HELENA

What would Halloween be without a little My Chemical Romance.....one of their early one's but still one of the best!

Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cix_xd2zpgw&feature=related

ENERGY

I've been feeling much better the last 3 days & I now seem to be tolerating the increased dose of NSRI. The energy levels are back to normal & I no longer feel like a zombie. The depression seems to have lifted too - the only symptom being that my concentration is still pretty poor. Good God the carbohydrate cravings are full on, I was warned about them but I didn't expect them to be so bad that I'd be waking up at 1am wanting to raid the fridge - good thing I keep it practically empty!

I AM STRETCHED ON YOUR GRAVE

I am stretched on your grave

and will lie there forever

if your hands were in mine

I'd be sure we'd not sever

my apple tree my brightness

it's time we were together

for I smell of the earth

and am worn by the weather

when my family thinks

that I'm safe in my bed

from night until morning

I am streteched at your head

calling out to the air

with tears hot and wild

my grief for the girl

that I loved as a child

do you remember

the night we were lost

in the shade of the blackthorn

and the chill of the frost

thanks be to Jesus

we did what was right

and your maidenhead still

is your pillar of light

the priests and the friars

approach me in dread

because I still love you

my love and you're dead

I still would be your shelter

through rain and through storm

and with you in your cold grave

I cannot sleep warm

so I'm stretched on your grave

and will lie there forever

if you hands were in mine

I'd be sure we'd not sever

my apple tree my brightness

it's time we were together

for I smell of the earth

and am worn by the weather

-Celtic folk song-

Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCN3JWr89FQ&feature=related

A WITCHES INCANTATION

Come you Spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, & fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direset cruelty! make thick my blood: stop up the access & passage to remorse, that no compunctious visitings of nature shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between the effect & it! Come to my woman's breasts, & take my milk for gall, you mudering ministers, wherever in your sightless substance you wait on nature's mischief! Come thick night, & pall thee in the dunnest smoke of Hell, that my keen knife see not the wound it makes, nor Heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, to cry "Hold, Hold!"

- Lady Macbeth's sililoquy by William Shakespeare

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

A BLUE BUKOWSKI

That I have known the dead & now I'm
dying
as they spoon succotash &
noodles
into a skull
past
caring.

that I have known the dead & now I'm
dying
in a world long ago
gone

leaving this world is
nothing.
loving it was
too.

that I have known the dead & now I'm
dying
fingers thin to the
bone,
I offer no
prayers.

that I have known the dead & now I'm
dying

dying
I have known the dead

here on earth
& elsewhere;
alone now,
alone then,
alone.

- CHARLES BUKOWSKI

BEADING

Well I have two papers to write but I just can't get my brain to focus. Instead, yesterday I dragged out an old jewellery making kit, went to a local beading store & thought I'd give making some jewellery a go. Here are three of the five I made, as I seldom wear jewellery I made them for my mum & niece Pippa Rose.

AUSTRALIA

I have to admit I am just a tad excited about "Australia" - I think Baz Luhrmann is a genius. Moulin Rouge was one of those rare delights that had me in a whirl for days & what he did with Romeo & Juliet was spectacular. He has such an eye for beauty - I'd love to see what he would do adapting a romantic ballet such as "Giselle" to the screen. Music & movement can convey so much where mere words often fail.

THE LOVE SONG OF J. ALFRED PRUFROCK

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table;

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

The muttering retreats

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent

To lead you to an overwhelming question . . .

Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"

Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelagelo

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,

The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes

Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,

Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,

Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,

Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,

And seeing that it was a soft October night,

Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time

For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,

Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;

There will be time, there will be time

To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;

There will be time to murder and create,

And time for all the works and days of hands

That lift and drop a question on your plate;

Time for you and time for me,

And time yet for a hundred indecisions,

And for a hundred visions and revisions,

Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time

To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"

Time to turn back and descend the stair,

With a bald spot in the middle of my hair-

-[They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!"]

My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,

My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin-

-[They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!"]

Do I dare

Disturb the universe?

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:-

-Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

I know the voices dying with a dying fall

Beneath the music from a farther room.

So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all-

-The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,

And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,

Then how should I begin

To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all-

-Arms that are braceleted and white and bare

[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]

Is it perfume from a dress

That makes me so digress?

Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.

And should I then presume?

And how should I begin?. . . . .

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets

And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes

Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . . .

I should have been a pair of ragged claws

Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.. . . . .

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!

Smoothed by long fingers,

Asleep . . . tired . . . or it malingers,

Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.

Should I, after tea and cakes & ices

Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?

But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,

Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter

I am no prophet-and here's no great matter;

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,

After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,

Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,

Would it have been worth while,

To have bitten off the matter with a smile,

To have squeezed the universe into a ball

To roll it toward some overwhelming question,

To say: "I am Lazarus come from the dead

Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"-

-If one, settling a pillow by her head,

Should say: "That is not what I meant at all.

That is not it, at all.

"And would it have been worth it, after all,

Would it have been worth while,

After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,

After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor-

-And this, and so much more?-

-It is impossible to say just what I mean!

But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:

Would it have been worth while

If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,

And turning toward the window, should say:

"That is not it at all,

That is not what I meant, at all.". . . . .

No! I am not Prince Hamlet nor was meant to be;

Am an attendant lord, one that will do

To swell a progress, start a scene or two,

Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,

Deferential, glad to be of use,

Politic, cautious, and meticulous;

Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse

At times, indeed, almost ridiculous-

-Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old . . .I grow old . . .

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

Combing the white hair of the waves blown back

When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

- T.S. ELIOT

FEELING SLEEPY....

Well since I started on the increased medication all I’ve wanted to do is sleep! I’ve been doing all I can not to succumb to it, including the resumption of the evil caffeine. Hopefully in time I will adjust to it & not feel so blasted drowsy, I hope so cause there is no way I could work like this….I wouldn’t even be able to drive a car like this!

I still haven’t heard back about the job, I can’t help but wonder whether it has anything to do with the disclosure of my bipolar – I’m probably just being paranoid…..aren’t I?

YOU BET YOUR LIFE

Now I have heard it all, catholic priest Father Joe Giacobbe has just released a book entitled “The spirit of racing” – a book which attempts to marry his faith in God with his love of horse racing. I can just see Jesus now, trackside praying for his horse to come up with the goods. What a joke!

SAMANTHA

Happy 18th birthday

Samantha Lee!

I treasure every moment we spend together, you are an amazing woman. I am so proud to call you my niece, my friend....my Sam.

Cant wait till December when you come to visit!

NOW

To reach here

gliding into old age

the decades gone

without ever meeting one person

truly evil

without ever meeting one person

truly exceptional

without ever meeting one person

truly good

gliding into old age

the decades gone

the mornings are the worst.

- CHARLES BUKOWSKI

THINGS

I recently received an email from the Wilderness society & in it was a display of their 2009 calender & diary. It got me to thinking, who in this day & age needs a hard copy calender & diary? Just how many of these things are published every year & then subsequently thrown out the next? Just think about it, where do they all go to? Even if printed on recycled paper they are rarely 100% recycled & still expend a lot of energy being manufactured & distributed. If you have a computer or PDA why on earth would need a calendar or a diary? They just become another one of those things with no real purpose other than to look nice, or to scribble over to make ourselves look busy & important.

Things.....so many things.....we're slaves to them aren't we? I know the saying goes "slaves to money" but it's really to "things", for we fool ourselves into thinking we need more & more money to acquire more & more things. We justify how hard we work by admiring the things we (think we) own & we work so hard to buy the things we (think we) need. It's almost a form of worship, of idolatry. I understand that these "things" can become an extension of our "self", a way of expressing ourselves to the outside world but aren't we just the same person without them?........well aren't we?

It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?

- Henry David Thoreau-

Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify.

