Book Entry 72: 1966 Candy Striper Experience

Mom and dad agreed to let me be a candy striper my junior year of high school.  Bernie decided to be one too.  We rode together to the hospital in Ceres every Saturday to volunteer.  Besides having fun working in the hospital we got to wear really cute uniforms and we got to drive ourselves to Ceres and back!

I was chosen to work in the lab.  One of my assignments was to label test tubes.  I was always a little afraid I would do it wrong and some person would get the wrong blood work done.  I also was a delivery girl taking reports and collecting reports from all the departments in the hospital.

The one memory that sticks about Candy Striping is the time my manager took me into one of the storage rooms and showed me the long rows and high stacks of things that had been removed from patients during surgery.  

I remember seeing all types of body organs.  One thing I will never forget was three gallon jars full to the rim of fat.  My manager said all this fat had to be removed from a patient before the surgeon could perform the needed surgery.  

Being a Candy Striper was supposedly my first step to becoming a nurse.  That and taking German for two years.  My plans for being a nurse were pushed aside and never missed as time moved on.