I had not always wanted to be a nurse - in fact my choice would have been to become a music teacher, but my parents, especially my Dad wasn't favourable to this, he really wanted me to be a nurse. I really can't recall how my mind came to be changed, but a year after high school graduation, I found myself entering the hallowed halls of the Misericordia School of nursing for the first time.
It was a scary prospect at first, but about a month into my first semester, I knew I had made the right choice, and I knew that I was totally in love with the hospital I had chosen as my school home.
I didn't live in residence as my parents lived nearby - but that didn't stop me from becoming involved with the school community or the constant hy-jinks of the live- in students. It was a blast, and for two years I lived and breathed medicine, nursing, cute young interns and doctors, as well as hard work, studying and the constant guidance of the sisters of the Grey Nuns who led us in our studies, and in our quest for fulfillment as young women and in particular, young nurses.
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| The class of 1976 |
I will forever be grateful for the training and guidance from these very special women.
Fast forward 35 yrs... I really can't believe it's been that many years since my nursing school days - In all those years I have only been in my Alma Mater a couple of times. Once when my mother was rushed there with a heart attack and once when I rushed there to see her pass from this life into the next, and then not for years and years - well 30 yrs to be exact when I rushed my husband to the emergency department for stitches after an accident at home.
On Monday when Gary had his eye surgery, I returned again, and this time I had some time to walk the halls and corridors of my youth, and I was saddened to find, that not much remains of the hospital I called home for over two years. You see, the hospital is not longer a "general hospital". Being relatively small compared to the other large facilities in the city, it has been changed from regular hospital to a facility of special needs.
The first being a holding area for geriatric patients waiting for nursing home placement. Wards where major surgery was performed, are now nursing-home type rooms.
It has also become the hospital of choice for all eye surgery in Manitoba, and in the next few years will undergo yet another major change when the oldest portion of the hospital (1800's) will be taken down and a new center will be developed all dedicated to the treatment of the eye. When it is completed it will be largest eye care centre in Western Canada.
My true Alma Mater is gone, but when I walk the corridors I can remember a different time, when it was a bustling center of learning, hope, love, and superior patient care. I count myself lucky to be one who knew a different Misericordia Hospital so many years ago, so many memories ago.
Roses red of graduation; Wearers purest white
Mercy angels our vocation, See the lamp we light.
Oh, we carry on the footsteps Vivat Alma Mater.
Singing always faithful vivat, Misericordia...
(taken from the Misericordia School Song)
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