Nurses’ Notes

A visiting nurse memory — early 1970s

One of the duties of our visiting nurses back in the 1970s was to visit certain clients in their homes every two weeks, assess their mental health, and give them an injection of Prolixin.

Prolixin is used for psychotic issues and the injection is used because the patient would probably not take an oral medication.

The nurse would also monitor the patient/client for side effects, like tardive dyskensia — involuntary movement of limbs, difficulty walking.

Every two weeks I would visit Elizabeth, an overweight youngish woman who lived in an apartment “downtown” with her much older husband. During the weeks between visit I would see her walking along the streets pushing an empty shopping cart — not filled because was homeless, just an empty cart.

I was warned on my first visit by another nurse who’d been in her apartment, not to take my bag inside. Routinely we would take a bag filled with nursing supplies into our client’s homes, put a piece of folded newspaper down and set the bag on top — even if the home was spotless. Not in Elizabeth’s apartment.

I stuck my BP cuff and stethoscope into a coat pocket and then carefully placed a syringe of the Prolixin (I had already filled it) and alcohol wipe into another pocket. I would wipe down the cuff and…