Bye Rodders.

Our Rod went off to join Chris this morning after a harrowing eleven days. We all gave it all we had but she was just too poorly, sounds like a familiar story to me. We’re all so sad, but as my lovely friend said, it’s a comfort to think that she’s with Chris now. There’ll never be another cat like that one, she was a complete nutter and thought she was human. We have two cats left, one has fits and is senile and the other hates all things human and animal, in fact she’s a bit psychotic about inanimate objects as well. When they go I am NOT having any more pets, ever ever ever!!

Come on Rodney....get better.

Our wee cat, the one that Chris made us adopt, is so poorly. It brings many painful memories back.....so hard!!

Deefor diet

I’m on a Deefor diet.

Having gained a few pounds recently I decided something had to be done to shift the thing that’s now hanging around my middle bit and preventing me from fastening my buttons on my jeans. I’ve done the denial and also accused the tumble dryer of shrinking stuff, but the scales say it in plain English ‘you have become unfit, get off your backside and stop eating chips’

I needed something to lever me out of the sitting position!

I needed a dog! To walk me.

I had a light bulb moment, Ahah!!, I have a friend who has a dog who could fix me, his name is Deefor, why waste time searching for a name for a dog when D for dog will fit the bill.

He calls for me, takes me round this massive field, keeps checking I’m keeping up and nags me if I don’t. Then, to round it off he gives me a good wash and tells me what a good girl I’ve been.

Magic.....I've lost 4lbs so far.

Ok I'll stay then.

Now that the assignment has been handed in and I've done the exam I feel a tad more relaxed, although I'm not at all sure I will pass the exam because I went off on one and revised the wrong thing. I wasn't alone though which means I'm not necessarily getting old age confusion yet.

On perusing the new timetable for the next module I was once again fired up with the passion for nursing that has always been in my system. Bio science figures heavily in this next bit which will end in a two and a half hour exam mainly covering the systems (endocrine, respiratory, digestive, immune, muscular skeletal, urinary etc....). This really excites me because although I love all aspects of nursing, my particular interest is medical and I am fascinated by the body systems.

One of the other subjects we will be studying is pain which is another area of great interest to me, along with palliative and end of life care. This is where I would love to end up working, it is what drives me and it is where I would love to have a chance to make a difference. I am totally inspired by pain management teams such as Macmillan nurses and have been very lucky to see the outcome of their specialist intervention on a few occasions.

So at the moment I am staying put and will ride out the next nervous breakdown when everything is due in.

Pond Progress

It's getting there

Proper diary catch up

I managed to complete my second placement which was with a health clinic and despite a bit of a to do with mentors I did end up with two of the nicest people one could hope for. So I now know exactly what Health Visitors do and I've have had an amazing insight into many more aspects of health care in the community, which I have enjoyed immensely.

However, I have once again had the inevitable panic and near nervous breakdown that comes with an assignment being due in. The first thing that happens when you know you have a deadline is of course your brain freezes, but you don't worry because you have 3 weeks, so it's not a problem. Two and a half weeks later the frozen brain hasn't defrosted and you have only done a paragraph and that was squeezed out a word at a time. It's not that I haven't tried, in fact I was drowning in the amount of research I'd printed out, it was enough to keep a paper mill in recycled stuff for years. That's what I hate about research, more often than not you know what you want to say but you have to find someone else who said it before you, why? because they didn't sit around with frozen brains, they got it on paper and printed and published, that's why.

I've done it now but it didn't happen without incident, I have a frozen neck and shoulder and I had a right funny turn on Friday night. So once again I am wondering whether I can continue to drive myself to the brink for the next two and a half years. I don't know, I really don't.

Hubby has decided to take early retirement in May and he's already fitting nicely into the roll of potterer with a tan. I wonder if my brain freeze has anything to do with the fact that he's out there in MY garden while I'm plonked at a computer with a bad neck.....Hmm!!

Diary of a student nurse who's hubby needs a slap.

What do you do when your garden pond springs a leak?

Do you just fix it?

Or...do you decide to build another pond alongside it so the fish have somewhere nice to swim while you repair it?

Someone please get my hubby a job pronto because my garden looks like a building site!

Upside down.

I was made the wrong way round I think. Hubby and son were made redundant and for a while now we’ve had to be soooooo careful with the funds. It’s amazing what lengths you can go to with a chicken, I hold the record at making one last for 4 days. There’s a hundred and one different recipes using a tin of beans as well and if you find a bit of meat at the back of the freezer it’s party time.


I don’t ever want to forget the brilliant things this having to struggle a bit has brought into our house, we’ve been closer than ever and we have valued every bit of teamwork. I truly am afraid that if we get money coming in and don’t have to worry about day to day costs again, we’ll lose this.


Daft isn't it.

The hill....revisited.

As there is a very real possibility that me John and Mike will be living in a cardboard box sometime soon I thought it would be a good plan to do something today that would tempt the feel good endorphins out of hiding. After careful deliberation over a massive bacon and egg batch (endorphin producing food) I suggested we climb Helsby Hill again, after all we'd really enjoyed that ramble last time we did it.

