Starting the Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) program at Madison Area Technical College was almost like jumping in cold water head first. The only saving grace to the tough program was that I had taken some preparation classes by taking the Emergency Medical Technician, Lifeguard class, and Nursing Assistant class. They all have overlapping training skills. But, they were not in a full-time format. The LPN class was full-time. Also, the LPN program deferred to a format like medical school that brings all the students through the program together like a rabbit being digested by a python. Regular college allows for arbitrary class choices. The LPN program was a bit rigorous and rigid for an old guy like I was at the time. Also, I was the only male in the program. The program was to last three semesters.
In the first semester, after some basic nursing training, there was numerous hospital training clinicals - on site in various hospitals and clinics with live patients. It was basically, a nursing assistant program on steroids or nursing assistant times ten.
I have been asked once in a while since and certainly during the program, what it was like to work with so many women. Straight away, when you work with often very ill patients, I myself, and I suspect my classmates, lost site of gender within five minutes. It's hard to think about women classmates as chicks when your patient is on the precipice of any one of many bad condition outcomes - bleeding, dying, in great pain, crying, fading fast...
Late in the first semester of the program, there came a major setback. Poetically, I found myself landing in the hospital as a patient. I abruptly ended up in intensive care with a major heart malfunction. It would profoundly change my direction in life (
heart ordeal). Needless to say, I survived the episode, but it made me extremely fatigued for quite some time to come. The riggers of the pace of a nursing program was too much. I was totally knocked off base by how physically exhausting nursing is even in good health. I should have went to the welding program. You don't have to lift 350 pound patients in the middle of the night as a welder. And most iron products are not breakable like human medical patients.
Just prior to my episode, my mom had mentioned that my Best Man had died. I did not know he had been ill. Mom cut out the obituary for me. It was not so much that I had lost touch with my past; the past had left me behind. Jack had been a few years older than me and he had managerial and partnership status at the bus company I used to work for way back nearly 20 years prior. His death had been weighing on the back of my mind adding fuel to the realization we are after all...mortal.
After a brief mulling over of the heart situation, without skipping a beat - no pun intended - I requested a medical release from the nursing program; I then immediately plunged into regular college classes in the spring semester of 1997. Madison Area Technical College (MATC) offered university level and transferable classes. Some are virtually identical to the University of Wisconsin's classes. One economics class was actually taught by a UW-Madison professor who taught the same class up at the university - and the MATC class was a third of the cost.
In retrospect, it was fateful the heart setback happened early in my college career. It would rear its ugly head many times since and I adjusted my studies accordingly. And too, in retrospect, I suppose my life's experience allowed me to innovate and adapt without much effort or angst.
I remember saying to myself, "
Just keep moving on, man!"
There actually is some good in getting old.
Note: This blog "Jobs of Bob" Category does not list the jobs chronologically - I write about the experiences as they pop up in my memory and I often revisit an older job. Go to the Cooldadiomedia Web site and the Jobs of Bob Page for an ordered chronology.
Wisconsin Military Service Person Special Mention of the Week
(each week Cooldadiomedia mentions a Wisconsin service person killed in Iraq or Afghanistan)
Corporal Rachael Lorraine Hugo, 24, Madison, Wisconsin, died Friday, October 5, 2007 in Bayji, Iraq. She was killed when insurgents attacked her unit using an improvised explosive device and small arms fire. She was assigned to the 303rd Military Police Company, 97th Military Police Battalion, 89th Military Police Brigade, U.S. Army Reserve, out of Jackson, Michigan. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel noted as a medic, Hugo received commendation for saving a sergeant's life while under fire in Iraq in February of 2007. At the time of her own death she was killed trying help injured soldiers after they were hit by an improvised explosive device and came under small-arms fire in Bayji, north of Baghdad. She had been in Iraq close to a year and was due to return home in November 2007.
The Web site iraqnam.blogspot.com using information via WISC-TV-3, noted Hugo was a 2001 graduate from Madison East High School, she was serving as a combat medic with the U.S. Army Reserve in Iraq since September 2006. She was just weeks away from returning home. Hugo was studying to be a nurse and had been accepted at Viterbo College in La Crosse.
The Web site iraq.pigstye.net a data base for military casualties, noted via information from the Wisconsin State Journal that Rachael took classes working toward her bachelor's degree in nursing and also worked as a home health aide for the La Crosse County Health Department. As a certified home health aide she would visit homebound patients to help with daily health needs. Hugo also was employed by Meriter Hospital in Madison as a nursing assistant in the hospital 's mobile unit.
The Web site obits.nj.com a data base for obituaries noted via information from the Associated Press that Hugo was apparently treating another soldier when she herself was killed. The site mentioned Rachael had been a cheerleader during her high school years. During her military duties she was known for volunteering and going out on missions. She had two years of nursing school remaining.
The Wisconsin State Journal Web site mentioned Rachael also helped care for her grandmother during an illness. Hugo's rank posthumously was changed from Specialist to Corporal to acknowledge her role in combat.
Rachael's biography posted on the Gunderson Funeral Home Web site said she was born on May 13, 1983. She enjoyed learning karate, gymnastics and cheerleading, and also taking up a jazz dance class for several years. The site went on to mention she made the Dean's list in her nursing program. At the time of her death Rachael was survived by her father Kermit Hugo; he mother Ruth Hugo; brother Scott Hugo; and, grandmother Carol Hugo. Rachael Hugo was the 81st Wisconsin military service person to be killed in Iraq since the spring of 2003.
As of this blog entry's posting date:
99,357 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
9,825 Iraqi Security Forces have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
4,435 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
1460 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
318 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
841 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
32,126 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
10,082 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
103 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
27 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
145 journalists (several nationalities) have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
21 journalists (various nationalities) have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
Wisconsin military service person special mention of the week, military casualty, and journalist casualty information sources: Committee to Protect Journalists; cnn.com; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; washingtonpost.com; thehighground.org; Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs; iraqbodycount.org; www.defense.gov/news/casualty.pdf; and, icasualties.org.
