2014-12-27T21:38:10+00:00

Episode 85: Missing Molly….

December 27, 2014/Judy E Martin/7 Comments

I can’t believe how quickly Christmas flew by. This year, it was just a small affair with me, Mr Grump and Miss Hap. We had a wonderful day though which began at 5.30 with an excited little girl coming to wake me up. It continued with lots to eat, lots to drink (Mr Grump was well away) and some board games to argue about! (I won the LOGO game fair and square)!

Anyway, today it was back to work, and I was on a late shift which I very rarely do. I don’t like going in halfway through, as it puts me out of kilter. No need to have worried though, it was the usual busy madness but with hordes of relatives thrown into the mix! Normally when I have been off for a couple of days, I come back and everything is still the same as most of our patients are usually there for some while.

However, this time I only knew one of the patients as four had been discharged over Christmas and sadly, one lady had passed away only yesterday. I was particularly upset over this, as I did not expect it at all, In fact, I had told my daughter that she could come into the ward this evening when they picked me up and I would introduce her to ‘Molly’. She was a 94-year-old woman who was as bright as a button She had a fantastic memory, as I was there when she very first came onto the ward, and I told her my name as I introduced myself. She remembered it next morning plus all the other staff members’ names that she came into contact with.

She had a number of medical problems but was always bright and cheerful and loved a good chat. Her brain was sharp and she liked a laugh and joke. She knew little snippets about the nurses’ lives and would often ask us how our children were, or what decorations we had put up for Christmas; all sorts of things really ,just taking an interest in us. She would very often say,

“Give us a kiss” out of the blue, which we always did, or we gave her a hug, She was just a very warm and affectionate lady, who sadly had never had children of her own, due to a very bad miscarriage, as she told us. She did however, have nephews and nieces that came to visit her, who thought the world of her.

We do see many patients, and although we treat everybody the same, there are some that just stick in your mind for one reason or another. Sadly, due to the nature of our ward and the age of our patients, some of them pass away, which is always hard. However, for me, I am not only upset that Molly died yesterday, but also that I didn’t get to say goodbye to her. I had received a text from my daughter asking about meeting Molly which I saw at break time. I decided to tell her that Molly had ‘gone home’. I would like to think, that in some way she has gone home to be with her dear husband that had passed some years ago, and maybe even meet the child she had lost. I hope so.

Episode 34: Unexpected Praise….

November 4, 2014/Judy E Martin/2 Comments

Isn’t it strange that sometimes a compliment can make you feel really awful!…I am a person that likes to get things done, if I have got a job to do then i am going to do my utmost to get it done,, and also do it to the best of my ability…

However, life does it’s best to throw a spanner in the works whenever it can. Working with people is at best unpredictable and at worst chaotic, means that even with the best intentions in the world, things often end up going pear-shaped regardless of how hard you try.Today was one of those days….

I was working in my usual Bay looking after 6 ladies with a newly qualified nurse. Half of our patients were due to have various procedures which involved them leaving the ward, so we wanted to try to get them washed and ready first. Breakfast was late arriving, and drugs took a while, so were slightly late in starting washing the patients. Unfortunately my colleague had got embroiled in a complicated fight between relatives of one of our patients… It was all to do with a lot of money the patient had brought into hospital with her; it involved the Police, Adult Protection, a wife-beating husband (who looked the picture of innocence sitting in his wheelchair), and conniving relatives, who all turned up at the same time. I didn’t know who was who, but had been told to limit the visitors to two at a time. Great, I didn’t know who the bad guys were!

Still as my workmate had now gone off to try to untangle this mess,I was left to get on with looking after the rest of the patients…I ended up spending a good 4 hours of my shift on my own trying to cater to everything my patient’s needed, as well as carry out other tasks that had to be done as part of my job…

I was starting to get a bit frazzled, as other relatives had turned up (It was still nowhere near visiting hours) demanding to know things like,where the bag was that Aunty Mabel had brought in, and why weren’t they told their relative had a blood transfusion?(she hadn’t, Aunty Mabel told them she had for some reason). I did my best to answer their questions, but at the same time wanted to continue to try and wash the poor patients that were still waiting, and I was being distracted,

One of my ladies went off for her procedure in a wheelchair, and I was able to get on with helping the lady opposite to have her wash. As I appeared from behind the curtain, I was appalled to see a female patient from the next bay asleep in the freshly vacated bed opposite! I gently woke her up and escorted her back to her own bed, much to the amusement of the visitors!

