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More from the past
Here are some of my thoughts from January 2000.
Nurses are encouraged to keep 'reflective diaries' and some of them dutifully do. Who encourages them, and the difference between a reflective diary and an ordinary one are mysteries to me. Keeping the diaries apparently makes them better nurses, but don't ask me how. One was busy writing this afternoon during the operating list. She got through two sheets of A4 with a lot of crossing out and redoing. I read bits because she left her pages by the DDA book in the plaster room. They were almost filed in the patient's notes. Her reflections were all about how she got the key for the theatre and phoned a porter to collect the patient and did something safely and so on and so on. What she got out of it beats me. It seemed to be done for the sake of it. I can't see how she'll benefit from it.
If I kept a reflective diary some people would get a shock. I doubt they would like to know my thoughts.
More tosh from the trust. It has care plans on its intranet. One is entitled 'Elimination' and has a constipation care plan. This ends with a constipation rationale which includes 'The physical environment may play a role in the aetiology of constipation for some older people, as physical height declines, the toilet may be too high for their feet to touch the floor with ease.' (In other words they need a stool. Arf, arf.)
Thought for today
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
H G Wells, The Outline of History, 1920
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1.2.07 19:16
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Yet more from the past
Here's an event I'd forgotten about; it was April 2001, the time of the Alder Hey so called scandal, I think.
Someone came round the dept on Monday searching for body parts. What a farce. The CE sent each consultant a form last week for us to sign saying we were storing no body parts or human tissue. I signed and returned my form. Why send people round to check lockers? Apparently they wanted to look in R's glass-fronted cabinet that contains bits of ancient anaesthetic machines. They wanted to look in lockers but mine was locked. Wish I'd known there was to be a search because I'd have bought a pig's heart and put it in my locker. Well, maybe not, it would have smelled. Perhaps a chicken heart in a glass jar. Why search? What's wrong with asking? Doesn't the management trust us? Seems as if they don't.
Nurses write tosh. They have loads of forms that are all pre-typed with spelling mistakes and typos. Large parts of the forms aren't filled in; many are unsigned. There are plenty of protocols. The fact that they aren't followed is irrelevant. What's the point of having protocols if they are ignored?
One form had space in which to record weight, height and BMI. Underneath was written 'If BMI less than 20 call the dietician'. What good would a dietician be? In this country a thin person is likely to be thin from choice, or be ill and therefore in need of a doctor, or be in need of a psychiatrist rather than a physician. More point to call a dietician if the BMI greater than 30.
Tony Blair said on the radio this morning that he liked to be liked. I suspected as much.
Thought for today
We praise or blame according to whether the one or the other offers a greater opportunity for our power of judgement to shine out.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human, 1878
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2.2.07 19:38
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The lost tribe
Another visit to the care home this afternoon. The residents are like a lost tribe; they don't know where they are, why they are there, what they are doing, how they got there, when they are going home, or who anyone is. Some wander around in search of something they never find.
The daughter of the man to whom G has taken a shine visited him recently. This annoyed G because she regards him as her property. She spoke scathingly to the daughter and told her that anyone could turn up and claim to be someone's daughter.
The old boiler was replaced with a smaller one and this left an untiled area round it. Yesterday I scraped the adhesive off the kitchen tiles which had fallen off the stopcock cover; they will be needed to cover this area. The stopcock cover, a piece of chipboard, can be replaced by wood. I feared I might have a sore elbow and shoulder today from all the scraping but, fortunately, I have not. It took me almost three hours to clean nine tiles, 6 x 6 inches, a size now obsolete.
Thought for today
Gluttony is an emotional escape, a signal that something is eating us.
Peter de Vries (1910 - 1993) American writer
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3.2.07 19:51
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Good news, bad news
Global warming was in the news this week. The bad news is that it exists; the good news is that we caused it. This is good because the treatment lies in our hands; it is not something we can do nothing about.
Dementia affects suffers and relatives differently. Yesterday I attended a meeting of relatives at the care home. Some wanted to know what to say to their resident parent or spouse. I've noticed that some, when visiting, look almost as lost as the residents. Conversations are usually one-sided; the relatives talk valiantly, the residents stay silent. However, does this matter? In less than two minutes the residents will have forgetten what was said. In fact, if their visitors leave the room briefly, the residents will have forgotten they were there. On their return, they will greet them as if arriving for the first time.
