I think, more or less, this blog is a year old today. Woo-Hoo.
There's probably some naval gazing to be done about this... but later.
Nights are almost done; for this run, anyway. Although I'm on again next weekend. My rota has seem me working a one in two lately. I'm not sure why, but shit happens I guess. Next weekend will be my fifth on in eight. Old school. Love it.
I think I've kinda missed Hallowe'en, although we had a few freaks in last night, including one young lady wearing the shortest skirt I have ever seen. I know I'm getting old now, because my first thought was: My belt is thicker than that, followed by: I bet she's cold. I was impressed by how adeptly one of my SHOs worked the board to ensure he ended up seeing her...
Continuing my musings on parents, I saw a fella, who I'm guessing was in his 30s, admitted after a fight. He had sustained mostly superficial wounds, and I think the damage was more psychological than anything - certainly his life was never in danger - but his dad, a man of 72, sat with him all night. Possessed of quiet dignity, this softly spoken man sought me out often to enquire after his son, and I did my best to reassure him. I was struck by the way he would quietly step aside from time to time before returning to his son's side. He used these 'asides' to surrender to his own feelings, small tears breaking through his defences for a few minutes, before he'd cuff them away, recover himself and go back to his son.
I guess we never really grow up while our parents are still around
Showing posts with label Parents. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Parents. Show all posts
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Friday, October 26, 2007
Sad-Eyed Shroomy of the Lowlands
It seems most of what I write these days is apologies for not writing.
Sorry.
My mood has been lower than usual of late. Work, money, work, personal life... blahblahblah.
I'm still disappointed my life isn't quite ER. Ah, well...
This month has been PICU month. I'm due a 3 month Paeds secondment, but it hasn't been possible for me to do it all at once. So, I got a month. I haven't done any ITU for a while, least of all Paeds. So it's been a valuable experience, albeit perhaps not exactly what I thought.
Intensive care is an odd place; organised, controlled chaos, if you like. When I worked on adult ITU, I think it was then that the psychological trauma began to build up. Maybe. I found it very hard to see so many die. Especially the younger ones.
Now obviously in Paeds, they're all young. But it seems to me that few of them die. Which is nice.
Instead, what I have found challenging is watching the head injuries. The ones I've seen tend to be older - in their teens - and were usually on the wrong side of a moving car. They have non-operative CT scans - no large extra-dural haematomas to be hoiked out by my neurosurgical brethren. But their brains are tight.
Recovery is slow. Slower than I'll know, as I haven't seen the neuro-rehab ward. What I find frustrating is how non-specific we have to be to the parents. They'll probably survive, but we have no way of knowing how they'll survive.
It is the worst of things, and the best of things. I have never been more amazed by the strength of human spirit than I have watching the parents of these kids. I simply cannot imagine how it feels to have to come to hospital, day after day, and look at your son or daughter, previously so full of life, so vital, and look at them, pale and waxy, tiny in an adult's bed.
And keep smiling.
And once all the tubes are out - the ETT, the bolt, the EVD, the drips and all - they aren't better. They look around, blankly, their limbs flailing. Trapped in a body that won't obey them. And still mum and dad come in, holding the patient's hand, lying in bed with them, holding them tight. No parent banks on having to watch their adolescent be nursed in an adult nappy, on having to help bed-bath them. But they do it. I don't know where they find the strength.
And then... sometimes they just stop flailing, and start looking around. They start speaking. Their movements become appropriate. A 'high-five' has never meant so much to me...
Clearly, this is not the end; but maybe the end of the beginning? Or the beginning of the end? Something like that...
There really is hope. Who'd have thought?
Sorry.
My mood has been lower than usual of late. Work, money, work, personal life... blahblahblah.
I'm still disappointed my life isn't quite ER. Ah, well...
This month has been PICU month. I'm due a 3 month Paeds secondment, but it hasn't been possible for me to do it all at once. So, I got a month. I haven't done any ITU for a while, least of all Paeds. So it's been a valuable experience, albeit perhaps not exactly what I thought.
Intensive care is an odd place; organised, controlled chaos, if you like. When I worked on adult ITU, I think it was then that the psychological trauma began to build up. Maybe. I found it very hard to see so many die. Especially the younger ones.
Now obviously in Paeds, they're all young. But it seems to me that few of them die. Which is nice.
Instead, what I have found challenging is watching the head injuries. The ones I've seen tend to be older - in their teens - and were usually on the wrong side of a moving car. They have non-operative CT scans - no large extra-dural haematomas to be hoiked out by my neurosurgical brethren. But their brains are tight.
Recovery is slow. Slower than I'll know, as I haven't seen the neuro-rehab ward. What I find frustrating is how non-specific we have to be to the parents. They'll probably survive, but we have no way of knowing how they'll survive.
It is the worst of things, and the best of things. I have never been more amazed by the strength of human spirit than I have watching the parents of these kids. I simply cannot imagine how it feels to have to come to hospital, day after day, and look at your son or daughter, previously so full of life, so vital, and look at them, pale and waxy, tiny in an adult's bed.
And keep smiling.
And once all the tubes are out - the ETT, the bolt, the EVD, the drips and all - they aren't better. They look around, blankly, their limbs flailing. Trapped in a body that won't obey them. And still mum and dad come in, holding the patient's hand, lying in bed with them, holding them tight. No parent banks on having to watch their adolescent be nursed in an adult nappy, on having to help bed-bath them. But they do it. I don't know where they find the strength.
And then... sometimes they just stop flailing, and start looking around. They start speaking. Their movements become appropriate. A 'high-five' has never meant so much to me...
Clearly, this is not the end; but maybe the end of the beginning? Or the beginning of the end? Something like that...
There really is hope. Who'd have thought?
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