-Henry David Thoreau-

PAUL

Paul had been born with excess fluid on the brain, a condition called hydrocephalus. To counteract this problem a VP (ventriculoperitoneal) shunt was inserted to drain the fluid from his brain into his abdomen. He’d tried hard to live a normal life, well whatever “normal” is anyhow. Average was more like it; he’d tried to live an average life. The increased pressure inside his brain had left its mark; he found it hard to learn things….things that came easily to others. His mother had fought hard to keep him at a regular school. The other kids could be cruel, they knew something was wrong with Paul but didn’t know the details – didn’t care to know the details. They just saw him as slow, an easy target for their taunts. It didn’t help that Paul would always fall prey to their trickery, get riled up & try to defend himself – he should have just stayed quiet & flown under the radar. But he didn’t, everything about Paul stood out, from the way he wore his socks pulled high to his distinctive swagger from side to side. The girls they loved to tease by making love to him, they’d get him alone, whisper in his ear & act sensual – he’d get all nervous & bashful. The boys would “dack” him in front of crowds & ask him questions like basic arithmetic & spelling - “hey Paul, how do you spell stupid?”

One day after school a couple of boys caught sight of Paul at the local Red Rooster store, they followed behind him as he crossed the street and cut through the Primary School. They started with the usual jokes; Paul got upset & started yelling. Who knows who threw the first punch; Paul was a big boy – bigger than both of them. Somewhere, somehow Paul must have copped a blow to the head. He soon became unconscious & later died. The boys went to a youth detention centre & the kids at school got a talking to about bullying. People talked about it for awhile, until pretty soon they didn’t. But he was still there, and long after the faces from high school had faded from memory his was still there. He’d be called up whenever bullying hit the news headlines or you saw a kid being picked on in the street, he’d be called up while watching films like “Flatliners”, and he’d be called up whenever you heard the term “shunt”. He’d be called up 20 years later as you were sitting in a psychiatrist’s room being probed about “guilt”. What was it that you whispered into his ear? What shade of red did you make the skin on his face & neck turn? Tell me, just what took place that last time you saw Paul…….Alive?

NO COWARD SOUL

No coward soul is mine

No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere

I see heaven's glories shine

And Faith shines equal arming me from Fear

O God within my breast

Almighty ever-present Deity

Life, that in me hast rest

As I undying Life, have power in thee

Vain are the thousand creeds

That move men's hearts, unutterably vain,

Worthless as withered weeds

Or idlest froth amid the boundless main

To waken doubt in one

Holding so fast by thy infinity

So surely anchored on

The steadfast rock of Immortality

With wide-embracing love

Thy spirit animates eternal years

Pervades & broods above,

Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates & rears

Though Earth & moon were gone

And suns & universes ceased to be

And thou wert left alone

Every Existence would exist in thee

There is not room for Death

Nor atom that his might could render void

Since thou art Being & Breath

And what thou art may never be destroyed

- EMILY BRONTE-

A CONVERSATION

“Is there anything you feel particularly guilty about?” he asks as he leans in to the table
“Yeah, plenty….but that’s just me”
“What do you mean plenty?”
“I don’t know, plenty….do you want specifics?”
“Yes”
There’s a long silence before a reply “I can’t think of any right now”
He scribbles something down in the file. “So what happened when you tried to go back to work?”
“I can’t explain it; I was just on the verge of tears the whole time”
“Why do you think that was?”
“Cause it’s all just so cruel”
“What is?”
“Death….dying”
“Is that what you’re thinking about when you are at work – death?”
“Well yeah, it’s pretty hard not to when you’re looking after people who are dying”
“Why is it cruel?”
“Because it just is; the pain, not just the physical pain but the total pain & the lack of control”
“Does it make you think about your own death?”
“Sure, you can’t help but think of it”
“Are you afraid of not being in control when you die?”
“Definitely”
“And when do you think that might be?”
“I don’t know…. when it all gets too much”
“There’s no set age, no set parameters?”
“No I’ll decide when I get there I suppose”
“Do you think you will end your life by suicide?”
“Yeah…it’s just something I know…..I’ve always known it”.

"THE MUMMERS DANCE"

I absolutely love this song - "the Mummers Dance" by Lorenna McKennitt. Mummers were troupes of actors who took their plays from door to door throughout medieval Europe.

Youtube link: http://www.

NEW DAYS

On a brighter note, the sky was lovely this morning. I felt like shit but the sky was lovely.

