Mother McLeod

Anyone who has had a friend or relative living at Sunset Manor in Collingwood has had contact with a firm and funny, sometimes brusque and business-like nurse who has tenderly cared for thousands of people over the last 40 or so years.

Her fellow nurses call her Mother McLeod.
I call her Mom.

Maureen Herrington graduated as a nurse from Royal Victoria Hospital, class of 1962.
This week, 52 years later, Maureen McLeod, RN, will work her final shift.

Mom started her nursing career looking after babies.Later, she worked on a surgical floor at Collingwood's hospital and after a few years off to have babies of her own, she went back to nursing when I was about 6 years old.

As a kid, I thought it was normal to come home from school to a sleepy-eyed mommy in a dressing gown and bare feet. She worked nights for the most part, so she could sleep during the day when we kids were at school, and be home to ferry us to our lessons and practices, 4-H, choirs and hockey in the evenings.

Mom credits working part-time for being able to afford the figure skates and the lessons, the piano, and the hockey leagues my brothers played in, since there were years that the income from a 250-acre mixed farm in Ontario couldn't cover all the bills. She also says since she was 'only' working part-time, she has been able to continue to enjoy her job for 50 years, never feeling too burned-out or resentful.

Working nights sometimes meant a sleepy 25 minute commute home (Oh, who am I kidding, she's a speed demon and made it door-to-door in 15...), and more than once, she fell asleep somewhere between Duntroon and Glen Huron. One time, she ditched the car just a few hundred feet from our driveway.

Most Christmas mornings, when our friends were swimming through a sea of discarded wrapping paper, we were still waiting for Mom to come home. Our Christmas morning waited because she would be at work until 7 am, and, after giving report and handing off her duties, usually wouldn't be home until 7:30 or even 8am. It was torture for a kid at Christmas, having to wait until 8 o'clock to rip into the gifts. Mom knew, as a part-timer, she would be working either Christmas or New Year's Eve, and she generally chose Christmas, not only to be sure other people's families had their fun, but also, so she could get a night of dancing with my dad.

In the winter, Mom had a partner on the job, since my father would often have to pull out the tractor and snowblower in howling winds at 10:30 at night to clear the quarter-mile to the road so she could make it in to work. There were times he was back out with the tractor at 7:30 the next morning to clear her a way back in. Once, he used the tractor to blow snow all the way from our farm to what was then Highway 24, more than 2.5 miles away, because there was no one else to come in to work on such a snowy night.

My mom turned 72 in May. Her dedication to her job is legendary at Sunset Manor, and for at least the last 10 years, a near-majority of her patients have been her age or younger. For the last several years, we've been teasing her that on her last day, we're sending her to work with a suitcase, so she can just move right in. She has spent the last few years working mostly the evening shift, the one she loathed when she was younger. "You miss EVERYTHING on afternoons," she used to say, but she has found overnights too tough, and she says she wanted to spare other nursing mothers from having to 'miss everything'.

I can't tell you how many of her fellow nurses and Manor workers have come up to me at public functions to sing her praises.

I'm a little concerned about her, frankly, since so much of her identity is tied up in her career, and she will grieve its loss.

She was the kind of nurse you want at your bedside. The kind who wants to be providing actual, hands-on care to people. She didn't care to escape "the floor" to work on the scheduling or in management. She was in it for the patients and I'm told, spends much training time with new recruits explaining to them that the patient is their focus.

Over the years, my mom has also seen many of her friends' and neighbors' family members come through the doors at The Manor, and most of them leave feet-first, obviously, since it's a home for the aged. I can promise you, she has never betrayed your confidence by telling tales about your family members' declining health or behavioral difficulties, no matter how much she was pressed for a tidbit of gossip. She would sometimes tell about an incident involving a patient, but never with a name. It was very frustrating to certain classmates who may have been, shall we say, somewhat less than circumspect when it came to confidentiality.

She saw a lot of changes in nursing in 50 years. She's an RN, but in the 60s, Registered Nurse was the only nursing designation, a two-year program, most of it hands-on learning and the nurses-in-training lived, dined, learned and partied together at a residence attached to the hospital where they worked 12- and 15-hour days. These women bonded in a way most of us can't understand. They still get together twice a year to talk and reminisce. They were at each other's weddings, and in some cases, caused those weddings with fixups at country dances 'back in the day'. Their friendships are deep and their phone calls are frequent and lengthy. I often tell the story of being told to, "bleed over the sink, I'm on the 'phone!", although I wonder if it's somewhat apocryphal.

What really did happen, though, is that in the 60s, if a nurse, even a fully-qualified one, was on an elevator and the doors opened to a doctor, the nurse had to exit to to let the doctor on.

These days, most patient care is given by Registered Practical Nurses, who also have two years of training, plus there are Health Care Aides and Personal Service Workers, all with their own roles within any health care facilty. The RNs are the ones with a four-year degree, and to hear Mom tell it, the 'degree nurses' often think their extra education gives them a free pass on things like midnight shifts, bedside care, lifts and pesky things like talking with patients.

Of her disappointments at work, I will offer that her biggest is with relatives who show up only rarely and seem to feel they have to show a year's worth of caring for their loved one in that time, making sure the caregivers get a lot of bossing around and instructions in a few short hours. She is also disappointed by the family members who appear to think nurses take up their careers for the sheer pleasure of ignoring or torturing their particular family member.

I note the compassion in Mom's voice any time she tells the story of a patient who is no longer themselves; people who, through the ravages of age or dementia, become violent or who forget where food is supposed to go or how to use utensils. There are far more of the violent ones than you might think, and no one wants to admit their dear, sweet, loving auntie just punched a pregnant nurse, but it happens. The patients who beg my mother to kill them are very tough on her, too since she doesn't like to see her people in pain, whether it's physical or in the heart. She also notes that nasty people don't suddenly become sweet little old men as they age. Generally, she says, awful people are worse and more demanding in their dotage.

That being said, there is a particular trait I've noticed among nurses, which is that they don't like to think of their own family members as a possible patient. I came home from figure skating one night in the mid-80s with a broken wrist. I was convinced it was broken by the shooting pain whenever I moved it. Mom The Nurse grabbed my arm, put her ear next to the injured limb, and started moving my hand up and down while I nearly passed out. She declared that she couldn't hear any 'crepsis' whatever the hell that is, and that with some Tylenol and time, I would be fine.
My brother took me to the doctor the next day and sure enough, I came home with a cast. She was dumbfounded to think her child could possibly be truly hurt.

I've said that I'm concerned about my mother, considering how large her identity as a nurse has loomed in her life, but I'm also confident she'll find ways to fill her time.

She's an avid traveler, having now been to every English-speaking country in the world, plus Scotland. She has toured every legislature in Canada, although she has not yet made it to the territories.

With retirement, she can turn her attentions full-time to her job at the Collingwood Fair Board, the church she faithfully attends each Sunday, the endless array of community dinners she goes to with her circle of widow-friends and of course, her three beloved grandchildren, who nearly broke her heart when they moved to Australia. They're back and they're wonderful and I think they're decorating a spare room for her frequent stays at their home.

She may also do a little bit of sewing. I say that tongue in cheek since her sewing room is so full, I could lock her in there for the next five straight years and she still would not run out of fabric that needs to go into just the right quilt block.

So, I don't worry she'll have a lack of things to do in her retirement. I just hope she can find the time to take her dear darling daughter out for lunch once in a while.