I see you

I see you. I see you sat on your bedroom floor. You are hurt and you are angry. You have the weight of the world on your shoulders. You are scared. Scared of what tomorrow holds. I see your scars, both physical and emotional. I see the pain in your eyes as you force a smile. I see you.

You see me. Standing in my too tight uniform awkwardly wondering what I should be doing on my first day of placement. You see me hanging around the office scared to ask for instructions. You take my hand and you tell me your story. One you have probably had to tell a million and one times before to hundreds of professionals but you want me to understand so you tell it anyway. You teach me how to listen. You see me.

I see you cry out for it all to stop, I see you scream and break down because it has all got too much. I see you shed quiet tears hoping nobody notices. I see you turn away help because too many people have let you down before. I see you scared. Scared to trust others, scared to become too close to people in case you get hurt again. I see you.

You see me want to learn, to understand. You urge me to not make the mistakes you did. Your voice breaks as you explain how your family deserted you when you turned to the welcoming escape of illicit substances to gain some relief from the turmoil of a tortured childhood. You make me promise that I will never give up on anyone who needs help. You see me.

I see you. I see you when I want to walk away. I see you after a difficult shift when I just can't do it anymore. I see you when I am on cloud 9. I see you when I don't give up on someone because of that first story you told me. I see you in the stories others tell. I see you in the advice I give and the criticism I receive. I see you when I make mistakes, I see you when I laugh, cry and smile. I see you.

You see me. A first year student adjusting the bright white tunic not knowing where to look or what to do. The eager smile that hides an overwhelming fear of messing up on that first day. You see me transform from a first year to a third year, you see me build confidence and challenge insecurities. You see me fall down 7 times and stand up 8 times. You see my dismay as I fall at the last hurdle, but you see me try again, because that is what I have told you to do so many times. You see me defeated and you see me conquer. You see me thinking of the past and looking forward to the future. You see me step out of that now less white uniform in to the dark blue. You see me.

And I remember you. I remember your face every day. I meet new patients and I remember how you taught me to listen. I remember how you taught me that communication isn't always about talking it is about listening to stories, spending time in silence. It is about sitting with you when you feel vulnerable and alone. I remember how you taught me to accept unconditionally and that everyone has a past, but they also have a future. I remember you.

I want to tell you that I was changed by you. The day you opened up you lit a fire inside me. A passion for a career that was never going to be just a job. You sparked compassion and did more than I could ever thank you for. I don't know what happened to you, whether you are still working on things, whether you ever got back in contact with your family or if you have started a whole new life, but your honesty commenced a whirlwind of emotion that compelled me to make the world a better place. So as I begin my next chapter, I need you to know that I saw you and you saw me, and that day began the rest of my life.

Dear Sophie

Dear Sophie,

I miss you. I wish those three words could sum up how much, but they don't. No words ever will. No words could describe the hole that has been in my heart since you left this earth. 

Sophie, it's been 10 years. 10 years, how crazy is that? At the tender age of 11 I was thrown into the grieving process. We should've spent the past 10 years together. I haven't visited you much, and for that I am sorry. I should be talking to you face to face right now, but instead I am writing, I am writing you a letter to tell you what I should've said. 

I wish I had told you this when you were here. 

I should've told you that you made me a better person. That your smile was infectious and when your eyes lit up so did mine. I should tell you that you gave me the push to go into nursing and help others. I should've told you that my life is better for knowing you, despite the short time we spent together. 

We never got the chance to say goodbye properly and I will always regret that. When they told me you had gone I didn't believe them, you would've laughed at my reaction! They said I could go home, a whole day off school! But that didn't seem right, so I sat in your garden that we sat in so often together and remembered the time that we spent with each other. But although there was nothing official about it, the days that followed were enough to say goodbye. We talked about you as a school, we sang songs, looked at photos, shared memories, we even did our walk to Budleigh and wrote messages on pebbles to you. 

Sophie, I have cried. I have cried enough to fill an ocean. But now I smile, I smile remembering the times we ate lunch together, I smile remembering the time we were both the star in the Christmas play. I smile remembering the games we played, the times we shared and the love that you bought to my life. I smile thinking about how you are no longer confined to a wheelchair, you are free to run and skip and play with no pain. I smile remembering the pink smarties we ate at your funeral, I ate so much that I was nearly sick, but pink was your favourite and I still smile when I see anything pink that you would like. 

So Sophie I want to say thank you. Thank you for loving me unconditionally, thank you for being my best friend, thank you for listening to me, smiling with me and reminding me to push myself out of my comfort zone. Thank you for making me a better person and thank you for bringing out the best in me. Thank you for watching over me in the difficult times, thank you for being my shining star looking out for me, thank you for sprinkling a little angel dust when I need it most.

