Just call me Jennifer Ennis. I’m sure that’s who the world thinks I am with all these hurdles that are being put in front of me. It started when I received the letter, inviting me for an interview for the Band 6 position on the ward. When I say ‘interview’, what I really mean is ‘interrogation’. Not satisfied that us mere mortals should sweat for a solid hour through a traditional interview, the powers that be have decided that selection of the fittest should consist of an assessment centre – whatever that means. Once I’d peeled myself off the ceiling, I went in search of Matt who is usually the voice of reason. Unfortunately, not this time. I’m sure he took my place on the ceiling.  He’d got his Band 6 position late last year and hadn’t had to jump through hoops this size. We looked at it together to try to decipher the size of this task. There would be a written assessment, based on a fictitious patient, to test my clinical skills. Then there was the role pla...

This has been melt-down week for me, that’s for sure. In usual Florence style, I haven’t listened to any of the wise words of those around me; Steve, Matt, Carla – even my wise old Mum, and I’ve tried to keep all those plates spinning in the air. It was only a matter of time before one or two of them whizzed off into the ozone, never to be seen again. The first plate to fall was the one holding the wedding dress (it would be, wouldn’t it?). I thought I’d been clever, keeping in touch with the bridal shop via email so that I had a clear record of what we’d discussed. I’d kept them in the loop with my weight loss and we’d arranged for a fitting last weekend. My mother was beside herself with excitement and insisted on coming with me, so that she could give me an ‘honest opinion’. She hadn’t seen the dress that I’d chosen up to that point as I knew she would choose me a nice big meringue number if she had her way, so I was expecting a whole bagful of criticism for the simple, flowin...

It’s official – I have the best boyfriend/fiancé ever! I’ve been a bit down over the past couple of weeks. I keep thinking about Gloria and doing the ‘what if’ bit...what if I’d picked up her symptoms sooner…would she still be alive? What if a different nurse had been on duty that day? Would they have picked up Gloria’s deterioration quicker than I did? I must be driving Matt mad with it, because it’s all I can think about. It’s made me super-vigilant at work though, and I’m looking at every patient through sepsis-tinted glasses. Matt’s so patient though and wanted to cheer me up. So, when I arrived home from work one night, he had taken all the shiny new certificates from all of the courses I’ve recently completed, framed them and put them up on the wall in the dining room! He’d even put up my Slimming World certificate, proudly announcing the loss of a whole stone of fat! I have to be honest, it’s been more of a ‘Slimming Plate’ diet combination as I’ve been follow...

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...

It’s been a while since I felt this way, but I feel like a proper nurse this week! I’ve been back on the wards now for a couple of weeks with no distractions (apart from Matt, my mother and the never-ending saga that is Brexit), and it’s been really good to reconnect with my ladies on Eden Bay. We’ve had some right characters of late, which is fab because it helps me to get to know each person as an individual. I’m determined not to start talking about patients in terms of bed numbers or conditions – I learnt my lesson with that one last year! I know we’re not supposed to have favourites but Gloria and Claire are contenders for this title at the moment. They have such stories to tell about their lives, despite being poorly, that they keep the rest of the bay thoroughly entertained. Gloria was an army wife who travelled the world with her husband for a million years. She tells the most hilarious stories about what they used to get up to, including tales about how he used to go ...

My brain is officially frazzled! I have just finished the last of the courses that Carla booked me onto and I won’t lie, I’m knackered. I’d forgotten just how difficult it was to study, go to work AND service a love life! Let’s not even talk about the state of my house – something had to give! Don’t get me wrong; I’m not moaning (well, not in my usual way) and I know that I am a very, very lucky nurse to have the opportunity to further my knowledge. I know that there are loads of nurses who don’t have as much investment as I’ve had in the last few months and I really feel for them. I worked out how much the individual courses would have been if I’d had to fund them myself and it would easily be over a thousand quid – so I’m really grateful and not moaning!! The first course was the male catheterisation which I was itching to do. I couldn’t stop talking about it at home which made Matt alternate between green and pale. He made sure that he knew the exact dates of my course – and...

‘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...