Nursing in the 70s Part 3 - A Shave Sir?

'Have you had a shave yet?' asked the cheerful chap hovering over my bed. 'Yesh thanks I think I had one yish morning' I slurred. still feeling stoned out of my head after yet another injection.

'I'm sure it wasnt nipple to knee though was it, sir? smiled my barber friend. This completed the truly surreal situation my brain was trying to make sense of. I was dressed in what seemed to be a white shroud, with some kind of hat and white thigh length stockings. People had drifted in and out of my awareness but I had no sense of time 'That's the pre-med, don't worry' someone told me. I wasnt worried, I was too spaced out to care. From here on in I really don't remember a thing. I woke up in the ward the next morning with a large dressing on the lower part of my right abdomen. Not only was I an appendix short I also had no pubic hair. It hadn't all been a dream then.

In those days post op patients tended to be in hospital a lot longer than today. Post op appendicectomy patients were usually kept in about 7 days. Alfriston ward was a general surgical ward with about 20 beds. One of the 2 consultants specialised in genito -urinary surgery so many of the patients sported urinary drainage bags which they carried around like handbags. I'd vaguely heard of the prostate gland but never realised how much trouble it could cause if it swelled up. I'd never seen so many men interested in each other's urine. Groups would sit in the day room and discuss the colour, volume and yesterdays output. I assumed there was so much time to kill it got you like that.

The ward was staffed by a mixture of trained and untrained nurses with nursing auxillaries providing much of the backbone. I suspect my 'barber' friend was one of the latter.

These were the days of caps aprons and cloaks. It was easy to tell who was who. Sisters wore blue dresses, staff nurses wore a pink check and enrolled nurses wore green. They all wore aprons which could be changed each day. Students wore white with coloured belts to denote the year. Male students wore a dentist style uniform. (more about this horror later). I hadn't really thought much about male nurses up until that time. I'd heard some of the old jokes but nursing appeared to be a good career option wether you were male or female.

I got on pretty well with the student nurses who were working on Alfriston at that time. Maybe it was because I was probably the youngest patient on the ward or that I didn't have a urine bag to check. After a few days I was allowed to walk about and even help with the evening drinks. This honour was only bequeathed to those patients who were fit enough to push the drinks trolly and have a steady hand. 'Tea, coffee, Horlicks, Bovril?' Some patients couldn't use a regular cup and needed one with a spout. Others needed help with drinking and it struck me how illness effects even the very the basic things in life. Even the simple pleasure of drinking a nice cup of tea. Mostly though it was witnessing for the first time how courageous people can be when facing overwhelming odds. This was something I would see many times over the next 30 years.

As soon as I had mastered the drinks round I was deemed cured and ready to be discharged.

Part 4