South Shore tech has X-rayed a snake − and plenty of people too

WEYMOUTH − For many South Shore residents, Andrea Nalband Thornley, of Rockland, might be one of the most recognizable faces in the South Shore Health network.

People pass her in the hospital's outpatient center in Hingham, at the grocery store, or even on the street, and she looks familiar.

Some remember her kind words and encouragement when most needed, a calm presence at an anxious time.

Thornley, 67, has been a radiologic technologist at South Shore Health since imaging's earlier days in the 1970s. She trained there right out of Weymouth South High School in 1973 as a Northeastern University co-op student, then took a job and continued after she married her husband, Jim, and they raised two sons, Ryan and Spencer, in Rockland.

For 50 years now, Thornley has helped patients through revealing and sometimes nerve-racking situations. Looking back over a half century, she recalls giving comfort to people who were uneasy about possible diagnoses or claustrophobic when having CAT (computed axial tomography) scans of their heads and bodies.

The case of the nurse's blocked boa

Many cases started out as worrisome and ended up quite normal. Other cases were bizarre from the beginning, including X-raying a nurse's obstructed boa constrictor to see what it had swallowed (a bunch of small animals). How about that large egg, possibly an ostrich or old dinosaur egg? (She never found out.)

In October 1975, when she was 20, she and co-worker Denise Dinn were dispatched to take portable X-rays in the emergency department after well-known clockmaker Elmer Stennes and his third wife, Phyllis, had been shot in their Weymouth home by intruders. He died; she took six bullets and survived.

"That was quite a bloody experience for Denise and I," Thornley said.

Other cases illuminated the variety of human conditions. A patient's portable chest X-ray showed a bunch of bobby pins; her supervisor requested a repeat because of the "artifacts." The repeat X-ray revealed the patient's stomach was filled with pencils, bobby pins and toothbrushes due to a psychiatric disorder called pica − the indiscriminate swallowing of non-nutritional objects.

With an upbeat, vivacious personality, Thornley has been celebrating her golden anniversary in the radiology department with characteristic enthusiasm.

"I love my work and I have loved my co-workers," she said. "I've met so many wonderful people and learned so much."

Andrea Nalband was 17 and a senior at Weymouth South High School when she planned to go to Northeastern in Boston in 1973 to become a kindergarten teacher.

That June, her father, Dr. Edward H. Nalband, a general practitioner and president of the staff at South Shore Hospital, made a suggestion.

"Why don't you take a look at becoming an EKG or lab or X-ray technician before you make a decision?" he said.

She met Maria Martell, the hospital's quality control officer, saw all the different machines, talked to people about their jobs, and decided that was her future.

On July 2, 1973, she began three months of classes, then three months at the hospital as a co-op student with technicians.

"I was on my way (to my future career) a lot sooner," she said. "And we learned a lot up on the floor."

After two years, she had her certification as a radiologic technologist.

She loved the fast-paced drama of hospital work

She thrived on the action, moving quickly between the emergency department and patient floors, wheeling stretchers, transferring patients to X-ray tables.

In the early 1980s, the hospital got its first CAT scanner. New worlds opened up.

"You are constantly upgrading; everything is changing so fast now," she said.

The first head scans took 20 minutes. Now the same procedure is often referred to as a CT scan and can be done in 10 seconds.

In 2011, in her early 50s, she took the opportunity to move to the Hingham outpatient center, and for the last four years has worked there part time, freer to also look after two grandsons, Franky, 5, and Will, 3, in Bridgewater.

Giving comfort is her goal.

"Some people are not themselves when they come in those doors (for a scan). They are nervous, claustrophobic. Some have to take (relaxation) medication to come in. Some can't sit up on the table. You have to talk them through."

Looking back, she described "one of the tough parts of the job" from the 1980s through 2000 when the CAT scan technicians were on call nights and weekends.

"We had to share carrying a beeper and it was pretty much a given that you’d be called in in the middle of the night," she said. Thornley lived nearby and often took the calls.

"The calls might come in at 9 p.m., then another at 1 a.m., again at 4 a.m., and my regular shift would begin at 7 a.m. I slept with the phone an inch from my hand!" Eventually, the hospital hired an overnight technician.

Her late father reached his own 50th year there in 1998. Thornley's brother, Dr. Edward W. Nalband, followed their father as medical staff president and also was president of South Shore Medical Center in Norwell and Kingston. He retired this past year.

Hard to see your smart father start to fail

Thornley shares a poignant story about her father. Amid all the new technology able to see within the human body, there was no test available at the time he began to develop memory loss and symptoms of Alzheimer's disease.

One day she happened to see him driving near his home when he pulled over to the side of the road. Puzzled, she stopped her car to check.

He said, "I'm just trying to figure out how to get home." His house was just around the corner.

"A chill came over me," she said. "I pretended like nothing was the matter and just said, 'Oh it's right over there' and followed him home. My mother was frantic wondering where he was. That was the moment when his license got taken away."

"It was hard," she said. "He was one of the smartest guys I ever knew and little things kept happening in his 80s."

Her father eventually became a resident of the former Coyne Nursing Home in Rockland, which specialized in Alzheimer's disease. Thornley said he received compassionate care and remained a happy-natured man until he died at age 85 in 2004 of complications from pneumonia and Alzheimer's.

Working well into her 60s "has given me a sense of purpose and belonging, to be part of a whole," she said. "These people are my second family and you can't get that kind of camaraderie by working at home or by not working.

"It grounds and centers you and keeps you happy."

Cancer survivor Jim Evans volunteers in Pan-Mass Challenge

Jim Evans, 67, of Quincy, who survived treatments for two aggressive cancers over the past year, was thrilled to volunteer this past weekend on the Living Proof support team for cyclists in the Pan-Mass Challenge. Evans, who was treated for esophageal and stomach cancer at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in 2022-23, was at the Lakeville water stop.

"It was rough," he said of his cancer ordeal in a Patriot Ledger interview in June 2023. "But with Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and an army of support, we defeated the monsters."

On Saturday, Jim handed out water bottles as the cyclists came through Lakeville. Then he headed down to the Mass. Maritime Academy for the Living Proof celebration on the water with Pan-Mass founder Billy Starr.

The Living Proof community is made up of riders and volunteers who were treated or are undergoing treatment for cancer. This year, there are more than 950 Living Proof participants.

"If you had told me last year at this time that I'd be doing this, I wouldn't have believed it," Jim said. "I wasn't in a good place last August. Thankful."

Reach Sue Scheible at sscheible@patriotledger.com.

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: The life of an X-ray tech: Crime, bizarre animals, strange objects