YESTERDAY

Well I had my visit with the psychiatrist yesterday & things didn’t quite go as planned. My medication has been increased yet again & I have to go back & see him in 2 weeks. Apparently I’m still showing some signs of major depression, along with dissociation & depersonalisation. Here I was, I wanted to get “over myself” & move forward & I’m yet again forced to do more navel gazing. Deep down I know he’s right, over the last two weeks I’ve been starting to doubt myself again, and experiencing feelings of excessive guilt & negativity. I’ve been starting to hate everyone & everything again, including myself.

“Maybe down the track we can cut down on some of these medications” I distinctly recall the psychiatrist saying that to me once – that was about 3 dose increases ago! You have to laugh, what else can you do? Sometimes I feel like just asking “okay, so how much will it cost to stick me in hospital for a couple of weeks & give me ECT”? I can just see me now, like my fictitious friend Randle Patrick McMurphy in the closing chapter of Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, sitting there silent with my brains scrambled.

"We’ll get there Sue” he says as I’m standing at the counter paying the exorbitant psychiatric fees, “Yes doctor… we’ll get there” I reply......“We’ll get there”.

GOODBYE FOR NOW

I woke up at 6 am today without the slightest headache, feeling surprisingly refreshed & clear headed. My routine over the last month or so has been to get up & write something in my blog/diary & then head off out for a walk or whatever. The last few days I haven’t felt the need to do this & I have been posting out of habit rather than any desire or need to do so. As a rule I am usually an extremely private & guarded person - almost to the extent of living a recluse existence. Right now I find it hard to believe that I have shared as much as I have on this blog, but obviously I felt the need to purge myself. But for now this need has gone & I believe that is a good sign. I need to refocus my attentions onto something other than myself…something bigger, which is what I have begun to do again. I think I’ve wasted enough time. So this will be my final posting for a while, unless I find the need to express anything further sometime in the near future. All I can say is thank God for medical science (an oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one), cause who knows where I’d be right now without the medication. I’m feeling good….I feel alive, it’s time to stop looking at myself .....it's time to move forward.

WORK

Well the job application was submitted today & now I just have to wait & see. I have stated that I’m not available to work till mid December so I should be well & truly ready by then. I’m definitely getting out of my comfort zone as I’ve never worked in a radiotherapy/chemotherapy clinic before but I’m willing to learn new technical skills. It will be great if I get the job as it is only a 15 minute walk from home & is office hours, so no shift work! Fingers crossed......

FABLE II

The street date for Fable II has been broken! No guesses for what's going to be on our TV screen for the next however many weeks. I actually don't mind Fable, if I was an avid gamer like my husband it would be exactly the type of game I'd be into. At least now there will be a reprieve from Gears of War, albeit until Gears of War II comes out in early November.

CAFFEINE

Day two of no chocolate or energy drinks, in fact the sweetest thing I’ve had was dried apricots. Those energy drinks are evil, I’ve taken myself off them once before and vowed never to get hooked on them again – but yet here I am. It’s just that the medication can make me so drowsy at times & energy drinks are an easy pick-me-up, even though I know in the long run you work up a caffeine tolerance & they just make things even worse. I only have 1-2 a day, but I’m addicted. Two mornings of excruciating headaches down & who knows how many to go, withdrawal can take anything from 1-5 days. I get so jealous of my husband, he can go on & off caffeine so easily but me I’m sensitive to it. I really shouldn’t have it at all, especially mixed with my medications. In a way I find it hard to believe that it's ethical to be able to sell an addictive stimulant that is so cheap & so readily available. But then I can't believe that cigarettes are legal when there is so much evidence of the damage that they cause.

CHOCOLATE

God I've been craving simple carbohydrates lately, I walk at least 3 km a day but if I'm not careful I'm going to pack the weight back on - yet another pleasant side effect of the medications no doubt. Apparently the hunger for simple sugars only lasts 48hrs & if you get past that the worst is over. So I'm going to put myself in lockdown for the next 2 days to keep myself away from any temptations. I hate that I can't discipline myself when it comes to certain foods, I've managed to maintain a vegetarian diet but I still have way too much sugar. I usually don't eat chocolate because of the milk powder & gelatin that's often used but lately I just can't help myself - if only it didn't taste so darn good! I must not eat chocolate. I must not eat chocolate. I must not eat chocolate. I must not eat chocolate!!!!!

