So much to get my head back around. Just remembering the daily routine for one thing. During a CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) workshop I signed myself up to for stress management I decided to write down the basic structure of my day based about the handovers, drug rounds, clinical observations and meal times I have to work between. I add to it whatever needs to be remembered throughout the day specifically for my patients.I printed out a few sheets of these so I can have a fresh copy everyday to keep me on track and on top. Most importantly it keeps me 'out of my head'.
This is a phrase I have found myself using a lot this past year. It means that when my thoughts are running around in my head non-stop just repeating themselves completely uselessly I can stop and find a way to concentrate on what I'm meant to actually be doing. Not on what my brain wants me to be concentrating on, and getting lost in unhelpful thoughts.
Being able to pull this wondrous piece of blue paper out of my pocket to see what, if anything I have missed is a great way to keep me focused on getting through the day and doing the absolute best by my patients.
Not that I'm meant to be having my own patients yet! I'm Supernumerary for two weeks on my ward before getting the real deal loaded on. That means I don't have soul care for any patients and if I wasn't there they would be able to manage fine without me as I'm not counted as one of the staff numbers. This, of course, in the NHS understaffed and strictly budgeted wards, hasn't been completely successful. No complaints here though. I'm going to be having to cope with at least seven patients all on my own in a fortnights time and I have to start somewhere.
Saying that, it was only on the last day of my first week it was like that. Day one and two I got to work with a fantastic nurse. She is a little old school and thinking of retirement but by no means does that mean she is not cut out for this work anymore. She is quicker and slicker than anyone I've met throughout my training. I have a feeling I might be referring to her a little more along the way so I shall call her Finny. By the time I have written the doctors instructions on my beautiful blue to do list, told the patient what I'm going to do and collected together the equipment I need Finny has told me the job has been done! She tells me I should let her know if I want to do something but it seems I can't get the words out quick enough. And for those of you that know me should know that that's not normally a problem for me!
Day three, Finny is not in but I am partnered up with another lovely nurse, however she, let's call her Indie, is very quiet, a massive push over and very apprehensive when being confronted by anyone in anyway. Some of this is cultural, and she is also very new to the hospital environment. Indie is very experienced but left her training and went straight into a nursing home role which is a million miles away from and so much more confined than our extremely busy and multi disciplined ward. I love working with Indie as we quietly get on quite well as a team and look after each other and our patients in a similar way. However, as the luck of the draw would have it I ended up heaving tears out of my chest all the way home after experiencing a callous and brash agency nurse brush off the wails of pain from her young patient. Having to intervene at the neglect of my own patients made me really uncomfortable in so many ways. As much as I see pain and suffering on a daily basis, walking out of the room whilst an incapacitated, nion teen, is in so much discomfort, mentally and physically, is not something I could do. And hope I never can. Talking about pulling those heart strings!! So I stayed an extra hour to ensure the needs of my patients had all been met whilst this woman sauntered off early with a brief 'thank you' to me for my help in telling her how to do her job despite her having been around a good twenty years more than me. All in a days work for an opinionated and assertive fecund.
Like I said, learning that I can't change others will be a challenge for me. My first experience of this didn't go smoothly, but I will draw on this and remember that I am doing right and good by the patients whether they are under my direct care that day or not. I am, as all nurses should be, an advocate for the ill, sidelined and impaired. I can do no more. Another thing that is very uncomfortable for me is that she has told me to mark the day as she says I'll be a great nurse and go very far, even to manager, if I wanted. Maybe she see the compassion she lacks, in me? Is that a good thing? To be liked and admired by the lazy and contemptible? I know I'm being too harsh on this woman but the way the reacted in that moment has changed the way I will look upon her experience from here on out.
The wispiness and birdnestiness of my hair seems to be progressively synonymous with the busier or later on in the day it gets. I don't have regular access to mirrors as the ones we do have dotted around are genuinely at the height of my torso and I don't have the instinct to check I'm in a suitable state for viewing to the public. My hair is usually doing its to best to get out of the hair band I tie around it in a bid to get it out of my face and the slow developing film of grease on my face that forms progressively through the day is persistent! You need Mr Muscle involved to remove that build up. Which means my glasses are usually halfway down my nose is I'm doing anything but standing stock still with my nose slightly stuck up in the air. This position unnerves me so I tend never to be doing it... However the unwelcome glances of myself I do get as the winter nights creeps in reflected back at me from the giant windows surrounded the ward always make me smile in despair. I'm pretty sure none of the socially awkward and malnourished junior doctors will ever fall for this. I usually find their ties unsettling anyway...
I think this is probably enough for your little eyes to hover over for now. I have written only one thing from the list of ideas I had to fill this post, but I'm sure I'll get round to mentioning them along the way.
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