Just at the back of Dog you can see my pillow and blow up bed. My arm fits between the slats for a middle of the night cuddle - not very nursey of me but the best I can do.
Yep if there was any doubt about it before there sure as shit is none now, I could not be a nurse.
I'd just wander around the ward crying and being a big dick as I tried to ease the suffering of the sick folk or I'd be pissed off and abusive towards the demanding less sick folk with undue senses of entitlement.
Nurses are efficient in their care. They notice every little thing and because of their knowledge and training and experience, they are aware of even subtle changes in a patient's condition and so act on these changes promptly and confidently. Bloody good on 'em. They know stuff and can do stuff and do do stuff that I can only imagine, unless I am watching a hospital type bit of tellie, then I can give thought to how do they do all that work in those tight uniforms and doesn't all that hairspray fall into open wounds as they re-bandage stuff, but that's only on the tellie, cos Real Life Nurses are wonderful.
Dog is being shortchanged having me as her night nurse. Oh sure in an un-nursey way I am sleeping on the floor next to her from where I can hear every little movement and moan and snore or snort. 13 times last nmight so my fitty bitty tells me. Yeh I borrowed an air bed from my girl, I mean I am not completely nuts and we have concrete floors and I am a person! but that's where my nurseyness ends.
I figure she must be thirsty and she will lick a bit of water off my fingers, but she does this only under sufferance, and she must certainly be in pain - that I can easily understand, so I am not pushing hard for her to stand up and get going like a nurse might do. I am just cooing to her and trying to be kind, but I realise that KIND might well not be the best medicine but it's all I can manage, that and fixing her some lovely yoghurt and popping a bit of chicken stock in her water bowl. Yeh I am just making shit up.
I've been in hospital more times than I care to recall and none of it has been a picnic. When I was delivered of my first new knee, and things all went a little haywire with blisters the size of my head and a migraine that made me want to call it a day, one of the nurses was so so kind, that I must have fallen a little in love with her. When I got home and I could hobble a bit, I raced out and got her this enormous Villeroy and Boch spoon bowl thing. Mary Poppins singing 'A spoon full of sugar' drove me to this. It was a ridiculously drug driven, over the top gesture, and when I delivered it to her some 6 weeks later, when I walked in under my own steam, clear headed and cynically normal, I was embarrassed and so was she and I did a runner cos this pressie was a sign of being a bit nutty. I guess nurses might be used to patients returning with a little thank you box of Cadbury Roses for everyone to share - at least I like to think that patients offer something in appreciation of their nursing. In any case I hope she kept it and maybe smiles when she uses it, but perhaps more likely she left it in the ward kitchen and some daft cow planted a bit of something in it that has since died.
I liked hers so much that later I went and bought one for myself.
However, there can be no doubt that Nursing is a vocation, and like teaching, if it is not a calling then the work must be horrendous. And I don't mean that looking after Dog is terrible and I hate it, but it's my dirty little secret, I am counting the days til I am back upstairs in my own bed, and she is drinking on her own and hopefully eating a little something that is good for her.
I can only have a lame stab at being the type of wonderful that is a Nurse.
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