Build Up

Perhaps someone can explain the origin of this Christmas card which arrived today
Miniature people dressed up as rodents roasting a rat!
I'm totally intrigued !

I've caught up with those pre Christmas jobs, posted gifts for friends in Derbyshire, Australia ( late!) and to my nephew in Kent and dropped off other bits to people I won't see.
Everyone seems to have had the same idea .
Animal Helper Pat called around with a bunch of long holly sprigs covered in berries and a bara brith wrapped in her ususl silver foil topped with a red ribbon.
Rosemary and German Bernard, Olwen and Mr L left cards and gifts and all complained that they hadn't seen much of me this past year
I shrugged...an apology

I saw Jason the Affable despot too...we are arranging a beer or two before Christmas .
He's had his hair cut and looks even more boyish than usual

I've lit the fire and hung the cards around the living room
Below are a few of the finalists of most original Christmas card
Homemade cauliflower soup is simmering in the kitchen

An Undertaker ran over my bunion today!

He did, and it hurt.
But he was very sweet and very gay about my injury
So much so, I thought he may of even kissed it better.
He didn't.
I am in need of a silly night out.
The election has proved just how odd the world is
The ward Christmas meal is next week as is our Choir night out and pub concert but some of me wants a daft Xmas night out
I texted my old friend Bunty- the- lesbian  this afternoon..apparantly she's single again
My text simply read " Gay Christmas nite out?😛🌈🍆????
She left a voice massage on my phone when I was at work limping after my bunion injury
The message shouted simply
" Graybags!!!!!!!IT's BUNTY ......AND its about fucking time! " 

Gentleman farmer Ralph

Most of my regular readers will know that I live on a small lane.
The lane snakes out of the village to the south West and turns at a house and then two farms before moving away across the Valley floor.
In the second farm lives Gentleman Farmer Ralph and his gracefully polite wife Mrs L, and this morning they both stopped to pass over a Christmas Card and a couple of gifts.
I love the pragmatism of the farmer's gifts
Handed over the kitchen wall as so many gifts have been  over the years,
Was a very large lamb chop
A Christmas Card
And a high viz jacket !

Since I started work at the hospice I take Mary for a walk around 6 am in the morning and at that time Ralph drives to the village shop for his paper!
" You never wear something light in the lane" he quipped " I am worried that one day I'm going to run over you!" 

I'm still collating entries of the Christmas card competition by the way, I am enjoying them greatly . I will post a photo of the top 20 soon.....special thanks to Flis and to Liz in Corsica, I was very moved by your cards and gifts x

Task Orientated

I feel a little caught at the moment
Caught between work and home.
I worked a long day yesterday, will be going to work soon on a half day late and will be working a long day again tomorrow and again on Sunday
The times in between seem caught up with sleeping, chasing solicitors and dog walking
tis the way of the world.

Now nurses employ several coping mechanisms in order to deal with the stressors of the job.
When young, burning the candle at both ends is often the way to go. Black humour and sassy team support are others
Mindfulness, alcohol, holidays and duvet bashing  all have their place too,
as does Task Orientation!

For those that don't know Task Orientation is where a nurse concentrates on the physical tasks that need to be done at work rather than the more stressful patient centred activities.
The job can be as mindless as you like ( when I was a charge nurse I often used to spend an hour or two a week pruning and watering a rooftop garden I had designed for my ward patients to enjoy.) but the activity allows you to come down from the mental pressures of dealing with constant distress in order to recharge or regroup.

Yesterday, late morning
It was my job to change the syringe driver medication for a dying patient
(syringe drivers, for those that don't know are medical devices that administer a specific amount of medication to a patient during a 24 hour period and medication which can be a mixture of analgesia, sedatives, anti nausea meds and the like)

The patient is a young woman and she is alone and unconscious.
It is rare to find this patient without her family and I noticed that they had left some music playing in their absence. The music sounded like the theme to Amelie

In the restfulness of the room I sat down at the bedside and occupied myself to the task in hand.
The muscle memory in my fingers is now established after the changing of scores of these syringes and the quiet task was a welcome diversion from another busy morning.

After changing a second device I stopped a moment and looked at my young patient, automatically checking her breathing rate and depth.
Then I sat  still for a moment, listening to the music that was playing.
I had finished my tasks
I had several more tasks to do
But I sat there with my hands in my lap for ten long minutes doing nothing more than being there

A quiet hospice room by the sea, and The theme from Amelie played sweetly on the piano

Sisters

Minds Power

                               Consultant Ganapatiraju Ravichandran " Ravi"


The patient was admitted in the middle of the night, something unheard of for The Spinal Injury Unit in Sheffield.
As the charge Nurse in charge of the four warded unit, it was my responsibility to help for the admission to come in and as they were being transferred from our own Hospital's A&E the admission was happening quick sticks.
All I was told was that a middle aged man was due to be admitted after a fall down the stairs at home. He was said to have a paralysis below the waist.
Our diminutive Asian consultant who had assessed the patient arrived on the ward at the same time as the patient and watched quietly as he was scoop stretchered from an ambulance trolley onto a bed.
The patient looked shocked and tired and had been partially cut out of his pyjamas, so as the nurses expertly turned him I noticed the tiniest of movements in a muscle on the patient's calf as a nurse removed a bottom sheet.
I shot the consultant a glance and he shook his head very slightly.

