Hey ho

 College on the ball, email sent out very early doors that lectures would be on line .

Just having short break

Jenny from the other side of the village sent me this

When Things Go Wrong

 This post is an example of " everything went wrong that could have gone wrong".

Yesterday, at work , I recalled the story of Sue a patient who needed and received some excellent nursing care from a curly haired, potty mouthed and naturally funny staff nurse called Ruth, who I have been dear friends with for over 35 years.
The story, had a somewhat sad ending for after four months or so on the rehab ward, Sue suddenly suffered a major physical complication and died unexpectedly on intensive care . She was only 26 years old.
We had become very close with Sue during her admission, and so it was natural for us to want to attend her funeral, which was across the Pennines in her home city of Manchester, and so early on the morning of the service three spinal injury nurses and three spinal injury patients left Sheffield in two cars to show their support.
Now Ruth and I travelled in one car and with us was a young man called Nick who had been paralysed from the waist down in a car accident and Marie, a young woman injured from the neck down following a fall. Both were wheelchair bound and both had developed a special bond with Sue during their admission.
The other car was driven by a nurse called Paula and with her was another patient called Pete, who was able to walk very shakily on two sticks.
Things didn't bode well after we stopped at traffic lights in rural Derbyshire  for as Ruth muttered her signature oath of " Hell's Teeth!"  her car stalled and refused to start. It was only then when I realised that we were totally responsible for three patients, each one with their own individual care needs.
It was a sobering thought.
Anyhow we eventually arrived at Sue's family home in a back street of Manchester just as the hearse left for the Church, then everything went tits up.

• Ruth's car finally died, leaving us stranded with no knowledge of where we were going
• Ruth started to flag down passing cars in a desperate effort to elicit help as Paula and I managed to lift Nick and Marie into her car so that at least we could get them to the service
• Ruth then incredibly stopped a cheerful plumber called Mick who agreed to transport me, her and the patients' wheelchairs across the city as a favour. Never was a stranger so helpful
• After getting to the Church we unloaded both van and car, set the patients up in their chairs then bolted to the service which was just finishing. By this time Ruth was literally inconsolable 
• The " wake" we were then told was located in a working men's club back across the city and Sue's family insisted that we all attend, so after organising more spaces in more stranger's cars we eventually arrived fraught, sweaty, and extremely stressed at one of the grottiest  council estate clubs I have ever seen.
• Then everything REALLY took a turn for the worse. 
• As we were setting up the wheelchairs ( brought for us by a couple of pensioners driving a nissan micra), Marie suddenly complained of a pounding headache. She looked flushed and unwell and couldn't quite focus  and we all suddenly knew that she was suffering from autonomic dysreflexia, a condition that is a medical emergency in high spinal cord injury patients. The condition can occur when a urinary catheter is blocked and if the cause is not rectified patients can have a pathological rise in blood pressure which can effectively kill them. The only treatment is to immediately change the patient's catheter.
• " Get her into the club" Ruth yelled and between three of us , we lifted Marie out of the car and raced THROUGH the wake where a few hundred people were drinking beer  and eating sandwiches) 
• Luckily a white faced club official saw us coming and pointed to the " ladies snug" which was deserted and on an unused billiard table  , Ruth and Paula managed to change the blocked catheter which immediately reversed Marie's symptoms. 
• While we were busy, several red faced drinkers had helped Nick and Pete into the club and were plying them with bottles of beer. This was just after 1pm
• By seven pm, the AA had got Ruth's car started and we were on our way home. Nick and Pete were much the worse for wear and Ruth was beside herself with the stress. " I'm going to get sooo drunk tonight " she promised as we eventually got back to the spinal injury unit and after having to explain ourselves to the matron for our late return, she did exactly that, after talking a bottle of rum from another friendly rehabing patient!

The last thing I remembered of the evening was when I opened the taxi door  outside Ruth's house in

the wee small hours and she fell out onto the road drunk as a skunk. " HELL's TEETH" she slurred cheerfully "'I think I've just broken me finger.........hey ho" ......and I am afraid to say that she indeed had...but it wasn't diagnosed until the following afternoon....

Now you all know where " hey ho" comes from!

Bun

 Night shifts are like black holes, they engulf everything . 

I’m reading before I go to bed. The day is damp and cold and murky and the fire is uncharacteristically lit and has been since 10 am.

I have Ramen noodle broth for tea.

It’s quiet 

Wet days dampen the sounds from outside.

Bun is a gentle soul. She’s affectionate and calm and already motherly despite her young age .

She’s warm too, and has stationed herself behind my neck, claws sheathed and eyes wide open .

Her expression is benign. 

