BCG disaster!

Disaster has struck Nurse P – due to an audit on the university I’m not allowed to go on placement without my BCG, I should have been getting at the end of February (not my choice – you’re allocated the appointments by occupational health) and just staying the hell away from any patients with TB in the mean time! But no – it’s all change, I’ve been sent for a blood test to find out if I need a BCG, and then then sometime next week I’ll be jabbed, with a developing scar on my upper arm and be free to go back out into the world and heal the sick. Which is cracking – in the mean time I get to spend 10 days not quite sure where I stand and doing random bits and bobs of work. I have so so so almost finished my assignment, I am going to do the last 500 words before I allow myself to leave the library and go and have a lovely shower and a stir fry for my tea! Bliss!

What’s odd about being back in the North of England is that it really does feel like home now, as much as I miss Wales and being back at home home (I even listen to Welsh radio when I’m working) my little room, my little flat my little city is where I belong right now. I had to cycle 3 miles to get my bike fixed this morning – and then walked back in the cold winter sun to do my essay, it was only after I got back that I realised, that while 3 miles off on my bike to find a repair shop would be nothing back home, suddenly it was nothing here. This city is now so a part of my life that I’m kind of confident in getting around and about!

Anyway – that’s enough of me being philosophical – and hopefully when I next post – I’ll be back in the hospital!

New Year!

Well – a very merry Christmas, and a happy new year to you all!

The apocalypse didn’t come and I was spared being killed by fire and brimstone while on the train through Cwmbran! Not that Cwmbran isn’t lovely – it’s the home of the Wagon Wheel – but I’d rather not die while travelling though it a few days before Christmas! (Can I recommend the song Fresh Prince of Cwmbran – by GLC while I’m here!?)

But – here we are, 2013, and I’m back up North, back in England, back in my little room and back to work – because we did our exam before Christmas I had a stress free fortnight of reading, drinking and watching criminal minds, but back to work with a bump I’ve taken up residence in the nursing school library to use their computers, my laptop has unfortunately gone kaput – and so I’m at the mercy of the slow and clattery computers here instead. But they’ll do! To celebrate our return to the fore, and the fact out student loan has come I hosted a Gin party - for the record, I thoroughly recommend it - although we all had horrible hangovers the next day, we had cocktails with very cheap gin, very cheap vermouth and assorted mixers - the Tom Collins, Gimlet, Old fashioned and Martini were a success! My friend Nurse O's improvised punch ... less so! 

The lethal concoction - only palatable when shotted followed by a lemonade chaser!

I’m slowly working through an assignment on health conditions and their effect on not only the individual but their family and friends too. I’ve chosen HIV as my condition – a bit of a cop-out perhaps, but I find it interesting – the social stigma some feel (note: some not all) as well as the problems encountered with the actual condition is half the battle – physical heath is hard to achieve without mental health to accompany it. It’s not due until April, but with 8 weeks of placement ahead of me and my practice assignment returned to me with “Shockingly shit” written across it (implied – not literally!) – It’s time to get my head down and weep into the keyboard I think!

I’ve often eyed up midwifery from afar – and thought about whether I could do it, and I think I could – I find it really very interesting, not only labour and giving birth, but about how your own health effects that of the unborn child – and how the body is truly amazing in creating life, but that’s true of nursing too I suppose!

If there’s one thing this course has taught me so far – it’s that the body is an amazing thing, that can destroy itself, regenerate itself, heal itself, and create life!

(God I’m being profound – back to the day job of drinking tea and cooking pasta Nurse P!)