once upon a time

I graduated from the UT Center for Health Sciences/Memphis with a BS in Medical Technology. The year was 1977 and I began my career at a whopping 4.92/hr in my hometown hospital which was county owned at the time. I had accepted a position in microbiology at John Gaston hospital but abruptly changed plans when my boyfriend and I parted ways. Staying in Memphis was all about him, and he was out of the picture. I already had an apartment rented and a UHaul full before I backed out, tucked my tail and stayed home. And here I am still. To say that my world view is small is an understatement. Most of my reality has consisted of years upon years of watching the seasons change here on the farm. Not a bad way to live, ya know?

Most chemistry tests are based on change in color of specific reagents as read by a spectrophotometer. We had this giant monster of a chemistry analyzer that was cranked up once a day for a couple of runs. Everything at night was done "stat" meaning you had to boil the tubes in a water bath and then read the wavelength to calculate a BUN or creatinine. CBCs were run on an automated instrument with results printed out on a card that were then transferred BY HAND to a log book. We did EKGs and blood gasses but fortunately got a respiratory therapy department to take those on. I will never forget all the nights I spent on call there napping on my mother's donated couch. Later on we had a room with a mattress to sleep on but it wasn't much. That went on for the first ten years that I worked there until we added 2nd and 3rd shifts. I think we got maybe $5 for being on call and then an hour at time and a half for every callback. The good old days? No way.

Doctors who came to our town expecting big city service were surprised to find that we still did manual methods at night. One particularly feisty urologist make me CRY one weekend screaming about how he couldn't treat his patient unless I hurried up the process. Um. Right, dude. Doctors were treated like gods back then and got away with lots of verbal abuse of other healthcare providers. Now, there's a code of conduct that says it's a no/no. Hostile work environment! They mostly have names and accents that I can't understand so I just nod and smile now. Thank goodness we're not still getting blood by bus from Memphis.

People have come and gone over the years and we struggle at the lunch table remembering so and so's name and where they came from or went. My "wolfpack" is shrinking with every tech who heads for retirement while I hang in until Sugardaddy comes along. Heh. Never give up hope. Last night while I was hunched over the keyboard a hornet or something dive bombed the back of my neck and I screamed like a baby! Tobacco and ice took some of the pain out. *sigh*

Leaving room for the spirit to work ^j^