Windsor nurse retires after 50 years
A 50-year-career is a rarity but for Mary Lou Henderson it's been a whirlwind of patient care, ever-changing technology and joy all mixed together.
“It's just surreal,” said Henderson, who worked her last day Dec. 23 at Windsor Regional Hospital's Ouellette campus. “It just doesn't seem possible at all. Where did those 50 years go?”
Henderson, 70, recalled her training at the Salvation Army Grace Hospital School of Nursing, where nursing students lived in residence Monday to Friday, going home to their families on weekends.
A lifelong Amherstburg resident, Henderson started working at Grace immediately after earning her degree. “I graduated on a Friday and they wanted me to start on the Monday but I said I had to have a week off,” she said, adding her first day on the job was Sept. 20, 1971.
Henderson transferred over to Hotel Dieu Hospital, which is now Windsor Regional Hospital Ouellette campus, around 1996. Grace closed in 2004.
“So technically, I have worked for all three hospitals,” she said with a laugh.
The last 25 years of her career were spent working on a day surgery unit but over five decades, she said, there have been a lot of great memories.
“There's been tons of wonderful memories,” Henderson said. “Most of the memories have been amazingly wonderful.
“I have worked obviously through the first AIDS patients, then the SARS, the H1N1 and this COVID. Of all, this COVID is the most dangerous of all of them,” she said.
“I just think people don't realize how serious it is. It's a definite killer,” she added.
“Hopefully with these vaccines, once we can get them moving and going, hopefully that will help to kind of curb it at least.”
And after half a century of caring for the ill and injured, Henderson said it's the patients and “her girls” — the women she works with — she'll miss most.
“I am the oldest nurse on this floor, for sure. And the girls have said you're kind of like our mascot,” she said. “It's like we're one big family here.
“It's a wonderful, wonderful unit and as I say, if I hadn't been here for the last 20 years I probably would have retired because nursing as I knew it 50 years ago has definitely changed. You don't have the time to go that little extra mile (of patient care).”
Henderson said she remembers when patient “back rubs used to be a normal thing” but said there's no time for such personal care anymore.
“People are sicker. I find that you're really dealing with more complex patients now than what it used to be.”
With retirement, Henderson said she will spend more time with her husband Tom, who she's been married to for 47 years in June.
“(Tom) has started with some dementia and when I was off (on vacation in September), when I was home with him I noticed how much calmer he was, how he seemed to be just more relaxed,” she said.
“So I said, you know what, I think my husband needs me more than I need my patients.
“I love, love, love my job. It's the thing I knew I wanted to do when I was eight and set my sights on it and fortunately for me I was able to obtain my nursing degree and have the best — I can't say it's a job because it's more than a job. It's one of the most rewarding professions.
“I have no idea where those 50 years went.”