FOR SALE

I have just been reading a Blog that I follow from the U.S which is closely following the credit crisis. I'm just horrified to see the price of foreclosed homes that are listed on a national government website, I hope to God that doesn't happen here in Australia. I see in the news that the ANZ has reduced interest rates by 1/4 of a % - one of many to come I'm guessing, if they hope to keep their profit margins & maintain consumer confidence & keep people spending. After all, the greedy bastards should pass on any cuts made by the RBA.

link: Government Housing For Sale - CHEAP!: http://thecomingdepression.blogspot.com/

HEALTH CARE CRISIS

I can’t help but be saddened by the fact that the Royal Children’s Hospital here in Melbourne have been reduced to a state where they’ve had to go on a silly program like A Current Affair to talk about the nursing shortage & to put to air on Thursday night (October 16th) nothing short of a recruitment campaign. Apparently they are even having a Nurse Recruitment Evening this coming Tuesday at 1830hrs. All I can say is if there is a nursing shortage crisis in Paediatrics it must be everywhere because Paediatrics is perennially one of the most popular nursing fields.

It’s strange to read in the news about massive layoffs in the retail, industry & finance sectors & then to hear of the constant staffing deficits in health care. But the reason is bloody obvious…..nobody wants to do it! Apparently up to ¼ of all trained nurses are not even working in nursing – because it’s too blasted stressful! The government have provided an incentive for them to return to nursing by offering a lump sum of $6,000 – what, approximately a month worth of wages! How about working on improving current conditions instead? My husband & I both had to have a little bit of a laugh when we watched the segment from ACA – how they chose the young nurses to interview, the young & inexperienced – those yet to be jaded by the health care system or ravaged by caregiver strain. I’m sorry but since I’ve had more time on my hands I’ve been observing other people at their jobs & doctors & nurses have it damn tough! At least nurses get to go home after their 8hrs but a lot of doctors out there are working dreadfully long hours & unlike nurses most are not paid by the hour. Sure some are living in the lap of luxury but this would be a minority.

Oh well, I hope the Royal Children’s are successful in their bid to recruit more nurses. Nursing can be very rewarding in some aspects, at least most days you can go home knowing that you have actually done something "good" and "worthwhile". One thing is for sure; if you’re a registered nurse or a doctor you’ll never be short of a job……if you want it!

SPRING CARNIVAL

The hoity-toity of Melbourne are out in force today for the Caulfield Cup Spring Carnival. Ladies in their high heels with dead birds on their heads, clutching onto their little matching purses. The men in their suits, flashing their latest technical doodad & the car they bought on credit. I wonder just how much thought they give to the horses, out their galloping away as fast as they can, being whipped into submission. What happens to them when they can no longer run? Some hopefully will retire to a good home, but not all. I know for a fact that countless greyhounds end up in a Melbourne medical research lab having all kinds of ghastly things done to them. After years of hard work, after giving all they've got and this is their reward...... talk about a life of servitude.

PERFUME

Last night my husband & I watched the strangest film - "Perfume: The story of a murderer". It tells the tale of a young man Jean Baptiste Grenouille, whom has an extraordinary sense of smell. He goes about trying to capture & bottle the essence of nubile young ladies & in doing so murders them & subjects their bodies to some strange process of distillation. Very disturbing film indeed, but quite erotic at the same time & visually stunning.

OH, VERY YOUNG

I’ve just been reading in the news this morning that mental health groups want urgent changes to be made in the treatment of young people who show early signs of a mental illness, highlighting the fact that existing services tend to respond only when patients have started to display psychotic symptoms. The groups, including the Orygen Research Centre, the Brain and Mind Research Institute, the Mental Illness Fellowship of Australia and Sane Australia, called instead for a national network of 25 specialised youth mental health centres that would focus on treating people with psychosis early, when the prospects for recovery were strongest. The executive director of Sydney University’s Brain & Mind Research Institute has proposed that early intervention should be considered as essential in psychosis just as it is in cancer treatment. Apparently studies have shown that death rates amongst people recently diagnosed with a psychotic illness could be halved if they were treated in early intervention programs rather than by using traditional methods. Approximately 50 per cent of cases of psychosis are brought on by schizophrenia, with nearly 20 per cent caused by bipolar disorder and about 10 per cent by depressive psychosis.

