Nothing but mad respect for all healthcare professionals, but nurses in particular, seem to spend the most face time with patients whenever you are hospitalized.
I have been hospitalized more times than I care to count, so I know of whence I speak.
I have no doubts my love of nurses came from my stay as an unofficial pot dealer and alcohol-supplier for one of South Bend’s dozens of schools of nursing located in the city where Studebakers were once rolled out.
In return, I stayed there for a couple of months.
Nurses.
The trainees/students would hide me from their own version of Nurse Ratchett while I showered. They smuggled me in and out of the building and I kept them all supplied with pot.
Occasionally, like every Friday and Saturday night, the girls who didn’t have outside dates or didn’t care for South Bend’s non-existent bar/club scene would throw a party on the fourth floor which was considered off limits to the rectors and administrators.
They were OK with it because there were no men invited in for the events.
If they only knew.
I would inevitably end up with someone for the night and sometimes the entire weekend.
I didn’t feel dirty or cheap.
I felt blessed.
Not only did we party like maniacs, we figured out a way to circumvent the front desk by tying bedsheets together to climb down a few stories onto a large oak tree which the girls on the first few floors would use to avoid the watchdogs at the front desk for their own clandestine adventures.
I will say this about these nursing students: they played hard but worked and studied harder. They were always seen walking down hallways in pairs constantly quizzing each other on this or that procedure or medication.
I left when I got so drunk at one of our Friday night bashes that I passed out and, of all nights, they dorm decided to run a fire drill at 8:45pm. Evidently the girls tried to wake me to no avail, and the security boys found me passed out under a futon in the bedroom.
Not one of the girls claimed to have ever seen me before and my story was that I just came to this party and I must have had too much to drink before I even came over.
Nurse Ratchett looked me in the eye and I could tell that she wasn’t buying any of it.
But no one talked.
All they could do was ask me to vacate their building.
Nurses.
I was feeling like crap on one of my more recent stays in the hospital and I was chatting with a nurse who was super-hot as I think they should have all cardiac unit nurses be to keep old buzzards like me peppy. She was from the south and we got to talking and somehow or other we started talking about pictures and she shows me one of her in panties and garter from when she was stripping to pay for nursing school.
Ouch.
Nurses.
Stay well
