Georgina was waiting at the elevator when Sandy, Mary and I got there. A metallic ‘ding’ announced the arrival of the car. We stepped into the lift, giggling about that day being our first day of work and each showing off the new pink uniforms we were wearing. Mary crossed her fingers and nervously intoned, “Here’s hoping we don’t get fired on our first day!”

In June, right after I graduated from high school, I took a nursing assistant course at a Wausau hospital. The hospital hired me and all the students who successfully finished the classes. For those who needed them, the hospital also provided nearby dormitory rooms for us to rent. Their nursing school had closed a few years earlier so the dorm building was empty.

During the weekend before our first day on duty, we discovered that there was a tunnel corridor between the dorm basement and the hospital basement. Taking this unusual route to arrive at work added heady exhilaration to our already overly stimulated nerves. Sandy said, “I heard there’s a tunnel like this between the hospital and the pediatric ward.”

Having visited the pediatric ward a few days earlier, I commented, “It’s weird that the children’s ward is set apart from the rest of the hospital. I wonder why it’s like that?”

“I know the answer to that!” Georgina excitedly announced. “During the 1950’s that was where this hospital cared for polio patients. Polio was contagious and having those patients separated from other hospital patients prevented it from spreading.”

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