I Have Stories

As student nurses – we went through a lot of training before they actually let us near humans.

One of the scariest parts of training was to demonstrate your technique (or skill) at performing a task in front of your instructor. In our case, the usual clinical instructors delegated this task to Miss Neill.

Miss Neill was a robust nurse of about 60 something years, with a extremely healthy eyesight and a bad back. Since she could not work at clinical and was not ready to hang up her cap, she taught end of year Freshman Nursing Students in tight classes of 6. These classes were done by random picks per class, so that no one got too comfortable.

On this particular afternoon- we learned how to draw up fluid into a syringe. We did not get our own syringes until we could demonstrate that we could follow Miss Neill’s instructions on how much saline we has to pull into the syringe on the absolutely correct line.

When I say her eyes were good…. they were miraculous. She instantly could see across the long metal table and felt free to shout out the name of any hapless girl who had made a mistake. It was sweat inducing, as I was often that girl until I figured out things out. It took me awhile, I will admit.

We had to turn in our syringes and bottles at the end of each class. Miss Neill would then show up with a different sized needle, different type of syringe and make us repeat the process until she was comfortable.

Things quickly turned uncomfortable when she thought the 6 girls assembled that Thursday were ready to “perform injections”. She told us we could pick a partner and practice on their arm… .but 1st we needed to learn how.

She gave each one of us an orange -she said they were the most representative of a person’s buttocks ( Our real world intended target), tough on the outside and soft once you got in. I know it sounds strange, but it was the truth. We each swabbed an orange with an alcohol wipe and alternately were too gentle and it bounced off- or too hard( in a frightening way). Miss Neill strolled around and snatched oranges and demonstrated one on one.

By end of class – she passed us all and we were then at the mercy of our clinical instructors. Thanks to some brave patients, we got through our 1st live people. It became a very natural and easy process, since back in the day, pre-op medications were always given in a set of 2 or 3 injections and the patients came in the night before surgery. Student nurses came in handy on the busy days.

Fast forward to my nursing career, which went from bedside, to Recovery Room, to Clinical Research Center, to Visiting Nurse. At this point, I was a busy mom and working part-time for a Home Care Agency. It was a lot like frontier nursing, since you were on your own, no phone, no tablet. Just your car and a blue zip up nursing bag.

One day I came to the office to get my assignment and saw that we had a quick training scheduled on the newest suture removal technique for staples. ( They were just starting to be used on a widespread basis and most patients had to go back to the surgeon to have them removed, once healed enough).

Soon disposable suture removal kits were developed and nurses in clinics and offices were routinely performing this task. The day had come where visiting nurses were receiving Dr.’s orders to do the same thing at a patient’s home.

Guess what? The orange was back! But this time it had staples implanted .

We each got a chance to try removal a couple of times and it went very well and seemed fast and effective. We all got passed off and one of the veteran nurses went out and did a removal the next day. They became pretty common as the weeks went by.

One day, I got my 1st case. The assignment said remove scalp staples on a 22 yr old man. I visualized a back of the head wound and felt ok about it……. until I didn’t.

When I got to the patient’s house, he was home alone and opened the door for me. I looked at him and my heart started to race. He had a line of staples about 6 inches long that started above his left eye and extended to the middle of the back of his head( I was right about that part, at least).

He said ” I am scared about this. It won’t hurt, will it?”

Thankfully, he just assumed I had done this before. Now it was my job to make him comfortable and relaxed, by putting on my big nurse pants, and doing it. He asked that I do it right away before he got too nervous. He seemed fairly healthy and I just asked quick safety questions on his health and unpacked my supplies.

I suggested starting back to front- do he could get used to the feel of it before I got near his eye. He agreed and once I washed up and washed his head, patted it dry and started. He exclaimed. “Wow, this doesn’t hurt a bit” . He was feeling braver, and that made me feel the same way.

Although his head was nothing like an orange- it was only the staple- pulled off above the skin line- that mattered. I was quick, but started to get nervous as I began on his forehead.

I told him I would change my gloves as I got closer to his eye and he liked that. I came back and this time started right at eye level with a new remover and got it out of the way.

At the end of it all, he said thank you and we both sat down at his kitchen table. I accepted a glass of water, as I could see he needed one as badly as I did.

He had been driving a dirt bike with no helmet and said he learned his lesson. He was happy to talk to someone, as his days of recovery were long and boring.

That was part of the job, as well. Making someone feel like they mattered.

He did to me, as I remember him 30 + years later.