I am sure many of you heard of the snow the northeast received this past week....it hit a record according to the National Weather service...Snow blizzards are of no feat to nurses. Being a nurse is being like the mailman...you must get to your job no matter what it is like outside. This weeks blizzard was like any other blizzard during my 30 years of nursing.
I can remember the first blizzard I attempted to get to work. I was living 20 miles from work.... the snowfall started throughout the night. I woke up extra early to make my way to work..Oh I forgot to mention...I was 6 months pregnant. This was during the winter of 1982. Probably one of the snow storms that was also record high ...I didn't have a 4 wheeldrive..I am not even sure they made them back then. I had a Chevy Nova....I drove with my face up against the windshield and my wipers going at fast mode...I could hardly see. I was creeping along slow as a snail...Most of my ride was flat rode....but then the dreaded hill came...I couldn't even start up the hill....I slid off to the side of the rode and got stuck...now picture this....615 in the morning ..still snowing fiercely....dark out and I am 6 months pregnant...I get out of my car and hike to the nearest house 1/4 mile down the road...knocked on the door and asked them to use their phone...Oh yes remember 1982...no cell phones...The lady who answered the door of course let me in ..first of all who would let a 6 month pregnant women stay out in a blizzard....My first call was to my husband who was probably was still sleeping(by the way we got divorced shorthly thereafter)...the second call was to work to tell them I would be late.
After I made my calls..I thanked the nice lady for letting me use her phone and trucked back in the knee high snow back to my stranded car. I sat in the car with the engine running for only 5minutes before a nice man with a pickup came along and asked if I needed help....No I just like to sit on the side of the road 630 am in a blizzard...Of course I need help...he hooked a chain to my car and pulled me out of the snow...by that time my husband arrived in his Pinto...( I am sure if this man didn't come along my husband would not have been able to get my car out). My husband followed me to work to make sure I got there ok....all along yelling out of his window to pump my brakes down the dreaded hill that I got stuck on. I was grateful when I got to work....I worked all day..by then the snow had stopped and I stayed at my parents house that evening ( they lived 5 min from the hospital) I was not going to attempt to go home that evening after my morning commute.
The next storm was the 1983 another blizzard....I was working 3-11 on a Friday when the storm hit...It was snowing when I went to work...I did make it to work this time...plus I was working at a different hospital that was only across town from where I was living. During the whole shift we all knew that we weren't going to go home ..not because we couldn't drive home...the nursing supervisor wouldn't let us go home because no one from 11-7 could make it in...so we had to decide amongst us who was going to sleep and who was going to continue to work 11-7...I volunteered to continue to work...only because work promised us that if we work...maintenance crew would drive us home...the was the key...so I worked like a zombie...was up for 24 hours and got a ride home with the maintenance man in his truck..oh and I didn't have to come in the next evening for my scheduled shift...another xtra bonus.
I think there were a couple other snowstorms between now and then....and every snow storm I made it... in even the blizzard of 1996... I wasn't a staff nurse then...I was a nurse educator. ...but because I made it in the Monday after that blizzard...the nursing supervisors put me on the floor to work because they were too short staffed...ugggh.
So I don't even give if it a second thought about snow anymore...I get up put my snow gear on, make sure I have my emergency car kit, shovel, blanket,bring xtra change of clothes and xtra food. and head to work....Oh and I drive a 4 wheel drive and have a cell phone now...