I hope this proposal goes forward, especially considering that most metal health problems do begin to raise their ugly heads in the years spanning from childhood to young adulthood. I know for a fact that my own illness should have been detected and treated long ago. Even the intervention I received recently from the CAT (Crisis Assessment & Treatment team) left much to be desired, especially in the context of Primary Health Care. I went from being visited at home every day (except on weekends – which I believe had more to do with staffing rather than assessed need), to then being seen every second day, to then abruptly not being seen or contacted at all. The last “disengagement” visit consisted of two people, both of whom had never seen me before, they had barely sat down & were then off out the door again citing “how very busy they were”. My medication was yet to become therapeutic & had just been altered the day prior; the night before I had experienced racing thoughts with psychomotor agitation & had had a pretty significant episode of depersonalization. Only a week prior to this I had been suicidal. I believe that the CAT team had already decided prior to seeing me that day that I was to be “discharged” & no matter how I presented that “patient discharge” would be the outcome of the visit – the “goal”. I remember them even saying on the last visit how much I had improved – both of them had never seen me before & were just going by the progress notes, which despite efforts not to be are quite “subjective”. Yes, they gave me a 24hr number to call if I needed to, but I hate using the telephone at the best of times. As someone once said (I’ve forgotten who), “whoever invented the telephone never had a real conversation in their life”.

Link The Australian Online: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24513712-2702,00.html

CHILDREN

Aren't children just wonderful, not wonderful enough to ever possess me to have one, but wonderful nonetheless. I was talking to my mother just today & she reminded me of something sweet I had said as a child. When I was young my Nana used to come & stay with us on weekends, on leave from the nursing home. She had quite advanced dementia & had lost the ability to speak. I would have been about 5 at the time (so my mum says) & my mum was tucking me into bed for the night & I suddenly proclaimed:

"Gee I'm glad I'm young Mum"

"& why's that?"

-"cause you live longer"

you live longer! What a hoot! When you're a kid you can never quite get your head around how the old were once young & how one day you will be old just like them. I'm close to the age my mother was back then; she seemed so grown up - so "adult" & my mother will soon be approaching the age when my Nana started to deteriorate. Strange isn't it? Strange.....& scary.

INNOCENCE

Do you remember when we were kids?
How we couldn’t wait to get there,
To be one of them -
To be….an adult!

Yet now were here,
All we long to do
Is go back.
To recapture what was childhood -
To cling on to our innocence...

SCOTLAND

A dear friend of mine who is currently living in Northern Ireland is off to Scotland in a weeks time. She has no idea of the envy I have towards her. I've been practically nowhere - a mental traveller of sorts (in more ways than one!). Whenever I think of Scotland, Ewan McGregor comes to mind - he'd have to be one of the most gorgeous beings God ever put breath into. I have to admit I'm partial to redheads with blue/green eyes, which is strange considering that that is my mothers colouring & was my Nana's before her. My mums hair is practically silver now, not grey but a lovely silver with golden tones & whenever my two eldest brothers grow a beard it is ginger. I'd love to have gotten the red hair - I got the green eyes but not the hair. Apparently people used to stop my Nana in the street to compliment her on her hair, with one man exclaiming to her once "my dear....you have the hair of God!"

Well I'll get to the UK one day, to be sure! to be sure! but for now I'll just have to keep dreaming.

GLOBAL HAND WASHING DAY

The 15th of October marks the first ever “Global Hand Washing Day” as part of the UN International Year of Sanitation. Most people when they hear about this will think of third world countries & places that have poor sanitation & waste practices, but we here in Australia can benefit from a reminder also. Hand washing is the single most effective combatant of cross contamination & infection control, especially in regards to diarrhoeal & respiratory pathogens. It’s scary but true that as a nurse I still have to remind staff to wash their hands in-between patient contact & to wash the hands of patients prior to them eating meals. If you plan on eating out, or using public toilets you should carry a liquid hand sanitiser with you, & no I’m not being too over the top! The World Health Organisation state that simple effective hand hygiene can do more for infectious disease control than inoculations, reducing the incidence of diarrhoeal diseases by over 40% & respiratory infections by over 30%. So remember, be good & always wash your hands……properly. But unlike the person in the photo don't leave the blasted tap running while you lather up!

