Bric-a-brac

I've named this post thus, as this is going to be a bit disjointed as I get all the ideas out that I've had over the last three months. Bare with!

So being presented with a whole new workforce to spend the day alongside was tricky. Should I introduce myself? Do they already know my name? Do I need to know their name? Or their actual job role?
Usually, if I'm not being caught off guard, I do the thing that all my friends cringe at me for doing at parties; 'Hi! I'm C. (really over pronouncing my name so they don't mistake it for something else, which is a guarantee if I don't!!) What's your name? Uhuh. And what do you do? Ah, lovely! So what do you want.' Usually accompanied by the overly keen, wide eyed 'I'm in a hurry but and very willing to listen if you speak quickly' look. I'm practising that one.
Anyway, when deciding to BOND with a fellow team members one quickly has to figure out how much time and energy, if any, to spend. As my dearest friends will know, I put too much effort into almost all my connections, so this is really hard for me to judge. Getting to grips with the politics (which I vowed never to get involved with, but apparently is pretty unavoidable!!) is tricky! Deciding who is friend and who is foe. Phew!

Despite trying to stay on the sidelines whilst simultaneously wanting to befriend the entire crew, most of whom could not be bothered by my presence, I have forged what apparently, to my pleasant surprise, seems to have worked very well in my favour, a friendship. A fantastic health care assistant, whom I shall call Mina, decided she wanted to get to know me during a few night shifts we spent together. She told me how uptight and unbearable I was as a student and how chilled and easygoing I was turning out to be once I had settled down a bit. 'A new cooler version' apparently! Like a new improved iced coffee recipe. I'll go with that I thought.
Anyway, since this relationship has bloomed into cinema dates and sharing intimate details of social goings on, I seem to have inadvertently gained more healthcare assistants willing to been seen and heard with me. I almost feel like 'one of them' on a good night shift! I'm sure Mina had something to do with this. Probably not fully intentionally, but she is definitely a big personality and a long timer too with a lot of influence and character. It's also made it so much more apparent to me how much the healthcare assistants get to work together as a team and how much they have to depend on each other, as they can rarely depend on us nurses to help them out when they're busy as we often have a 'bigger', 'better' or 'more urgent' matter to be dealing with. It also makes me sad that I don't get the opportunity to work alongside my fellow nurses as they get to work along side their fellow healthcare assistants. I'm glad of this awakening too. I will be so much more willing to lend a hand when I have a spare moment or share their work load, as I couldn't even bare thinking about doing my job without them!! 

This brings me ever so smooothly to my next point of the dreaded *Allocation* at the beginning of the day! This is where the nurse in charge decides which patients I will be taking on and which health care assistant I will be working alongside. Naturally there are people we work better with and others we don't. Hearing certain names will bring a little leap into my chest and others a sinking feeling into my stomach. The day can be so much harder when you know you'll have to ask twice or really consider how you say something, or how to, to be frank, demand things to be done, in an amenable fashion without coming across as a monster, when they are perhaps, less willing! 
In the same breath, the day can just gliiide by when you have someone one step ahead of you and even offering to take work from you! I have to watch myself not to take full advantage of these angels! It's a tad easy! And also means, in some cases, I just let them take most of the responsibility for my patients. Especially in the case of when they have been allocated just one or four patients to supervise. 

Moving on. Being one of very very few young faces on the ward, I am in a way, pretty novel. I have on a couple of occasions now, when in general conversation in the staff room, when mentioning my past or (until recently) non existent love life, been met with 'You're SO young though!' and 'You'll find someone.' that usually comes with a sympathetic smile that makes cringe. Despite my protests of 'I'm not looking right now' and 'I'm not counting down the years yet' and the laboured joke of 'I've accepted spinsterdom, anything above that and I'm set!' they continue with the counter attacks of 'Ooh, but have you seen how the theatre porters look at you?!' and 'You know, that new doctor is good looking. Very handsome. Why don't you...' As if all I have to is just point and wink at whomsoever I wish and seal the deal!
One day in aforementioned staff room (which I now try and avoid at all costs) whilst munching through a packet of lemon cream biscuits Ronald had passed onto me, minding my own business, I am suddenly aware of a lot of purple uniformed eyes on me. The domestic staff, clearly recognisable from their mauve attire were apparently just discussing the love interest of a colleague of theirs. I become aware of their conversation when one of them points at me, and says very audibly; 'it's her, you know. Yeah. This girl.' Intrigued, I lift my head and find her finger pointed right in my face. Mouth full of overly sweet biscuit I try to hold the contents there whilst having to fight the urge to drop my jaw and manage to splutter a 'HUH!?' followed shortly by a 'What?!' Then a 'Me?' then subsequently a final 'Huh!'. It doesn't take much for me to pry the story that I had missed out of them once I manage to ingest my sweet treat. They described their colleague as an old, tall, irishman with grey hair. Now, being quite observant and friendly I pride myself on having at least a vague knowledge of most of the people that pass through the ward on a regular basis. This man, initially, was not one of them! This man who, according to the domestic, had picked me out and was going to make his wife, is now on my radar. I had missed him to begin with on account of him being very quite and not a chatty man at all, I had assumed him a non-native speaker. I assured the domestics that nothing would be able to happen between my future celtic husband and I if he wasn't willing first, to at least introduce himself. His female colleagues in the staff room didn't even know his name poor thing! So it seems, I am no longer invisible!! My uniform and new found confidence might not all together be a good thing after all!

So many more stories, so little margins between boring you and you wanting more. I'll keep them coming. I try to be less prolific, but it's no use. My natural verbose nature will not desist. I hope you've enjoyed my accounts in any matter!! Thanks for taking the time.