I have a friend called Ruth who I know regards nursing practice through very individualised eyes.
I havent spoken to her in an age but I am sure she will forgive me for sharing this nativity based post which underlines her humour and slight lack of professionalism.
Just before Christmas 1991 we nursed a new patient on our spinal injury ward. The patient was a young nurse from a busy inner city intensive care unit, I shall called her Siohban .A fitness fanatic, she had worked hard in the gym, and at work and typically had not eaten properly. In the middle of the night she had got up for a wee and had become dizzy due to low blood sugers. Unfortunately she had fallen down the stairs paralyzing herself from the chest down.
Siohban came from a large Irish catholic family who visited daily, and they were a family heavily dependent on the hope things would improve for their daughter, a daughter who allowed them to rub her with holywater that would never heal
Faced with her family's blind faith and the reality drummed into her by her career. Siohban finally shut down psychologically and more or less went into a coma or fugue state.
Sometimes this mental 'downtime' lasts mere hours but in Siohban's case hours turned into days and so a concerned Ruth took it unto herself to move things on a bit with the help of several wise men, a couple of wooden donkeys,6 sheep, a cow or two and Mary, Joseph and a fat baby jesus in a manger
" I found these in the store room" Ruth told me breathlessly unpacking a robust looking shepherd
...she was always breathless because she was overweight and always rushing, but she was also excited with an idea to gently bring Siohban back to the world of the living.
" Help me arrange these around her bed" Ruth gasped and like two giggling children we grouped the figures on and around Siohban's prostate figure, so still in her bed.
In sone strange way we found a devout catholic paralyzed patient being surrounded by nativity characters insanely funny.
In retrospect, the whole thing looked totally mad bordering on dreadful bad taste of the biggest order .... but it kind of worked snapping her out of her mental isolation .
Whether it was the giggling that made Siohban open her eyes or the fact a passing staff nurse asked us what the fuck were we up to, but open them she did and after she focused immediately upon the virgin mary looking at her with a benign smile and outstretched arms she swore at Ruth with the practiced ease only the Irish could muster.
The figures were left around Siohban's bed until well after Christmas and Ruth and I became firm friends with Siohban even after her discharge home nearly a year later.
