By Kristin Rothwell, NurseZone feature writer
Updated 7/17/02
Making the rounds at Waterman Village in Eustis, Florida, a small retirement
community northwest of Orlando, 77-year-old Rita Morrill continues to practice
what she loves: caring for people.
Morrill, RN, who is on her second day volunteering at a local sub-acute
facility, finds joy in caring for older adult patients who require looking
after.
One of the patients she visits is known among most of the floor’s hospital
staff and patients for expressing herself with "yes" and
"no" answers.
But this particular day is different.
When Morrill, who is a new face to the older woman, begins telling stories
about her life, her family and her experiences as a pediatric nurse, the patient
immediately perks up. She, too, had been a pediatric nurse.
When it came time for Morrill to visit with other patients, the woman, eager
to hear more stories, said, "I’m in room 115."
"She wants a resurgence of memories," said Morrill, who is glad to
have a gift for chatter and the ability to engage even the quietest of people in
conversation.
Outside in a recreation-style room, several patients are sitting around, some
nodding off and on while others sleep contently.
As Morrill passes through the room, one man takes notice of her, lightly
grasps her hand when she approaches him and begins singing "Humpty Dumpty."
Morrill can’t help but join in.
"These are just children who have aged," she said. "I feel a
part of them."
She added, "Who knows? I may be a geriatric nurse after all."
Morrill was born in 1924. It was the year women in the United States were
guaranteed the right to vote in federal elections for the first time, crossword
puzzles were the latest craze, the Marx Brothers took New York City by storm
with their comedy act and Ford produced its 10 millionth Model T.
Growing up in Homestead, Florida, south of Miami, Morrill took her first
nursing position at St. Vincent’s Naval Station in Jacksonville, Florida, in
1945 at age 21.
World War II was coming to an end. Morrill’s nursing career was just
beginning.
Since most of the nurses at St. Vincent’s had gone off to serve with the
medical teams in the war, very few nurses were available to show Morrill the
ropes.
With little formal training, she said, "You just did it. It was
primitive nursing. It was great nursing. Penicillin had just been invented. I
don’t remember a lot of paperwork or charting, you just did it."
Morrill joined the Cadet Corps after borrowing $300 from her local women’s
club, to receive more nurse training and was rewarded by the government with
money to pay back her loan and a soft gray wool uniform ornamented with a
scarlet collar.
Though she and her friends couldn’t wear the stunning uniforms due to the
heat and humidity in Jacksonville, Florida, they attracted much attention while
wearing them during a visit to Washington, D.C., in the winter.
"People thought we were in the Navy," said Morrill, who will be
making her first trip to Washington, D.C., since that time to attend her
granddaughter’s college graduation.
Eventually, she moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where she worked in pediatrics at
Henriette Eggleson Hospital for Children. While she had big plans to enroll at
Emory University to earn her Bachelor of Science degree, she also had something
else in mind.
"It was a roost to tell my mother that what I really wanted to do was go
after a man whom I eventually married and is the father of my [two]
children," said Morrill. "So it was two birds with one stone."
Some of her best nursing Morrill attributes to Eggleson Hospital where
children from outlying areas could receive special treatment or surgical care
for cleft lip, plastic repair for congenital cleft palate or mountain spotted
fever.
"What you did there is that you were mother, father and nurse,"
said Morrill. "It was an unbelievable experience for me because you had
total care of these little ones who came from all over. I was so blessed to be
able to be there."
As Morrill’s children grew older, she began to experience feelings of
unfairness trying to meet the needs of her healthy children while trying to give
so much of herself to impaired children who required an immense amount of care.
"I don’t know how you can deal with your family’s and children’s
emotional needs and still be bombarded with the horrific needs that you find in
disabled children," said Morrill.
She soon discovered coronary nursing. However, once her children were grown,
Morrill returned to pediatric nursing, providing home health care to children in
Miami-Dade County, Florida, for 13 years before moving to Eustis, Florida, just
18 months ago.
Fascinated by the fact that children no longer had to spend lengthy periods
of time in the hospital, she took pride in caring for children in their own
homes, teaching family members how to use the ventilator and provide tube
feeding while she delivered IVs, inserted tracheotomy tubes and performed
suctioning.
What she enjoyed most about home health was the amount of time she could
spend with the patient. She hopes one day to return to pediatric care. In the
meantime, she continues to update her RN credentials. She said nursing is
nursing and it remains in her blood to continue caring for other people.
"I want to spend the rest of my life doing hands-on care," she
said. "I would not trade my life for anybody else’s."
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