» Doctors, Nurses, Dentists and Hospitals

A slightly weird story
as mentioned in other posts, I had a two month stay in the ICU on a ventilator, no movement, no speech. My way of communicating was blinking. This did not stop nurses telling me things. I've always been a person who people tell things to. I attract the mad people on buses and trains, the unhappy of those around me. They gravitate to me and tell me their stories.

But the oddest occasion, was this. I was lying there awake and conscious, when a Jamaican nurse came into my room. Since I was attended 24 hours, I met a lot of nurses on rotation, and I didn't expect her to be any different. She pottered around tidying up, then she came and sat by my bed. She told me how sad she was to be in England. How the other nurses were cliquey, and because she was new she had no friends and no family. She was in my room on the night before Christmas Eve crying, telling her story to someone who could not help, could not even comfort her. So I blinked her a message which was basically 'if I could hug you, I would.' And she leaned over and hugged me. I have never so desperately in all my life wanted to have movement back as badly as at that moment. This poor woman was having to get comfort from what was essentially a sack of meat.

The story has a relatively happy ending. I told my parents through blinks that she was sad, and they bought her some wine and chocolates, and made her stay for the Christmas time round my bed.

I hate the poor care I received from the NHS. But I can see the human side behind it. The overworked doctors, the underpaid nurses often foreign away from any support systems of their own, the demoralised hospital managers. It does *not* excuse it, but it does explain it.
(Tue 16th Mar 2010, 21:29, More)

» Letters they'll never read

Well my final one for this week. A serious one to make it even.
Dear Parents,

We are not a demonstrative family. We do not hug or share our feelings, and we are very English in the way we relate to each other. So this letter is where I can thank you. Thank you mum for looking after me when I was ill. You went through what no parent should have to, the idea that your child was going to die before you. I know you fought for me. Even when I was on that edge I knew that you fought others for me. The nurses who abused, the physios who bullied, the doctors who threatened were warned off by you. You kicked the ward sisters door when she wouldn't respond to your letters and complaints and forced her to realise my care was unacceptable. You read books to me for hours, biographies of Patrick O Brian, science fiction, and Japanese surrealism, and insisted on holding my hand through every painful medical procedure, every lumbar puncture and all the rest.

Dad you did the same, you cut and polished my nails when the nurses weren't allowed, you devised a way for me to communicate, you went out and bought me boxset after boxset of DVDs to amuse me- CSI:NY, The Mighty Boosh, Bruce Lee films. You were the first one to realise that I could no longer see properly and to alert a nurse. You remembered that I only read the Times, and to buy me a copy of Private Eye for every one I missed.

I do remember that time, though sometimes I pretend I've forgotten. I found the diary you kept mum, during that time, and I read the love that every entry had been written with. I read that if I had died, you think you would have gone mad. And everything that had ever been wrong with our family was fixed then. Every harsh word spoken, every action we'd hurt each other with, was forgiven and forgotten in the knowledge that you both genuinely loved me, that there was no-one in the world who cared for me as much as you both did. So thank you for that. Because I still reckon that it's due to you two that I am fully recovered and well, far more than it is due to the medical profession.

Also Dad on a seperate note thank you for not laughing at me making such an arse of myself a couple of weeks ago. It meant more than I can say, that you hugged me and told me it wasn't my fault, and that you would fix it. Also that you promised not to tell mum!

With all my love

Amberl

P.S. I'd tell you this to your face, but you know me. I'd freeze up, and mumble something stiffly about feeling very grateful, and the impact would be entirely lost. So I hope I show my gratitude and love in the way I act, rather than in what I say


And //shuffles feet// thanks to a particular b3tan as well for some very pertinent help. I don't think I could have written the letter above, as much as a week ago. So cheers for that
(Mon 8th Mar 2010, 11:52, More)

» Letters they'll never read

Dear Mum,
Please learn to pick your boyfriends better. You don't realise that your bad decisions in your past mean shit dads for the rest of us. Picking younger men with messed up home lives, does not a stable relationship make. It means that when you have two children, and promptly die, that nobody wants to tell our dad we even exist because they're scared. We're seperated and my sister is treated like a princess, and I'm treated like practically slave labour. That gave me a complex for most of my entire life, I did stupid and irresponsible things because I simply didn't care about anything at all. If you'd picked some nice young man without the potential of evil, I'd probably have grown up entirely normal. I certainly wouldn't have been maimed both physically, and mentally (kissing your sister unknowingly is *not* nice.) However you're dead and this letter will never get there.

Love

Luke Skywalker


So very, very sorry. I needed to do it once
(Thu 4th Mar 2010, 14:13, More)

» Beautiful Moments, Part Two

Next generation
Six year old little sister is sitting on my knee in the car. I can hear her humming and then doing some sort of amateur beatbox drum sound, and then whisper 'miaow, miaow' to herself. I also noticed she was moving her hands in an odd fashion.

It took a moment to click, but she was being keyboard cat. A beautiful moment right there
(Tue 10th Aug 2010, 14:09, More)

» How clean is your house?

Passive-Agressive notes
A graduate student friend of mine moved into a house with two friends. They needed a fourth so asked someone who they knew and thought was alright to join them. Unfortunately he had neglected to tell them about his OCD. The first three were all tidy people and pretty clean, and since they were grad students it wasn't as though they were partying constantly. A week after they had moved in, the notes starting appearing.

If washing up was left to dry on the side, a note would appear asking for it to be put away. If the cooker started getting a bit dirty, again a note would appear. If he was confronted he would get shirty, and claim he did all the work, although his 'work' was going and doing everything again because it wasn't done to his standards. He bought two hundred pounds worth of cleaning fluids etc and insisted the flat share the cost (he was told where to stuff that) and the note placing became ever worse. Every thing in the kitchen ended up with a post-it note on it, in tight terse writing. However the absolute limit was when my friend knocked rice on the floor, and since she was entertaining decided to sweep it up later. She dealt with most of it quickly and left a couple of handfuls worth on the floor.

When the night was finished, she remembered to clean it up and went back into the kitchen. And there on the floor were thirty five post-it notes (she counted) each with an arrow pointing to a grain of rice.
(Sat 27th Mar 2010, 18:07, More)