wash the patients and I even did a few dressings. I remember one man who had recently had thoracic surgery - he was smoking a pipe while I did his dressing! 
My second ward was surgical, followed by medical. I don't remember much about the surgical ward, but the medical ward was brilliant. My job on medical involved a lot of rectal washouts; that was fine until I forgot the bucket once. The cleaner was not happy with me at all! The food at the Royal Masonic was brilliant and the lovely ward Sister on medical always gave me longer breaks and often came with me, because she was amazed at how much I could eat (nothing's changed there). 
I'm pretty certain that was the end of my 1st year, oh yes, I forgot to say that we were paid a salary. I got £146 per month. I remember that well because it was the same as my room number in the nurses' home. 
We then did our 1st year exams and I passed and became a 'white belt', which looked great without our starched white aprons. 
2nd year was special surgery, care of the elderly (which was known as geriatrics then) and maternity. 
Some funny stories will follow shortly - watch this blog....