YIKES!!

The last post got me to thinking about some moments as a nurse when I'd found it pretty awkward & really just didn’t know what the hell I was doing.

When I was studying nursing I worked as a personal carer in a nursing home on weekends. I was working my first late shift & had been directed by one of the more senior staff to go & put a uridome on a certain gentleman. For those who don’t know what a uridome is they are also called condom catheters – as they are put on like a condom and hooked up to tubing & a bag for urinary drainage. I went in to the gentleman, explained what I was going to do & proceeded. The first thing I noticed was that he had had an orchidectomy – in other words he had no balls. The poor man also had one of the smallest penises I’d ever seen but finally after a great deal of effort I managed to get the uridome to stay on. I then proceeded out down the hall to the nurses’ station where I was met with a chorus of laughter, the whole thing had been a set up & they were all quite surprised that I had succeeded with the task. I managed a smile but found the whole thing to be quite cruel….not for me, but for the poor man I had just practically molested!


I was dealing with my first rectal impaction – in other words I was looking at having to manually evacuate excrement from a person’s anus. What eventually came out resembled a small brown baby. I don’t know what possessed me to flush it down the toilet but the thing got stuck! I think I can leave the rest to your imagination.


I was working on a surgical ward in Mackay, an elderly gentleman had an acute onset of delirium & I was trying to get a ward test off him to test his urine for a suspected urinary tract infection. I had just gotten a phone order for haloperidol due to his behaviour which was keeping the other patients awake. He didn’t much appreciate the jab from the needle in his arm. The next thing I knew he was standing stark naked in the nurses’ station where I was sitting writing notes. He informed me, in his guttural German accent, that he had the urine specimen that I wanted. He then proceeded to pee all over the front of me…..it was a lovely moment.


I was on night duty working in a dementia unit & a piercing scream came from one of the rooms, I raced in to find one of the women sitting bolt upright in bed, looking in horror down at her leg (she had had an above knee amputation years before). She then informed me that a thief had been in the room, an accusation that I needed to take seriously whether she was demented or not. Apparently a thief had crawled through the window, taken her leg & then crawled back out again…..What do you say to something like that?


I was a student nurse, my first (& last) time in theatre. The woman on the table was having major abdominal surgery (I can’t remember what exactly). The surgeon, wanting me to get the most out of the experience, thought he’d give me an anatomy lesson & proceeded to recoil her intestines out for all to see “here is the ascending colon, the transverse colon, the descending…..” “Are you okay?” were the last words I heard, I’d fainted. I decided surgery wasn’t for me.

WHAT ABOUT ME?

I’ve just been talking to a dear friend of mine from Tasmania. Earlier this year she was diagnosed with some rare blood disorder – I can’t remember its name (terrible for a nurse I know); it’s some type of pre-leukemic blood dyscrasia. She has managed to get back to work 2 days a week despite being on oral cytotoxic medication. Why can’t I just be happy for her….that she’s doing well, the first thing I did was compare myself & my own inability to successfully return to the workforce, me…me….ME!

No, I really am genuinely happy for her, plus they’re two entirely different conditions. To be honest I haven’t even been thinking about the whole bipolar thing much lately, which I think is a positive step. At first it was nearly all I could think about. I did a SEEK search online for local nursing jobs – 554 results & some of them were listings for multiple positions. The job I was interested in at the radiotherapy centre had no date that the applications had to be in by so I rang up to enquire – the lady on the phone laughed as though I'd said something funny, stating that it was open ended as they “always need more nurses”. So in short, I don’t think I’ll have trouble getting a job but the trouble is in knowing when I’m ready to return, & that I won’t crumble at the first sign of stress. I know I sound like a whinger & I am but believe it or not nursing can get pretty darn stressful, I’ve been spat at, pissed on & slapped around. It could be worse; at least I’ve never been stabbed with a pair of scissors like my husband or locked away in a cupboard for 2 hours like an old colleague of mine was. People can get shithouse crazy when they’re sick.