Whereas her sister Weaver is almost paralysed with uncertainty, Bun has conviction and a sense of character. 

Gladiator II

 

Said simply, Gladiator II is the movie Ridley Scott would have liked to have made twenty four years ago, if CGI would have been cheaper. 

It’s more or less a remake of the original but set 18 years in the future when Maximus’ son Lucius ( by Connie Nielsen’s Lucilla ) is a grown man. Hidden in Namibia, Lucius ( Paul Mescal) is taken prisoner by a tatty haired General ( Pedro Pascal) and conscripted into gladiator school where he finds out his history and decides to become his father’s son.

Unlike the original this version bounces along at a cracking rate. The set pieces are impressive, the baddie ( an ever smiling Denzel Washington ) is fit for purpose and Mescal makes for a handsome and more charming Russel Crowe character in the lead role.

Alas impressive as he is , Crowe had a on screen masculinity and a certain beauty in his original role of Maximus that Mescal lacks, and sex on legs Pedro Pascal is underused too, and looks more of a bomb site than I can after working night shifts. (Didn’t the Romans invent hair brushes?)

The film pays homage to the original’s mighty score by Hans Zimmer and to the vocals by Lisa Gerrard

But it’s still the film Ridley Scott would have made in 2000 but couldn’t.

Nuff Said

 

Blitz

Blitz is Steve McQueen’s homage to wartime Black culture and he has produced a meticulously recreated WW2 nightmare of a simple Lassie Come Home ish boytime adventure piece, crossed with something that wouldn’t feel out of place in a Dickens novel .

The story isn’t complicated.

Saoirse Ronan is Rita, a warm hearted mum of mixed race eight year old George ( a plucky Eliot Heffernan) They live in London’s east end with grandad ( Paul Weller) until George is evacuated . 

and it is here that the boy’s own adventure story starts when the boy jumps his train and in an effort to find his way home, fights his way through one of the worst blitz raids of the war.

Even in let’s-pull-together wartime Britain McQueen shows London as a racist melting pot, where white officialdom and villainy conspire to prevent George’s reunion with his family. And where the main hero is  kindly Nigerian Ife ( Benjamin Clementine ) who suddenly becomes George’s surrogate air warden father figure. He has the heart of McQueen’s drama, and shines in one pivotal scene when , in front of the admiring George he sorts out a nasty racist incident in a crowded shelter with incredible emotional dignity.

 

In a matter of a day or two George is kidnapped by  a looting gang headed by a grotesque looking Kathy Burke. Is trapped, 1970s disaster film style , in a flooded underground station and is nearly killed in the flaming dockyards near Tower Bridge as his poor mother waits at home with bated breath .

The amazing Kathy Burke

Like I said it a simple tale, told well. I loved it

Life on a Winter Wednesday

 Lazy day today.

Long hot shower where I scrubbed everything that needed scrubbing. 

Clean clothes

Clinique Happy

Coffee and paperwork in the Storyhouse library 

Followed by a film The Blitz

The library has some lovely original features mashed together with modern design

The ceiling above my head

I was quoted in the Trelawnyd Community Association newsletter yesterday too

What fun

lol

Forgive the coffee stains , as usual I had a major dribbling moment down my front .

I’ve just got time to update you all,on Bun & Weaver

Weaver, is a funny little soul. She’s quiet and aloof and just keeps herself away from me and the dogs and life it would seem. Perhaps she’s just self contained , 

Perhaps not. 

She’s happiest with her sister and sits for long periods watching the ponies in their field.

Bun however has suddenly become affectionate and loving, cuddling up,to me on the couch when Mary is absent and falling asleep on my hip when im in bed.

EOL

 The hospice acronym for someone who is actively dying is EOL 

END OF LIFE

It signifies that the full force of hospice care is in progress 

I’m listening with interest, discussions around the Assisted Dying Bill which will debated in Parliament on the 29th of November. 

The bill, in its many forms is presently working in parts of Australia, Canada, The Netherlands and  Spain and the British legislation will be little different as the patient involved has to be actively dying within a sixth month period, a time limit which may cause disagreement between the two doctor referees. 

In my view a number of patients who want the  chance of self determination will essentially not be given it. The MND patients, the  MS and the head and Spinally injured. 

Many of these conditions are not life limiting of six months and therefore will not qualify.

I remember my brother who had motor neurone disease reviewing his chances of dignitas

It was all too much for him

It overfaces many.

Good EOL and palliative care should be a priority 

Everyone should have access to hospice care

And hospices should be financially supported to take all appropriate referral's

Assisted dying , if it arrives will help a few

But it will fail many others who want it but don’t qualify its strict criteria. 

I am saddened by their losses.