Sophie, this was never goodbye. You are alive in our memories and you forever will be. We have parted until we meet again...so see you later, beautiful girl

All my love 

Sarah 

This uniform

As another placement draws to a close, the 4:30am alarm is turned off and I hang up my uniform until the next placement, I sit for a while and think. My tunic now has a grey tinge after 3 years of ward based placements, the cracked and faded university logo looks tired after constant washing and faded ink marks cover what was a bright white fabric. It looks worn and exhausted. Like it cannot continue to stay together.

This uniform has seen so much.

It has been a comforter for rolling tears. Patients have buried their head deep in to the shoulder, soaking the soft material with cries of anguish because an illness has torn apart their life. It has soaked up my tears after a difficult shift, sitting in my car silently crying and wondering if I can make it as a nurse. It has absorbed the tears of colleagues, too tired and burnt out to carry on working. It has contained tears of happiness when someone is discharged from their section, it has been part of a recovery movement, and has embraced a team when someone we have worked so hard with is discharged.

These scrubs have heard stories of hope and of recovery. They have heard the screams of patients when they are severely unwell, and the song of patients well on their way to recovery. They have heard stories of abuse, of pain and of sorrow. They have heard tales of incredible staff, amazing patients and beautiful families. They have heard voices that carry stories of love and acceptance.

This tunic, it has seen mothers cry over their children, a father’s disbelief at another relapse, and siblings pine for their family to be together again. This tunic has seen team work like no other, a team who don’t give up on one another, even when times get tough. It would need a telescope to see how far staff go for patients; it has seen supervision and persistence when every option tried isn’t having the desired effect.

It has held people in empathy and love. It has comforted everyone who has walked through those doors, carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders. It has reassured people that they are safe, safe from the abuse, the hurt, the pain and the wish for their life to be over. It has seen you scream out that you just don’t want your medication; it has seen us have to give it to you anyway because we don’t want to see you more distressed.

These scrubs, they have been spat on, bled on and vomited over. They have had every bodily fluid possible on. They have held you when you are so distressed with your own thoughts that we need to keep you safe. They have seen injections, medication and blood being drawn. They have found self-inflicted wounds and done their best to stop you losing blood. They have seen a team fight for your life.

This uniform, it has seen families say goodbye

These scrubs, they have held you tight as you cry enough to fill an ocean

This tunic, it has heard stories that would shake anyone to the core

And suddenly I understand, I understand why the bright white has turned to grey. I understand why this uniform that has seen so much is exhausted.

But it is still going.

The heating is broken...again.

It has occurred to me that many students are currently looking around potential residences for next year, it's scary, I know. But after nearly 2 years of living in the same house, I have come to realise that not all that letting agents advertise are particularly accurate. After encouragement from some friends I have decided to share with you a letter that for obvious reasons, my housemates wouldnt let me send. However, due to a bit too much wine and in the interests of some saturday night entertainment, here goes...


Hi guys, When we first saw your ad for our current residence, the same thought went through our minds - 'great' we all said simultaneously, 'all inclusive of bills, we will never have to worry about being freezing students in the winter because our heating is included!' It is only now, that I have come to realise that we may have been wrong. Apologies for being so naive. I am currently wearing 3 jumpers, leggings, joggers, slippers and wrapped in a duvet, and I am still freezing. Not only this but we can see our breath whilst sitting in both our bedrooms and communal areas. This seems to be due to the fact that our heating has a mind of its own. Whilst sweltering in the summer, the radiators seemed to get revenge on us, for what I still to this day don't know, but by switching themselves on to full heat. 'Fabulous' we thought, 'at least we will appreciate this in the winter!' But winter has arrived in full force, and alas, the system has not been kind to us, it is simply refusing to work. We have tried everything, the deepest depths of google have been searched to try and gain some insight into how we can make it work. We've danced round the thermostat in true pagan style. We've even spoken nicely to the thermostat box in the hope it would listen and warm us up, even just by a few degrees. So this email is purely to request some advice and insight as to how this system works, I simply cannot cope with my body temperature being as cold as my soul any longer. If no advice can be given, could you possibly send someone round to have a little look and kindly remove the feeling that we are living in Queen Elsa's ice castle. Any minute now we are all going to burst in to 'let it go', and I'm not sure the neighbours will appreciate it. I dunno, it just seems appropriate given the current temperature. Kind regards


Sarah

a.k.a the ice block sat down the road from the office

The sounds of suicide

Please be aware that this post speaks of suicide; if you feel you may be triggered please do not read on

It seems like there is an awareness day for everything these days, my favourite, which is coincidentally my birthday, is May the 3^rd, ‘National lumpy rug awareness day’. However, this post is about something that is close to my heart, World suicide prevention day. 

There is still stigma. Lets be honest here, the majority of those reading this blog will automatically feel a little uncomfortable already, you may be sweating a little and looking round to see if anyone is peering over your shoulder to see what you are reading. If that’s you, please keep reading.

