Cameras, new IV pumps.

I got the link for this video from the Technique (college yearbook) email listserve. I know I’m old-ish, but every once in a while, it really hits you how much time has passed and how much has changed. When I was in college, a big part of my life were my cameras. I took photos on black and white film, I developed the rolls myself in darkrooms, and then I printed photos on paper waving little lollypop wands to underexpose certain areas (dodging) or cardstock with little holes cut out to overexpose other areas (burning). I might have fallen in love with and kissed a few men in darkrooms (usually not at the same time – neither the few men nor the love/kissing), argued with friends over which CD to listen to over the sound system (I was partial to Annie Lennox, Natalie Merchant and the Indigo Girls) and eaten many egg salad sandwiches surrounded by people arguing which camera/film was better/worse. I’ve heard the shutter sounds of many of these cameras in real life. I’ve used a bunch of these cameras in real life. I can’t believe these were all in use in the 1990s. I used to be good at photos and think about composition and lighting and angles, but these days, I just take snapshots. Lots of people take lots of good photos now, I just want my quiet, soundless snapshots. I see more clearly how different my life is than Vince’s. I think it’s the same, but it’s not really. Any advice I give him probably is outdated too. The advice on love, though, stays the same, right? Maybe. Maybe not, what do I know about falling in love online or with text or social media? I know nothing about those things. Do I know what a young woman wants these days? I have no idea. Vince sometimes asks what it was like without smartphones. How did you make plans? How did you find a person’s house? How did you know if school was closed on a snow day? Honestly, a lot of times, I just didn’t know. As an immigrant kid, there were lots of things I saw and I just didn’t understand. I would go into another kid’s house for a sleepover and marvel at the “American-ness” of it all. Sloppy joes for dinner, an indoor cat, air conditioning, going to church. All weirdness and unresearchable and unseeable except for that moment. I didn’t even know they were called sloppy joes until years and years later because I didn’t want to ask and how could I find out? I just couldn’t. I also didn’t understand a lot of what my parents did as well! What’s the deal with plastic wrapping things? Or slippers in the house? Youtube and Netflix comedy specials are helpful with all these things.

I went last night to a training at the hospital. They are throwing away all the old IV pumps and giving us all new IV pumps with new tubing. This training was held in the outdoor tent/temporary structure they had used last year to triage covid patients that were overflowing the ED. Now it’s used for IV pump training. These new IV pumps are connected to the internet, so it can download new programming changes automatically. The old IV pumps are not and so when pharmacy wanted to change drug dosing parameters, they had to hunt down all the pumps floating all over the hospital and put little blue/red/green stickers indicating they were “updated”. (The IV pumps, when programmed correctly, help you not overdose a patient by giving you guardrails (both hard and soft) because it’s suppose to know what you are running into the patient). I was planning on quitting my nursing job in March of next year, but I’m not sure I can. My last shift (which was really difficult and challenging), I got a hug from my manager, I got a hug from my charge nurse, my tech and I walked arm in arm down the hallway to help a patient out, the night shift nurse and I leaned against each other during report, I hugged the night charge nurse as I was heading home. I don’t think I can get another job in which I can get this kind of support. I never, in ten thousand years, would have anticipated that I would want a work environment in which I felt this way.