The lisping choir et Al doing a cracking job. I loved this and I was there at the back cheering when this was performed.
I’m spring cleaning today and have only left the cottage to walk the dogs
Spring
The lisping choir et Al doing a cracking job. I loved this and I was there at the back cheering when this was performed.
Marinko
In Spinal Injury Nursing, you will always have your favourite patients; the admission to a spinal rehab centre lasts for up to and in many cases well beyond 6 months, so there is plenty of opportunity to really get to know your patient and their families so very well.
In general our unit in Sheffield had on average 100 "new" admissions yearly so in my time there I must have seen around 1600 people coming through the doors and into our lives .I can think of ten or so patients that will always linger in my mind. Eve, an affable despot and serial socializer from Nottingham, Richard, a difficult but ever so likable teenage quadraplegic that I used to use many unprofessional type nursing methods on to just to get him to eat; Neil , the charismatic army guy with a big heart and courage to match his many injuries; Hatim the 13 year old boy injured in the Iraq war who finally adopted a Yorkshire accent when he left us and who loved Finlay with a passion; Sue, a brittle and hilarious salt-of-the-earth fitness fanatic from Manchester--The list could go on and on and on. Many of these characters I still keep in touch with, and their life stories after spinal cord injury have been many and indeed varied .
Marinko was one of these people. I first met him when he was admitted to us in the early 1990s after a fall from a ship in Great Yarmouth when he sustained a lower back fracture and total paraplegia.
A non English speaker from Croatia, he was a challenge on so many levels to nurse. We had to get students from Sheffield University to act as interpreters ( as I remember,one was not as good as the others and confused the Croatian for pillow with the word for chicken- which in its own way caused much hilarity)
Marinko also had problems with, shall we say , assertive Sheffield women, and had quite an "old fashioned" Eastern European attitude to gender roles, which was a challenge to him and us, as most of his carers were opinionated Yorkshire women.
But he was charming and funny and "blossomed" under the intimate and at times unrealistic environment a rehabilitation centre provides and I considered him to be a friend when he left us to be with his family in a tiny village outside the city of Split
The day we said goodbye, he gave me a bunch of flowers,wrapped in brown paper .we shook hands and hugged and he kissed me hard on each cheek and called me “ brother” and I had to bite my lip as he wheeled away to an uncertain future
Over the past 16 years or so, we have always communicated infrequently by letter. His correspondence was always charming and on the surface optimistic, but it did hint at the huge adaptation problem Marinko had with his disability.
A few Christmas’ ago, I was surprised not to have seen a card from him, and I was saddened to receive a letter from Marinko's brother a few months after that.
In a note that sounded very much like Marinko his brother states simply:-
Dear Mr Gray,
I am using this opportunity to inform you that my dear brother and your friend Marinko has lost a long battle with his disease and passed away on the 29th of December 2007. The funeral was held in the local cemetery on 31st December 2007
I wish also to extend my honest gratitude for all your support,true and sincere friendship you have been providing to Marinko through all these years.
Sincerely
Maiodrag.
iLOVE
This short film is a little gem and it’s Spanish which makes it so much more appealing
Enjoy……
No News
There are not enough hours in my day
The older I get the more I think this.
Night shifts exaggerate this somewhat as they encroach on more than the night at work, but Tuesdays I’m in college all day and Thursdays I’m seeing my own clients for most of the day in the next County.
I also have a presentation to write and which links humanistic therapy with Gestalt thinking and another essay to plan for centred around diversity.
My academic marks are improving and my last three pieces of work were B+ A- and A- which I’m pleased about
Today I’ve walked the Welsh, and pottered around chasing up medications, picking up a glucose monitor, cat wormers and the like.
Whoosh the morning has gone
When it’s just you at home, there’s just you to sort these things out
That’s a brief moan, more an observation.
As you can see there’s not much to discuss or say today
I saw Terry walking his dog and he told me I’d lost weight, which pleased me
I’ve lost a stone and a half
My cord pants almost fell down in a sainsburys the other day as a result
Ps. I’ve just reweighed myself . I’ve lost 2 stone
This Is Hospice Care
It’s been a tough day. I have had two complex counselling patients and needed my supervisors calming and sensible voice on the other end of the phone before leaving for home
An unapologetically lazy post today, I’m not in the mood for writing
This advert for hospice support is impressive as it is sad, sad that it’s not funded by the government
Day Off
Ruth bought me an original sketch of an old dog which was delightful and I bought a small globe from a shop in town. I used to have one that lit up as a child and have always wanted to own another.
Then we sat on the Promenade in the cold and watched the world walk by
Sunshine and Meatballs
Apparantly it’s a thing….
Yesterday was a wake up call.
Roger off his lead like a loon
Things can go tits up in an instant.
One wrong move, one accident of fate,
And whoosh
Roger has been at Trendy Carol’s all day.
I’ve been in college
Both he and Mary were stood by Carol’s Trendy Conservatory and when they saw me, Roger galloped over with his sister tottering slowly behind
And the welcome broke my heart just a little.
A dim silly boy with a gentle heart and a scruffy old bitch with tired eyes
They are my world and my sunshine
And I’m glad I bought them a packet of Swedish meatballs from the garage on the way home( see link below)
My Sunshine
Roger slipped his lead this afternoon and in a fit of excitement got himself lost on the Dyserth walkway for over two hours! .
I was frantic as his dim nature belies any common sense homing instinct and was filled with that hollow dread any parent feels when their child slips a hand and gets lost in the crowd.
I walked up and down the old railway line until dusk with Mary tiredly in tow, until a young couple told me that he was sat in the car park with their mother after climbing into their car in the faint hope he was going home.
He whimpered when he saw us, wrapping his paws around my forearm until I got him home and there he sat on my knee as I rocked him like a baby .
I found myself tearfully half-singing a song to him as he fell fast asleep, his muddy paws twitching gently in tired stress
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skys are Grey,
You’ll never know dear,
How much I love you,
please don’t take my sunshine away ……
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