And so I stood back and watched the drama unfold

The patient was the only carer to two elderly parents, one of whom had advanced dementia. He had been up for most of the night dealing with wet sheets and confused aggression and had slipped down the stairs after 36 hours caring with just a few hours sleep.
The police had already implemented help for the frail parents and I reassured the patient that they were safe.
He cried and held my hand as the consultant performed the required neurological examination, his distress at his paralysis profound and upsetting.
However the patient wasn't paralysed.
He certainly had pain and was in shock from his fall, but he  wasn't paralysed at all.
It was also obvious that he believed that he was
I caught the Consultant's eye again and watched some brilliant medical care in practice
The consultant asked everyone but me to leave the room and sat down next to the patient  quietly.
"You have seriously damaged your spinal cord " he said carefully "but you are lucky that it will recover from any damage that has been done. It will need a week of strict bedrest here where the specialist nurses can take care of you but in one week's time we will get you out of bed and you will will go through rehab and will walk without pain and difficulty."
The patient, nodded blinking away grateful tears

And eventually he slept for almost 24 hours straight during which our unit Social Worker helped set wheels in motion that the parents went into 24 hour care. 
Hysterical conversion? Psychosomatic condition? 
Call it what you will, but a week after his admission the physiotherapists mobilised the patient with professional care and he walked out of the unit soon after to a life he could cope with again.


That day I learned that the mind is a very very powerful tool
and it's ability to protect it's host  is wide ranging and oh so complex

Oh and I learned that a usually medically orientated spinal injury consultant could act as the best of psychiatrists when he need to 

Knives Out (Spoilers)

Director Rian Johnson is reportedly a huge fan of Peter Ustinov's 1980's cinematic Poirot, and so it seemed unsurprising that he would pay homage to the genre by creating his very own movie whodunnit in the shape of the entertaining and rather good quality Knives Out

Knives Out has the crime novelist patriarch (Christopher Plummer) apparently committing suicide on the night of his 85th birthday. All of the guests at his birthday party have good reasons for wishing the old guy dead, and his visiting and reassuringly dysfunctional family are all played by a delicious selection of Hollywood elite ,
We have Don Johnson, Jamie Lee Curtis ( on fantastic scene stealing form)  and Michael Shannon playing Plummer's high achieving children whilst Chris Evans and Toni Collette support as evil grandson and dippy daughter in law respectively.
Only the family nurse (Ana de Armas) seems innocent, a "fact" which is overturned as the plot takes on a twist after twist when a famous detective Benoit Blanc ( Daniel Craig) mysteriously turns up in the big dark family house to interview the suspects.

Like I said it's an entertaining romp which zigzags nicely between laughs and tension, and the final " arhh haa!" moment is clever enough for most of the audience to enjoy with gusto even though I was slightly let down by who eventually did it!
Unfortunately Craig is no Peter Ustinov - he simply cannot command respect and interest in the main role and his miscasting as the detective ( and almost bloated continual close ups ) almost ruins the film.
Thank goodness for Jamie Lee Curtis . I won't be at all surprised if she doesn't win an oscar for best supporting actress as her few scenes as the straight talking bitter business woman daughter are a delight to watch.

My Life Is A Movie

Jamie ( centre) with our choir

Tonight our choir was asked to perform in a charity concert in a school down on the coast.
We were booked to perform six songs, three in each half of the concert and our slots mirrored the ones of another local community choir whose conductor had organised the evening.
The finale was a selection of Christmas carols sung by both choirs.

I know we shouldn't of...but the general consensus from my fellow choristers made it clear to me that there was quite a large good natured rivalry between the two choirs.
I guess it was natural for us to want to be the best choir on the night.

Ring any bells?
Yes, The Gwaenysgor Community Choir suddenly entered the cinematic world of Whoopie Goldberg's Sister Act II - Back in the Habit with Our Jamie with his 1940's RAF moustache playing the flamboyant Delores Van Cartier ! 

We had a worrying start as our rival choir looked so effin smart when they took their places!!!
They were dressed in black, all the ladies with matching appliqué flower trim on their blouses. The men wore natty red bow ties and waistcoats and the whole ensemble stood well rehursed and neat in front of their matching conductor who waved her baton with confidence and power!

As the choir took their places , our motley group looked at each other nervously as we were all dressed in a mismatch collection of coloured shirts and dark trousers. But we need not have worried as when it was our turn ( when Jamie wiggled his arse towards the audience- something he does when conducting) we knew our more eclectic performance had worked some of its usual magic

My twin sister Janet loved his wiggle..as did Chic Eleanor and my friends from Conwy who had come over to see us perform and in the end both choirs needed a pat on their backs as comparing us was really like comparing apples to oranges! We both did very well
On her way home, Chic Eleanor flipped her pashmina and purred " Darling John Your conductor's buttocks are simply amazing!!"

After a bit of reflection  I think our Finnish Reindeer clapping song swung it for us in the end.

Not the Reindeer song but our Welsh one x