After 43 years, nurse ready for something different

“I’m thinking about officially quitting nursing. I’m just tired. I’ve been at it for 43 years. I started in doctors’ offices in hospitals. Since then, I’ve done everything known to mankind.

“I worked for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice at their women’s prison farm in Texas City. I was a case manager at UT Medical Branch in Galveston. I’ve run two adult daycare centers, which was my favorite job. And 12 of my years in nursing were in psych. Harris County Psychiatric Center had a position open in admissions, and they needed somebody pretty quick. So I thought, what the heck. I’ll give it a try. Oh, man, it was something else.

“When I started, guys would come in wearing aluminum caps. They said it was keeping the government and satellites from zapping their heads. Every year we’d get a visit from a guy who told us he was Tupac Shakur, and he needed to be admitted. We saw a lady who claimed to be the mother of Michael Jackson’s daughter. She said, ‘Michael Jackson was my husband.’

“There were times when people were truly psychotic. But typically, it was all drug-induced stuff. One time a woman came in from the streets and said, ‘I’m a vampire. I feel like sucking blood tonight. So I thought to be safe, I’d come here.’ I tried breaking her. I acted all dumb and said, ‘I remember when I was in nursing school, we learned there were like three main types of blood.’ She said, ‘No, there’s four.’ And I said, ‘Right, there’s four. So do they all taste alike?’ I mean, I tried to get her to crack. But she was into it. She was really character driven. I tried to get her to a place where I could tell this was all just so much hooey. It was during the time of those ‘Twilight’ movies. The work there could be pretty challenging, but I found it fascinating.

“Now, after all these years — I graduated from Lee College’s nursing program in 1978 — I’m just tired. I think I’m ready to try something else besides nursing. But I’m not quite sure what. I’m still curious about stuff. I’m not ready to say, ‘OK, I’m done. Give me the first shovelful.’ I just haven’t found what I want to do with the rest of my life yet.”

— Jan White