What I hadn't accounted for was the fact that it was two years since we last went up there and my fitness level has decreased considerably due to spending most of that time on my rear. Sitting in class all day and studying all night surprisingly does not produce a marathon runner. Anyway I had to have five rests and stop twice because my legs went all funny, but I got to just before the summit without too much drama. As we rounded the corner there was a thin path above a shear drop and some sandstone tablet type rock which looked harmless enough so on I strode. Now! if you happen to have a bit of a problem with heights you'll know all about that feeling of frozenness and the surging desire to throw yourself off the thing, despite knowing that you definitely will die horribly if you do. This is a feeling which makes no sense whatsoever and I've never come across anyone who could explain the absurdity of it to me. I was there spread out, grappling with bits of grass and stuck frozen flat against the sandstone wailing, could I move a muscle....no could I heck. Eventually John dragged me up and we had coffee sitting in the sun which was nice, he also found another way to get back down which I was relieved about because by now there was a party of school kids up there and I didn't fancy an audience when I next lost the plot.

I'm not sure whether the feel good endorphin thing worked because the amount of adrenalin that must have been circulating when I was stuck has probably taken years off my ticker, but at least while that was happening I was thinking the cardboard box house seemed like a nice idea.

Like many people my men are facing the possibility of being unemployed because the company they work for has gone into administration, it's a scary prospect, especially for my hubby who has been there since he was in his twenties. It might challenge us but it's in no way going to destroy us.

Praise God for the continued strength I am Blessed with.

Brrrr!!

This weather is causing many strange things to happen in my world, as I imagine it is in other peoples. I nearly didn't go back to uni but I did and I loved it, but it was short lived because we were there, then a day later we were sent home early, we then went back when everywhere else had decided to close, that lasted half a day and now we've been told it's closed until the 18th of January. It feels kind of unreal.

Yesterday our Mike's car was stuck half on and half off the drive, it's a sporty thing and rear wheel drive (not that I know the significance of that) so it apparently gets all moody when it sees ice and either refuses to move or does a stroppy dance all over he road. Anyway, although I had a huge amount of studying to do I decided it might be nice to get my wellies on and shift a bit of snow in order to get the bad tempered vehicle off the pavement. Well! I can't begin to tell you just how much I enjoyed that couple of hours, it was magic, the sun was out and in minus whatever degree it was I worked up a right sweat. The sweat wasn't all that lovely but the endorphins in it made me giggle and I was momentarily tempted to make a snowman all on my own, however there were no children around who I could use as an excuse for my behaviour so I went inside and made a full English fry up instead which produced even more endorphins.

I was considering studying in the den in the garden because it looks sooooo pretty covered in snow and I could imagine I was in Switzerland, especially as the pond is frozen solid and perfect for a skate. But I decided not to because I had visions of fish eyes looking at me from under the ice or falling through it and decapitating one of them. I may however set up a soup kitchen down there if we're still snowed in come May.

There is a very real danger that I may have to eat my words if there are any power cuts due to this Arctic weather as well. How much did I scoff at my hubby when he announced (in the middle of summer) that he'd purchased a little generator thing, I made a meal of it and he said nothing. How I wish I had just said 'what a wise buy that was dear'

Before uni gave in to the weather we had a lecture on basic chemistry and I was amazed at how much I enjoyed it, I really do love this learning......until the next deadline anyway!!

Hats on for 2010.

Last night I got to thinking about all that had happened in 2009, New Years Eve does that, it makes you reflective. After feeling a bit rubbish health wise for oooow!! about 8 weeks now I thought I'd be having a whinge but it suddenly dawned on me what an amazing year 2009 was for me and I reckon that the hat you wear has an awful lot to do with it.

Just take a minute to think about hats, they are after all one of the most unassuming yet powerful bits of attire as far as I'm concerned. This morning we took off for a brisk walk in freezing temperatures so what did we both naturally do, yep we rooted round for a hat and each of us selected one. Now I don't just pull any old hat out because I think they make a statement, you can bring forth a multitude of reactions when people look at your hat and I wanted to make someone smile today, so I chose a daft one


On the way home from our walk I tried to engage my hubby in a discussion about hats and the effect they have on the wearer and the observer. He was reluctant at first but I persisted and give him his due he did eventually act as though he was interested. Take for instance Davey Crocket I said, he had that small animal one with a long tail, you can't sit there and tell me that the raccoons saw that and smiled. I know if I was approached by a matron of yesteryear I'd be fixated on the hat, in fact it would almost certainly make me do my utmost to look tidy in my bed. Ascot on ladies day has always scared the life out of me, how on earth can you hold a conversation with seven feet of fruit and I always feel that the guards at the palace only have stiff furry hats to butt you with if you keep asking too many questions.

To be honest I think the day of the hats is coming, they've been planning to secretly control us for years, they know that once they are on our head we are that hat. So lets all make a stand in 2010 by making sure we only wear a hat that smiles at people.