I stuck my head in our handover room to get a quick swig of my cold coffee, and had a bit of a moan to some colleagues that were in there writing notes. However, as soon as I returned to my bay, I breezed in cheerfully and carried out with my duties. That set the tone for the rest of the shift really, getting further and further behind,and feeling frustrated because of it, Just before I finished, I had to carry out an unpleasant procedure on the patient with the relatives and the ‘Aunty Mabel.’The daughter had gone but her granddaughter waited outside whilst I did it. I explained to the patient what I was going to do and made her comfortable, and it went off without a hitch. As I came out from behind the curtain, her granddaughter said to me, ” you are such a cheerful person, I really wish all nurses were like you” …

I felt absolutely awful. I had been moaning to all and sundry every chance I got, because I had been left on my own so much, and was still washing patients after lunch, not to mention behind on all my other jobs, yet this relative had praised me for being so chirpy! Although I would never dream of being miserable in front of the patients, (they have got enough to worry about as it is) I did have a face like a smacked arse (a Miss Hap special) the rest of the time! I felt a right hypocrite!!

Episode 23: Which end first?!…..

October 21, 2014/Judy E Martin/2 Comments

Well today I had a lovely surprise when I arrived at work. The ward was closed as we had got several cases of Norovirus. …I had only been in on Saturday and there was no sign of anyone having it then, but it seems to be one of those illness that comes out of nowhere, causes a huge impact, then slinks off again!…

Norovirus is pretty unpleasant, unless of course you are rather partial to partaking in a bit of projectile vomiting, whilst trying to control the diarrhoea that is waiting to explode from the other end! Yes it is rather nasty, and I wished that I could just turn around and go back home as I knew that we were all going to be in for a busy day….

As I actually walked in through the doors, the unmistakable stench hit my nostrils (just as my sense of smell is returning after giving up the cigs) and there it stayed all day; there was no getting used to it (which normally happens after a while), or even getting away from it; every single bay had patients who was suffering with it, and there were two in mine).

The fact that the ward was closed, meant that no patients would be admitted or discharged, although visitors could still come if they wished to (or were crazy enough to). All staff were even more vigilant than usual and everyone was sporting a bright yellow pinny and gloves, regardless of what job role they had, or which patient they were seeing.

Having said that, the Manager, had previously arranged for a couple of workmen to come onto the ward today and put up some bits and pieces on the wall. They dutifully turned up and started working on their jobs, but I noticed they started looking a bit nervous as they saw people walking about all gowned up. Although these two did not have any direct patient contact I noticed them manically scrubbing and gelling their hands (which is no bad thing anyway), and they got out of our ward in record time!!

The rest of us ran around all day dishing out bedpans and commodes as fast as we could to keep up with demand, as our poor patients continued to suffer. Funnily enough, the large tin of luxury chocolate biscuits that had been given to the staff as a gift from a relative, were still in the handover room, largely untouched ; nobody seemed to fancy them (this is unheard of, where I work; normally, even if the nurses haven’t managed to get to the goodies, the doctors, physios etc would have polished them off)!! It seemed that most of us had lost our appetites!

Episode 16: Let’s Hear It For The Boys!

October 6, 2014/Judy E Martin/Leave a comment

Usually I like to get up early, but this morning when my phone alarm went off at 5.15am I wanted to pulverize it into little pieces, and sink back into a deep sleep. As I had very little sleep over the weekend, my head felt heavy, as I dragged myself out of bed to begin the day.

Unfortunately, I had to wake Mr Grump up as he was taking me to work today as Einstein was going to be fixing my car. His bulging eyes in a blanched, pale face told me that he still had his man flu, and just to confirm this, he let out one of his enormous sneezes. This is going to be a good day, I can tell……

As I entered the ward I realised I had forgotten to put on my belt with my uniform (Great, now I am going to be in the shit with the boss)! I might have mentioned before that I have no waist, so this bloody belt does nothing for me anyway, and I spend all day trying to re-arrange it so that it is somewhere around my middle. I could of course, wear the tunic and trousers but for some obscure reason, I always get an ugly-looking rash on my lower leg that itches like hell, besides the fact that I look even worse in trousers than I do in the dress! Anyway…it was no good fretting over the belt, I was not brave enough to ask Mr Grump to come all the way back with it, so I would just have to hope that it went unnoticed.

Handover arrives, and out of the six of us that have turned up (Still short-staffed as usual), four of us have had this awful lurgy, and as the night staff tried to hand over, they were drowned out by various, snorts, sniffs, coughs and splutters, that had still remained with us. The other two poor unaffected staff are subtly moving their chairs out a bit from the table we are all sat around, trying fruitlessly to avoid the germs that are no doubt whizzing around in the air, looking for someone new to latch onto.

