Validation and miles

 

This nurse I’ve know for almost thirty years. She is a specialist spinal outreach nurse based at the spinal Injury unit in Sheffield and as a young charge Nurse I was her mentor when she was new and shy and professional and clearly talented. 

She has just won a prestigious RCN Foundation award in recognition of her outstanding contribution to patient care and I sent my congratulations to her yesterday , alongside hundreds of others.

She sent this message back 

“Andrea Patterson

John Gray you were the best mentor a quiet, newly qualified nurse could ask for . You're one of the reasons I'm still at Spinal Injuries xx” 

How lovely 

I will end with a quick reply to dear Stubble Jumper’s Kate

Trelawnyd to London ( Via Prestatyn by train) approx 190 miles

Trelawnyd to counselling 19miles ( car) 

Trelawnyd to hospice 24.5 miles ( car)

Trelawnyd to The Storyhouse or Picturehouse 27 miles( car)

Trelawnyd to Theatre Clwyd 16.5 miles (car)

Trelawnyd to sister’s houses ( car) 4.4 miles, either or 

Bed soon

Leak & Death

 I haven’t done nursing day shifts for months, tomorrow and Friday I’ve got two twelve hour shifts . It will be nice to sleep at night, rather than grab a few hours during the day . Today I was counselling and was looking forward to war of the worlds at Theatre Clwyd tonight, but the production had been cancelled due to a flood. When I got there visitors and staff including the chefs and waiting on staff at Bryn Williams were marooned outside.

Disappointed I drove home. 

Some days turn out to be washouts…..I listened to The Archers on the way home and met the new characters of lottie ( who is bound to be dating Chris Carter yawn) and the dreadful Bert Horrobin ( who has morphed into an old pirate. Carol Tregoran has also morphed into an old witch with actress Eleanor Bron leaving the role back in 2018 which is interesting 

I could write better characters 

I’m in a funny mood today 

I’ve signed up for a simple cremations send off with a very nice sales lady called Gupta this afternoon 

Mz Gupta was direct and sweet and when I told her I lived alone with 2 cats and 2 dogs she quipped strangely “ animals are so much nicer than people as long as you feed them “ 

It’s been odd planning things after my death 

Remembering Auntie Glad

 This video of a ninety year old Italian Nonna, excitingly opening her birthday gifts took me back to auntie Glad. Some years ago now I was visited by a fellow blogger Hippo, whose life was saved by his blog connections. Living in a real African backwater, he sustained a simple garden injury to his thigh when cutting a hedge.

The injury quickly went necrotic and septic and knowing my experience in the field he sent me a photo, I told him plainly that he would be dead in days if he didn’t refer himself to a specialist hospital, and so with the  Great British reserve only known by ex servicemen , he wrapped the injury in cling film and drove a hundred miles to an airport which eventually took him to London. 

Presenting himself to the ER he had hours of life left, but the wonders of the nhs saved his life and many weeks later he was sat in my front room, paying his respects amid bulldogs and terriers and Albert the cat. 

We went to Auntie Glad’s for tea and scones and she met us warmly in her blue tabard which was dusted with scone flour. 

Gladys was in her 90s and not quite understand who Hippo was she still afforded him a cheerful Welsh welcome .

I was amused that when we ate our scones and drank our tea she disappeared for a few minutes only reappearing in her best frock , a string of pearls and a splodge of bright red lipstick on her lips 

Now that’s class

Fruit bowl and table

Nearly twelve years ago Mary decided to sit in the fruit bowl 

Today Roger decided to sit on the coffee table 

In almost exactly the same position 

 

A Chameleon On The Fridge

 It’s 5 pm and the ice cream van has arrived in the village. I’ve not noticed it in years gone by but this one plays the zimmer theme from The Third Man which feels strange, especially as there is still a distinct chill in the air. 

I’ve just finished two night shifts, and didn’t sleep much today, so it’s pottering time , with a slow pace , soup cooking, clothes washing, fire lighting and radio 4. 

I’m mildly annoyed because my second best counselling jumper now has tomato stains down the front.

The man that delivered the fridge never bothered about such things

Oh I’ve bought a new fridge . My Ikea fridge freezer has died and isn’t repairable and shocked at the cost of a replacement, complete with fitting has meant I have bought a small table top fridge to more suit my needs.

My handsome chameleon is sat on it . The old fridge is now an ideal storage cupboard

Jesus John , I’ve got absolutely no news, except that not many fuckers have a stuffed reptile on their fridge

Tonight , I’m revisiting the last two episodes of The Other Bennett Sister and apart from the lovely will-they-won’t - they relationship of Tom and Mary , I adored how the daughter/ surrogate Mother relationship worked out between Mary and her Aunt Gardner ( the sympathetic and generous  Indira Varma ) quite lovely

Touch

When I am at work, I touch people constantly. 

I wash and I turn people in bed hourly and will sometimes take my latex glove off to comfort someone, certainly to stroke a brow or tidy a hair which is out of place .

I hear my old tutor from my psychiatric nursing days at these times….

“Being stroked by a gloved hand can be painful and unnatural “ Leslie Brint would say

There are social rules when it comes to touch too,

Some people abhor it. 

Others crave it

You have to read people effectively and quickly

Safe “ zones” for touch are innately understood by most

But not always.

Watch out for cues

Huggers often give them 

People in grief often regress to childhood states

When touch can heal most things

I don’t hug when I’m counselling. 

It’s my strict rule. 

But I do always shake hands with my clients.

It’s formal but warm

I like handshakes.

I’m off to work, shortly

With Roger on my knee as we sit at the kitchen table

He’s like me, when it comes to hugs

But he can ask for them where I seldom do

I’m glad he can

Eyebrows

I’m 64 in June

And I’ve just realised that I have eyebrows like 

Virgil Tracy

And could not have fitted through 

Thunderbird 2’s 

Ceiling slide

 

A Cry On The Way To Counselling

 I start with the Madrid Metropolitan Orchestra with some of my lisping choir  doing an amazing version of Gloria Gloria  ……followed by this amazing nurse’s poem from the Vietnam war

But today’s highlight was a radio four production Life Changing where psychiatrist Sian Williams interviewed teenager Rozhan , an illegal immigrant from Iran who with her mother and younger sister braved death many times to flee persecution in the Middle East where her Muslim mother changed religion to Christianity . 

The account of how she took charge of a sick baby at fourteen in a sinking dinghy off Dover , and how the 26 people on board all held hands as they thought death was approaching made me stop Bluebell in order to shed a tear before my counselling day .

I defy anyone, including the most rabid of racists not to be moved by this tale of heroism 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002tprr