That will fool the buggers!

Have a good one.

Wishing everyone a happy and peaceful Christmas.

The fabulous fifties.

I am working my way back to normality but it takes a while when you are fifty odd and feel eighty odd. Placement nearly finished me off and I wish I could say I loved it, but I can't because it was very hard work and I've had every horrid bug that ever walked the earth, or floated in the air or lurked unsuspectingly on any bit of anything. Thirteen and a half hour days with travel time either end are beyond me and so is putting make up on without glasses because I've poked my eye out twice. I can no longer stand up and put tights on because I will always end up hurtling across the bedroom floor and knocking myself senseless on the pointiest object in sight. When I need to turn over in bed I have to position my hands securely around my right knee and hip and flip them over, but not too energetically or I end up smothering myself and because of the dodgy hip I can't flip back. So I gasp into the pillow until John finally realises I'm on my last legs, then he digs me and my sympathetic nervous system kicks in 'voila' I'm on the other side crippled with cramp and wide awake.

So! despite my brain still acting like it's twenty one my body has made it crystal clear that I am now in that wonderfully liberated age group who can't eat a dish of trifle without a bib.

Happy.

I'm tireder than the tiredest sloath that ever dragged itself across a tree trunk, but my second day on placement has been better than the first and I know I'll get used to these long days eventually. It's been a good day today, I got to spend plenty of time with the patients, learned a lot and gained some confidence. On that note I'm off to bed with my hot chocolate and the reflection can wait until tomorrow.

One forward two back.

Well I managed a day on the ward on Tuesday and nothing slightly 'carry on' happened apart from me asking the patients if I could repeat the obs just to make sure I had the right reading, bless them all for being so lovely with a newby, especially as they were probably feeling they could do without it. At times I felt out of my depth and at other times I felt totally within my comfort zone, it was just one day though. I was off Wednesday and today and I had hoped that tomorrow and Saturday would see me emerging as a confident obs person at the very least. However I felt a bit under the weather yesterday and didn't sleep at all well last night so off I trundled to the docs this morning and he signed me off until Monday.....very frustrating but sensible.

Diary of a student nurse. 2

A landmark is coming up and I feel it must be recorded. I am being let loose on the general public on Tuesday when I get to wear a uniform and actually work on a real ward as a student nurse. I'm very nervous because all of a sudden I'm on the other side of the fence and I know nothing about the basics like making them envelope beds, I did have a go on the manual handling course and it looked easy peasy, but it wasn't. I've had lots of encouragement from people and I think I'm ready, I just keep getting this mental picture of some carry on film where I cause a load of havoc on my first day.

Never thought I'd get to this point, I'm excited and nervous....arghh!!!

Chris.

Happy Birthday babe,

We miss you more today than we did yesterday and tomorrow we'll miss you more than we did today.

Love you always and forever. x

Part two.

This is a valuable tool this reflection thing. I'm going to use my blog more in future because it was a good reference to how I felt yesterday and how I now feel having reflected......

After sorting through everything I can sum it up by saying I was probably uncomfortable because I tend to celebrate Chris's life and if I'd got up and talked about my experience, I might have felt that the other students would view me as a bit blase. I also acknowledged that everyone does it different and that will be the case as I go through my nursing career (yep I'm staying put for now). I honestly didn't think I had a problem with over seriousness, but it just goes to show that I might have had. Good that it's now been flagged through reflecting though eh!

Reflection

This word 'reflection' is everywhere at the minute, we spend a huge amount of time learning about it at uni, doing it and then writing about it, so I thought I'd compose this entry in a reflective log sort of way, for practice, you see. So here we go, since starting I've had:

• High expectations
• Overload
• Where do I fit into all of this?
• Excited
• Exhausted
• Learning
• Overwhelmed
• Getting to grips momentarily
  
• Doubting
• Reminding myself why I'm here
• Feeling I can make a difference
• Block
  

This mornings lecture was about bereavment/dying and the fact that it was still considered to be largely a taboo subject in our culture. We were encouraged to talk about our experiences, but hardly anybody did because it was conducted in such a way that you could hear a pin drop. I understand that respect and empathy should be top of the list when dealing with people who are facing the end of their lives, as it should also be when communicating with family and friends of the dying person. But what I can't get my head round at the moment is why this lecture went so badly and why it changed me from being somebody who was able to share my story freely in my college course, to someone who conformed to keeping it a taboo subject by only offering the information that I'd lost my son. There wasn't any point in the lecture where I felt I could be honest and share my experience because it was far too tense and felt like it was designed to be a councelling session for the class.

I've always thought I could make a difference and I know I could, but maybe the hoops you have to jump through to actually get there take up far too much valuable time that could be spent making that difference to all the people in your life who miss you. I really want to be a nurse, but in order to continue I have to become selfish and put myself first and it just doesn't feel right at the moment.

These two things have presented me with a bit of a block so I will reflect on it all tomorrow and no doubt learn from it.

Zzzzzz!