I was allocated to my usual Bay with six ladies, but the difference was this time, I was on my own! Usually there are at least two of us to a Bay, but as there weren’t enough of us to go around, and my bay was relatively easy, as I had 2 patients that could get about to the toilet, and could wash themselves with only a little help, it was decided that I could manage by myself, and if necessary ask the nurse-in-charge to help out.

It started off ok, breakfasts eaten, drugs administered, washing equipment given to those that needed it etc, and I was just going to give some help to someone else that needed it, when I was distracted by a patient from another Bay who was desperately trying to escape from the ward by the exit, which is right next to my bay. The nurse looking after her was trying to coax her back away from the door, but she was not having it, and lashed out at the nurse with the small teddy that she constantly carries around with her.

I tried to help, but to no avail, she was pulling at the doors, and banging on the glass trying to get out (we have a code to get into our ward as the doors have to be locked to stop absconders, and to get out you have to press a button on the wall some way from the door). Meanwhile, people were trying to get through the doors so there was a lot of dancing around trying to stop her getting out, whilst letting people in, trying to avoid getting whacked by the teddy at the same time!

After a while the patient got annoyed with the doctor who was innocently reading some notes near to where she was standing, and once she had vented her spleen at him, she seemed to temporarily calm down and headed off back down the ward away from the door, swiftly followed by the harassed nurse, looking rather bedraggled as a few well-aimed blows had managed to dislodge some of her hair that was carefully tied back.

Normality resumed for a while and I got on with getting everyone washed,dressed, beds made, and helped them to sit out on their chairs, as it was by now nearly lunchtime I could hear some shouting coming towards me , and I knew that it was the same patient coming back to have another go at getting away, this time even more angry and determined than before, and she was sparing no-one that tried to stand in her way…

It was at this moment,, that a senior matron came onto the ward, with about 10 eager Italian nurses in tow, who had just been employed by out hospital, and were visiting various wards to get a feel for what work here is like…luckily, the patient’s husband (who had been called to try to calm her down),had turned up, and had whisked her off into an office, uttering soothing words, as he went. It didn’t last that long before she started shouting at him though, before she wore herself out, and went to her bed to sleep for a while.

I managed to get through the rest of my shift (I usually only work ‘short days’) uneventfully, and just as I was writing up the last of my notes, the ward phone rang and it was for me. Mr Grump had come to pick me up and was waiting outside ( I know he is ill but it was bang on finishing time, and there was no need to ring me on the ward phone, for goodness sake) Impatient to get going and get home where he could suffer in peace, I informed him that I had offered for him to give the ward clerk a lift home as we had an unexpected downpour; as she had a 30 minute walk, and would get soaked, I knew he wouldn’t mind dropping her off in the opposite direction to where we live, on a very busy road, with a huge school that had just finished for the day, culminating in a massive traffic jam!

Credit where it’s due, he put a smile on his face and even chatted a bit on the journey, and didn’t swear when a van pulled out of a side street and he had to jam on the brakes to avoid it!

It’s quite sweet really, that although we might take our partners for granted a bit, they do put up with a lot. That poor patient’s husband bore the brunt of her tongue lashing as well as a good few clouts from teddy, with patience and understanding, even though it really hurt him to see her like that… and although Mr Grump does love to have a moan about everything, he was good enough to take me to and from work although he didn’t feel like it at all.

Episode 15: No rest for the wicked…..

October 5, 2014/Judy E Martin/Leave a comment

Yesterday I thought that, due to Mr Grump’s ‘Man Flu’ I would be better off accepting the night shift at work, I had been phoned about, due to staff shortages. (it turns out that the staff were falling like flies with the same lurgy that I had just had). I presented myself fresh-faced (well,I have still got a bit of a red nose, and I think a cold sore is forming on my upper lip) and ready for duty half an hour early at 7pm (I am always ridiculously early for everything)!

The Ward Sister greeted me enthusiastically, but told me it had been ‘a bit of a busy day.’ Usually, this didn’t bode well for the night either, but ever-optimistic I thought that at least the shift would go quickly if we had plenty to do to keep us occupied! ….

Two of my colleagues arrived ready for the night ahead, and as we sat chatting for a while, realised that it was time for Handover, and no-one else was going to turn up for the shift, apart from us three! This was not good, we have 27 patients and are at least two staff down, not to mention that someone has to be in one particular Bay at all times, as at least four of the elderly men in there are very confused, have no concept of the time of day, and do not necessarily want to go to sleep.They are all also very unsteady on their feet, but that does not hamper them in their attempts to go for little walks, so they really need a little extra monitoring.

