Matt, here again, AKA professional blogger. I feel I have my nursing spark back!! I am going to put it down to all of the Nursing events I have been to of late and I feel energised and motivated to push on with my career, and quite possibly taking a different direction. It all started when I   took Flo on a trip to London for an overnight stay this week, it doesn’t take much to persuade my wife to have a little break away, with the promise of some sightseeing (London Eye, Tower Bridge and of course Selfridges) The main reason for our (my) trip; was so I could attend the RCN Foundation Care Home Summit . The full-day event was at the Royal College of Nursing in Marylebone, the programme consisted of some incredible speakers who gave a real insight into the issues surrounding the sector including the high rates of nursing vacancies and turnover. It was also aimed at supporting and strengthening nursing, and improving patient care. One thing that really struck a chord wi...

Well, what a month! I’ve finally learnt that the world doesn’t revolve around me (hard to believe folks!) and that sometimes I’ve just got to step off my own rollercoaster and step onto someone else’s… I’m loathe to say ‘Poor Matt’ because that would mean that I feel sorry for him – I don’t. I feel for him, and that’s different altogether. My big strong, gorgeous, funny, loyal Matt is having a toughtime as I’m sure you all know and I’m so relieved that he’s been able to share how he’s feeling. At first, I was a bit gutted that he’d opened up to you guys before he sat down and spilled his guts to me, but like I say…it’s not about me. I can empathise though. I know how it feels to wake up with your stomach churning and that feeling of pending doom; that feeling of complete dread that stays with you until the end of the shift when a sense of euphoria takes over, as you realise you’ve survived another day. That unreasonable, sensitive you that could burst into tears at any mom...

 Where do I begin… I’m sat here while flo’s on night shift trying my sixth attempt at writing this, I have always wanted to work in health and social care for as long as I can remember and I have had a great career so far. I have seen some things that are indescribable and also been so elated to ultimately ‘Save a Life’ but most recently, well in fact the past sixth months, have been really hard and it’s got to the point that I have started to shut myself away from work and even flo. The days are starting to blur into one and I don’t want to get out of bed, I lie awake at 3am going over everything and I just don’t know what to do. One of my patients ‘Timmy’ who was let’s say, a bit of a ‘Gangster’ in his day has frontoemporal dementia, he’s physically still fit for his age (late 70’s). When we initially met, I knew he was going to be a challenge. If I can recall his first words were ‘Ey Up w***er’ I like to think of myself as a man’s man and so my approach was more to give ...

I’ve cried buckets this week. My mum thinks I’m pregnant because I can’t stop crying and keeps ranting at me that any hope of a decent wedding dress is dripping away. I know I’m not pregnant. I know I’m just emotional because I can’t stop thinking about Gloria’s funeral. I don’t usually go to the funerals of my patients, but Claire (another patient) asked me if I would take her. She’s waiting for a place in a nursing home as she needs support to manage her cancer, and she wanted to pay a special tribute to Gloria. Gloria had touched everyone’s lives on Eden Bay for the short period that she had been there and she had become particularly close to Claire. Gloria’s husband was living in a nursing home, but had been too frail himself to attend the funeral of his beloved wife. Claire told me that she couldn’t do anything further to help Gloria but she wanted to help her husband in any way she could. So, she’d written a poem – and she made everyone weep. Every time I thi...

‘Weird’ is the word of the week. I’m wondering when I can step out of this soap opera of a life and just have a normal one? I mentioned it to my Mum when we went for Sunday dinner– I was probably feeling a bit sorry for myself and figured a little sympathy would go down a treat, but then I remembered too late that sympathy is not something that my Mother has ever heard of. The lecture about life and how we influence our own trials and tribulations lasted well into pudding, with her assessment being that I always failed to understand how irritating I could be and didn’t understand my ‘personal impact’. It turns out she’s been doing an online course in psychology to keep her up to date with the modern world. Unfortunately, she’s been doing it with Jeremy Kyle on in the background and I think she’s got her theories a bit mixed up.  Matt managed to keep a straight face through it all, although I heard a muffled snort at one point and I’m sure I saw him wiping gravy from his...

The investigation into ‘CadburyGate’ is now complete. I have to say, I have never experienced anything so surreal in my entire life – in fact, I’m starting to think that I’ve been living in the twilight zone for the last fortnight and those little green men are going to whisk me off into the ether to care for sick aliens…more like little green-eyed monsters wearing a nurses uniform are going to find other ways of sticking the knife in.  You may remember a gorgeous patient that we had on the ward called Helen. All she wanted before she died was to experience one last Christmas. So, with a lot of help from various people around the hospital and her daughter, we brought Christmas forward for her. Not a day too soon either, because later that night she died. Anyway, Helen’s daughter was so touched by what we had arranged for her Mum, that she’d gifted the ward with a huge (and I mean huge) chocolate hamper and a thank you card that mentioned me by name. The next thing I kno...

Christmas and the New Year have gone so quickly this year – they seem almost a distant memory! I was working for most of Christmas and I ended up picking up a couple of extra shifts over New Year too as Jo had gone off sick – too much chocolate hamper indulgence I reckon! It was my first Christmas on the ward – actually, it was my first Christmas in a hospital and I must say, I have really enjoyed it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s awful to think that people are so poorly that they can’t be at home with their families, but the hospital was decked out with decorations and the staff were all in good festive spirits, despite not being at home with their own families.  But it’s not all sadness and illness. I have to walk past the maternity wing on the way to the ward and it was wonderful to see all the new Christmas babies starting their new little lives – I mentioned it to Matt when I got home and I think he’s broody now (I found a crumpled up list in the bin with potential baby na...

More pills than a drug dealer! That’s how today felt.  It’s been a really tough one; possibly the toughest one in my short career so far and definitely one I will be recording for my revalidation. I won’t tell you the effect that it’s had on my bowels but let’s just say I won’t be needing my prunes in the morning. So what would make me feel like this? Did a resident die? Thankfully not. Did I accidentally harm a resident in my care? Thankfully not – I don’t think I could forgive myself. No…I made a medication error. I was back at Sunshine after a 10 day enforced break. Charisma told me that the Manager had barred me from the premises after I had ‘shown her up’ with my recent CQC/QVC bonding session. She told me not to worry, “she would soon want me back. Unless hell had frozen over and they were fully staffed, they’ll be understaffed again before long and can’t do without agency staff forever”, apparently.  So there I was knocking on the door this morning...