Today is my  Mom's  birthday. She graduated from St. Anthony's Hospital in Rockford, Illinois during the 1940's. She was a genuine coal shoveling nurse and liked to boast how quickly she could fire up the hospital boiler. As a child I remember encountering her blood splattered Red Cross nursing shoes one morning after her return from work. When she caught me with my eyes fixated on them she cheerily replied, "Don't worry my patient was really sick last night, but he is going to be fine."

I was also really impressed by the curved glass drinking straws she brought home from work. She explained that they were bent at the exact angle so someone could drink while in bed. I marveled at how nice it was for someone to help a sick person drink. That notion totally fascinated me as a child and when things got rough for me much later in life in the OR, that image of  a glass straw helping a sick person to drink always popped into my weary brain. Things were not so bad.

I remember her stories of caring for young polio patients in iron lungs. That really scared me to death and I remember her joy when the polio vaccine was developed. Although my mom had other options she worked decades at the bedside. I think that for her, hospitals were church and the patients bedside the alter. She was not keen on  Sky Gods, but I'm certain her spirit lives on in the many patients she helped over the years.

If not for my Mom, I would have probably become an auto mechanic (shop was my favorite high school subject.) Instead of looking down upon my Bovie burned finger, I would be gazing at scarred knuckles from slipped torque wrenches. Strange how things turn out!