We decided between the three of us, who would do what; one would administer all of the drugs to all of the patients, one would sit in with the ‘boys’ to try to settle them and keep them safe, and I would answer the buzzers in the other bays, then once the drugs were finished, two of us would work together in settling the rest of the patients….in theory, this seemed the best option, but actually we were dealing with people here, and of course, reality meant that in the end, we had to ‘borrow’ a member of staff from another ward for 20 minutes, in order to try to get all of our patients comfortable, dry and clean before they went off to sleep, (those that wanted to sleep of course).

Finally, around midnight, we managed to grab a quick drink (It was so hot on that ward that all 3 of us were dripping with sweat, and parched to go with it)! I of course was starving as well. This healthy eating I am trying to do is all very well but a small stir fry 6 hours earlier had not sustained me, and I frantically shovelled in forkfuls of my salad, whilst briefly sitting down to write some notes. The other two were also doing the same,

After that brief respite it was all systems go again; although some of the men had briefly slept, one of them, although exhausted (he was almost walking around with his eyes shut), would not give in to sleep, and he started making a bit of noise, which in turn woke some of the others up, and they too wanted to get in on the act! This took us a while to calm down, and of course disturbed some of the other patients, who had now woken up and were buzzing for attention.

By 4am, we were all pretty frazzled ,but with still another 4 hours to go, we continued running around right up until it was time to leave at 8am. (None of us had been able to take the hour-long break we were entitled to).

I staggered out of work,and got home to find that Mr Grump was already up. His man flu had prevented him from getting a decent night sleep. I listened sympathetically this time, poor thing. He did look rather pasty, and his whole demeanor looked woebegone and dejected…perhaps I would have been better off staying home last night with him after all!!

As exhausted as I was, I found that I could only sleep for a couple of hours (my body clock was mixed up and it decided to protest at being forced to sleep in the daytime). So it’s an early night for me tonight, as I am back in work first thing tomorrow morning!!

Episode 6: Just an Ordinary Lunch ….

September 26, 2014/Judy E Martin/Leave a comment

For many people, sitting around a table for a nice civilized lunch is something they take for granted,,, however in the hospital where I work, lunch is a much more individual affair….today, however was different…

This week had been pretty hectic at work. We have a total of 27 patients, across 4 Bays, 2 of which are male and two female. There are some patients which we need to keep more of an eye on as they like to go for little walks up and down the corridors, and anywhere else they can get to so, they are put in the two bays that are closest to the Nurse’s station. As all of them are elderly, and many unsteady on their feet, it can sometimes be pretty difficult with the number of staff we have, to keep a constant watch on them, particularly as we still have lots of other patients that also need our care and attention.

Although it is not unusual for us to have a few restless patients, this week we had another two patients that had been admitted to the Ward,along with the other four that were already there, so the staff were playing ‘hide and seek’ quite a lot!

Around the patient’s lunch time, as I was walking down the Ward, I happened to look into the ‘Boys’ Bay, and was greeted by an unusual sight. Someone had commandeered a large table from the office and it was plonked down in the middle of the Bay. A crisp, clean white sheet, fresh from the linen cupboard had been used as a rather nice table cloth; About six patients of both genders we sitting around the table, (these were the patients that liked to roam around); most of the women were sporting rather fetching white plastic, disposable aprons , while the men opted for the large, square inco pad tucked into the front of their nightshirt in order to keep themselves clean. The nurses were their waiting staff, cutting up their food, and serving them drinks etc and everything seemed to go very well.

I stood there for a minute, and was truly touched by the sight of them all sitting there together enjoying their meal. Ok, they might not have been talking to each other much, but they seemed relaxed and settled AND they were eating! This was so good to see, as it can be so difficult trying to encourage many of our patients to eat, The fact that these patients were sitting down together also gave the rest of us chance to feed our own patients without interruption.

A few years ago patients eating lunch together would have been an ordinary occurrence as most Wards had a Day Room, or somewhere that this could happen, but now, for various reasons, they have all gone and have been replaced by more beds -which seems such a shame. Such a simple, everyday event, yet it seemed to give such pleasure.

Rhyme and No Reason!

Blogger, author and rhymester who likes to find the humour in life.

Tag: patients

Episode 85: Missing Molly….

Episode 34: Unexpected Praise….

Episode 23: Which end first?!…..

Episode 16: Let’s Hear It For The Boys!

Episode 15: No rest for the wicked…..

Episode 6: Just an Ordinary Lunch ….

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Blogger, author and rhymester who likes to find the humour in life.

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