RUNNING UP THAT HILL

My husbands Masters Degree has finally arrived in the mail. Thank goodness it’s over after 3 arduous years of hard work – all that for a fancy piece of paper & and bit of extra money in your pay. So he has his Masters in Advanced Clinical Practice now & I have a string of lousy Graduate Certificates. My husband barely passed in his undergraduate degree (he wont care if I tell) & I was in the top 5% with a GPA of 6.4! Grades - they really don't mean a damn thing! Since my husband & I moved to Melbourne he has ploughed his way through the ranks to the third highest pay grade – I on the other hand made a lousy 28K last financial year (okay, so I was sick for most of it) & am on my third job. I get so envious of my husband – he loves what he does & has intense passion for his work. It reminds me of the suffragette anthem “Running up that Hill” by Kate Bush: "If only I could; I’d make a deal with God & I’d get him to swap our places. Then I’d be running up that road…I’d be running up that hill, with no problems".

Every time I complain about nursing my husband says – “you’d hate whatever it was you were doing”…& he’s probably right, as I usually voice my hatred of it only when I'm depressed or anxious. It will be interesting to see how I go when I get back to work. When I 'am' at work I work like a slave & usually do unpaid overtime constantly. As I’ve stated previously – I’m a perfectionist & won’t go home till everything is done to my satisfaction. This does not pay off as colleagues often get annoyed by my doing extra work & I just get even more down about nursing due to having to do overtime - but I don’t even have to do it! I’m my own worst enemy; classic bipolar symptoms apparently.

One of the psychiatrists that came to my apartment when I was really depressed alluded to me possibly having a bit of OCD as well (Great!). I could see him looking around the apartment, at the books on the shelves placed into neat categories according to subject matter - he did point out though that at least I didn’t have them arranged in alphabetical order! I have often wondered this myself as I am continually conscious of germs & everything in my life is so organised. I remember one of my nieces playing with my parents’ dog once & then touching her toes, she then proceeding to eat lunch with her hands without washing them – I nearly vomited. The germ thing has gotten worse over time; I think being a nurse doesn’t help either. About two years ago my fingers & fingernails got in a terrible mess from over cleaning them. I also remember my colleagues getting terribly upset with me because I delivered a valid case against the use of their beloved lanyards (they are disgusting harbourers of bacteria!); I hear that their use is now being phased out in all clinical settings due to infection control.

It runs in my family a bit though, my eldest brother is an absolute clean freak - he never used to play with his toys but only 'looked' at them & wrapped them up in tissue paper. My dad's little display of OCD manifests itself in the garden & on his cars but he has relaxed a little with age. My youngest brother used to have to get up at all hours of the night to make sure he'd locked his truck up & sometimes had to solicit a second opinion. On a typical day of nursing I’d hate to think how many times I either wash or decontaminate my hands with Chlorhexidine. This is probably another reason why I’m not exactly suited to nursing. The medications I'm on are helpful for OCD too, so hopefully these behaviours might change or at least be modified. God willing, after next year I will be accepted into the University of Melbourne to study creative writing. I sometimes wonder if being a writer would really be any good for me either, that's asuming I can make a living out of it. I’d probably end up like Howard Hughes - a total recluse scared to even shake anyone’s hand!

YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BZsXVf6INc