I took my father some stones recently so that he could bore the schoolchildren who visit. He opened the bag, took out a stone, commented, took out another stone, commented and so on. When the bag was empty he looked at the first stone again, commented and moved onto the next stone until he was back at the first stone. I lost count of the number of times he repeated this cycle.
This morning was crisp, clear and sunny -- just the weather for a walk. Woods were full of crows, woodpeckers and magpies; fields were full of sheep. I paused at the edge of a field to look at the sheep. Those near me stopped eating, looked up, either liked or disliked what they saw, and started bleating. Those further in the field ceased their chewing and, like humans, looked up to see the cause of the commotion. They joined in the bleating. I continued on my walk; the sheep carried on bleating.
Quote for today
He had all the self-confidence given by a complete want of imagination.
Anthony Hope, The King's Mirror, 1899
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4.2.07 19:33
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The other half
I saw how the other half live today; the other half being those who travel to work on public transport. For the last six years I cycled to work; in icy weather I walked. Today I travelled by train which was late and, when I got on at 9.30am, it was still full of commuters. The train had only four coaches and, owing to its lateness, carried two train-loads of passengers. There was standing room only which was reduced by a bicycle, a pushchair and a large dog. My journey, fortunately, took only ten minutes. I pitied those for whom a long squashed ride was the norm.
I looked out of the kitchen window this afternoon, mid-grouting, to see an ancient nun walk past. She was wrapped up for the cold and wore a woolly hat, the sort favoured by young men. It was beige and matched the colour of her mid-length habit. I had never seen a nun in a woolly hat before. Given the weather it was a sensible garment to wear.
Quote for today
I have observed before on the curious fact that women who think nothing of their husbands are nevertheless annoyed when other people agree in their estimate.
Anthony Hope, The King's Mirror, 1899
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5.2.07 19:21
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There's nowt so queer as folk
A cyclist and two joggers passed me on my early walk this morning. They approached from behind. The cyclist passed me first; he used the pavement even though the road was clear. The joggers caught up with me later; they used the road even though there was oncoming traffic.
I delayed phoning the TV Licensing authority about my change of address until two weeks ago when the house was officially mine. It was a bit of a faff because this method used voice recognition, a system new to me. I had already received notification about the renewal of my license, forwarded from my previous address, and waited a week to see if I would be sent another reminder with my correct address. Nowt happened, so I sent off the form, with a cheque, having crossed out the old address and written the new one. Nowt happened.
Today I received the new license but it was for my old address; it had been forwarded by the post office. This was mildly irritating. It was a new form. Whoever dealt with it must have paid no attention to my correction to my address. My phoning and my written correction did a fat lot of good. I phoned again today, fortunately having discovered an 0800 number on the back of the envelope, and changed my address once more. The robot was deaf so I had to shout. It'll be a year before I discover if my call was successful.
Thought for today
When one has reached 81, one likes to sit back and let the world turn by itself, without trying to push it.
Sean O'Casey (1880 - 1964) Irish dramatist
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6.2.07 19:37
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A heavy load
Walked into town after lunch to buy fruit, veg and milk to avoid having to shop in the snow that's forecast for tomorrow. I filled my rucksack and staggered home. It weighed only 8.9kg though felt more than that. My mother is shorter than I am but weighs 30kg more than I do. No wonder she finds moving such an effort.
After my trudge back from the supermarket I treated myself by starting to read The Three Hostages by John Buchan. I bought the book recently for 75p from the local charity bookshop having failed to find an ebook version suitable for my Psion. I must have read the book years ago but long enough to have forgotten the story. Here's an extract.
He began by saying very much what Dr Greenslade had said the night before. A large part of the world had gone mad, and that involved the growth of inexplicable and unpredictable crime. All the old sanctities had become weakened, and men had grown too well accustomed to death and pain. This meant that the criminal had far greater resources at his command, and, if he were an able man, could mobilise a vast amount of utter recklessness and depraved ingenuity. The moral imbecile, he said, had been more or less a sport before the War; now he was a terribly common product, and throve in batches, and battalions. Cruel, humourless, hard, utterly wanting in sense of proportion, but often full of a perverted poetry and drunk with rhetoric -- a hideous, untamable breed had been engendered.
The book was written about 80 years ago.
Thought for today
What soberness conceals, drunkenness reveals.
Latin proverb
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7.2.07 18:57
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