ADVENTURES IN NURSING

FIRST YEAR HIGHLIGHTS

After B and I got over our initial nervousness at being students again, we began to settle into a routine.  We would study on our own and quiz each other before class each day.  She was such a big help for me when there were things I just didn’t get.  I like to think vice versa was true for her.  In any case, my grades began to improve but, damn it all to hell, B’s quiz and test grades were ALWAYS a few points higher than mine.  Being 12 years older than she, I blamed it on old age and having more stuff to remember.  Her opinion of my opinion?  “Whatever!”

One of the best things about our first year was getting to know some of our classmates.  After the students who weren’t really serious about nursing were weeded out, we became an especially cohesive group.  Some of the teenagers even became friends with the old folk.  It was a real case of, “We’re all in this together!”  Besides the brother/sister duo, there were two or three other cases of best friends who entered the program together.  Even our instructors commented on how unusual that was. 

My fondest memory from our first year would have to be our capping ceremony.  It occurred later in the school year, right before our first nursing home clinical day.  We were required to pay $8 each for our nursing caps, which were part of our official uniform.  Attendance at the ceremony was mandatory.  B and I did not attend.  Allow me to explain.

B and I had long discussions on the subject.  I personally had always detested nursing caps, and saw no good earthly reason for their existence.  There was also the sad fact that I had very fine hair that wouldn’t even hold a barrette, let alone a cap that had to be pinned on.  Besides that, it was just one more surface to harbor germs, as far as I was concerned.  Oh, yeah, and I don’t look good in hats!

For these reasons, B and I decided not to buy the caps and to ditch the capping ceremony, even though it was considered a sacred rite of passage for a nursing student.  Bah, humbug, I say!  I was “morally opposed” to wearing a nursing cap and I wanted no part of it or the ceremony.  As I’ve mentioned before, we paid for this escapade for the rest of the program, having points taken off our grades each clinical day.  Needless to say, the Mrs. Bs were silently disapproving of our shenanigans.

Well, on our first clinical day, the classmates in our group made it perfectly clear to us how they felt about the whole thing.  They presented each of us with a urine “hat” – you know, the white plastic container you hang in the toilet to capture someone’s urine – as our own personal nursing cap.  They even had our names on them.  Isn’t that precious? 

At their insistence, we had to wear them that first day until our clinical instructor entered the room, to ensure that she would know right away who the rebels in the class were.  They all had jolly good fun ridiculing us, which made B and I sit a tad lower on our high horses.  Everyone’s a freakin’ comedian!