My God I'm stressed!

So ... I'm stressed! And it's not often that I say that, I'm the kinda gal who goes, "Nah I'm fine!" or "Ach, it'll all be OK.", "Worse things happen at sea!" is another perennial favourite. It's not that I don't worry, I do, and I panic and get a really sexy red chin when I'm not chilled out. But over the years I've become the one who sorts issues out, I'm the girl who's there with the hugs and tea bags. 

Are you worried/nervous/upset/angry? Then come to my house, I'll make you tea, I'll crack open the cake tin (because I am the only person since 1963 who own's a cake tin) and you can talk things through. Nurse P will make everything better. 

And because I may be a nice and kind person, I'm also irritatingly honest and fairly stingy with compliments so when I tell you that you're a wonderful person and that all the pain is worth it because you're going to be brilliant at what ever it is you're trying to do, (be it soufflé making, nurse training or learning to drive) it tends to have the desired effect, in that people buy me cake and make me tea and pick me up when I'm sobbing with heartbreak or alcohol.

Because who wouldn't love that face and coat!

So when I'm stressed, I downplay it, I'm emotionally constipated about things that really worry me, whereas bad boyfriends, bad patients and bad shit in general my upset me, and I can talk about  'till the cows get home. If it worries me or is stressing me out then expect me to hole up in my house until through a combination of tea, cooking arse-kicking food and watching re-runs of Jonathan Creek gets me back on track. 

I'm stressed because I have a great deal on my plate at the moment , first off that assignment that I failed a while back - my re-write has not started looking better than the shite original and not passing it second time around means good bye nursing course, hello going back to being a receptionist where my line manager hates me and always told me I'd make a bad nurse. Secondly my new placement, 12 hour shifts are OK, the work is great (obvs loads more piss, shit, and vomit than last time - but I love it!) and the patients are lush sooooo - what could possibly be bothering me. WELL! 

"The human body is the only machine for which there are no spare parts."  Hermann M. Biggs

1954 Morris Minor saloon 

We have a patient on the ward, they are dying and I'm sorry to be so blunt, but this patient in their early 20's is dying - and by all rights they probably should have already died. It's only through medical intervention and their families un-ending support and belief in their relatives ability to recover. Which they wont - doctor's have been pumping their body full of anti-biotics and blood transfusions and everyone, all the doctors and all the nurses know that this person is simply not going to recover, not through lack of trying or because we're cruel but because the human body is an incredible thing but like any machine, which is of course essentially what it is, there is only so much it can take. Think of a Morris Minor car, an absolute beast of an engine, a beautiful car and a rarity. In 1954 they were 10 a penny,  a very common car, but now rarer than hens teeth. There's only so much a car can take, only so many times the gear box can be changed and the fan belt replaced and the rust covered and the pain touched up. We are but machines, very clever and complex machines but engines none the less and there is so much we can take. When I see this patient and I care for them and I watch the doctors doing yet more blood and nurses set up another IV of antibiotics, part of me aches to say: "Just let go, let go and let your child rest in piece, it may seem in human and cruel but it's not - it's the kinder thing to do than to just keep this going. There is no quality of life, there is nothing of your child to save." Perhaps I'm cruel, perhaps I'm heartless, perhaps I would understand if I were a mother. 

But I'm not a mother, I'm a nurse and I see how much this family wants their child to be healthy again and I respect and understand that, but as a medical professional I can also say with the same mind that understands all of that, that there are wishes and their are facts. And in my line of work sometimes we have to work with wishes over facts, however unhelpful such wishes may be.

I don't want to dispirit you all - so in some rather better news, I've just passed my final exam of my first year! Woop Woop - which is making my stress a little better, as is my recent discovery of YooMoo frozen yoghurt in my local Tesco, I personally recommend the Tropicoolmoo flavour it's very VERY nice, and the perfect thing for when I get back from the crazy humid heat of the ward to my nice cool house! I love summer as much as the next man, but in the hospital the heat is something else. And here's a photo of a celebratory ferret - to celebrate passing exams and discovering frozen yoghurt!

Until next time: au revoir!