No matter what some posts lead you to believe, suicide and being suicidal is not pretty or heroic, nor is it a trend that should be followed. It’s not a beautiful way for a life to end.

It’s brutal.

Its weeks/months/years of a war inside your mind. It’s fighting with the thought of who you would hurt if you ended your life and the feeling that you just can’t carry on.

It’s putting on a smile, but wanting to break down in tears. Or the feeling of being so numb that functioning just seems impossible.

It’s crying and screaming and whimpering in the middle of the night.

It’s being in a sea of despair, drowning in your own thoughts, whilst everyone else has a lifeboat.

And it can affect anyone. Every single person in this world is at risk of feeling suicidal. Nobody is immune.

Let’s look at the statistics. In the UK, those at the highest risk of suicide are men aged 45-49. In England, the female suicide rate is at it’s highest since 2005. And the scariest thing? An article published by the BBC last week spoke of how childline receives 53 UK calls a day from children who are suicidal, 19481 calls, a figure that has doubled in the past 5 years. Every 40 seconds someone ends their life, this has to change.

So what are we doing about this? It’s sad, but too often a blind eye is turned, responsibility is passed on to someone else and nobody is any better for it.

When thinking about writing this post, I asked some friends what made life a little more bearable when they were thinking about ending their life. For those of you who are lucky enough to have never entertained the idea of ending their life, please read this, you never know when you will meet someone who may need you. For those of you who may be suicidal, I’m not going to tell you to smile; because I know telling you to smile is not going to make things better. Its not going to fix things, it’s not going to make your mental health perfect and make you want to skip through fields of rainbows and butterflies.

Instead, I’m going to tell you that there are people that love and appreciate you. I’m going to remind you that this is such a small fraction of such a large life and you have a future in this world. I’m going to tell you that if you need to talk, I’m here, but if you need your space, you got it. I’m gonna ask you to go and talk to the ones you love, go see your kids, go see your friends smile. But most of all I’m going to tell you that it’s absolutely okay to be sad, but at the same time you totally deserve happiness.

If you are reading this and you are having thoughts to end your life, I want you do one thing, I want you carry on. It may seem impossible; it may seem like the most difficult task in the world. But I want to give you the hope that its okay not to be okay, you can get through this. Hope is what led to women being given rights. Hope is what got a man to the moon. Hope is what gets people all over the world through the day.

Hope is what is going to make things slightly more bearable.

I believe in you.

Samaritans – 116 123

Childline – 0800 1111

We are not average students.

Drinking, partying, sleeping. Three things every young person envisions when dreaming of moving away to university. And to be fair, some courses are exactly that. 5 hours of lectures a week? I wish. We are not average students, and here is why.

As my alarm goes off at 4am, the sun just coming up and the birds starting their day, I lay there in my warm comfortable bed and questioned what I was doing. 4am on a Friday morning, the average student having never seen this time unless stumbling in from Thursday night Snobs. At a time when I should have been getting a decent night sleep, I drag myself out of bed and get ready for the day, my 3^rd 13-hour shift of my week. We are not average students.

I’m late, again. There is no choice but to stretch my NHS bursary to get to placement. As I sit in the taxi I wonder what I will have to cut back on next week to get through the month. An extra 60 hours of work on top of a full time placement still doesn’t leave a lot for luxuries. 37.5 hours a week committed to university, whether that be lectures and self directed study or placement. Every week. 3-month summers? Not us, 2 weeks of annual leave at the start of September is our lot. We are not average students.

Today is my first ever shift as acting nurse in charge. Terrified. I arrive in placement to find that we are short staffed, again. First challenge of the working day is to ring temporary staffing to find out if we can get anyone in, “its unlikely” they say, “but we will do our best” I’m told. That will have to wait, its handover time. I pray for a quiet day. I have so much paperwork to do that has been building up over the past few days. My mind is occupied so taking in vital information about our patients is a challenge. The to do list is rapidly building up in my head, there’s a depot to do today, medication to order and above all else, patients to talk to. Is the elderly gentleman back from general hospital? How can I change his care plan to best cater for his needs? I need to advocate for this patient, with limited communication or capacity we are here to be his voice. We are not average students.

A team surrounds me, and for that I am truly grateful. As I begin to shift plan I work out the tasks needed to be done and how I can delegate. Delegation, such an important part of our work. We are a team and we share responsibilities and tasks. We are one. We are each other’s shoulders to cry on when we have had difficult days, we laugh, we work and we share. A team is only as strong as it’s weakest member, we build each other up. Without the team, a nurse alone would simply not be able to do their job. Breaks are allocated and I am thanked for what I have done so far, that alone makes me feel appreciated. We are not average students.

I am already exhausted. The day has started with a low; a patients take home medication has not arrived, again. 3^rd day running. I am so aware that she is waiting outside the office having packed her belongings. She is yet to meet her newborn nephew due to this. With a heavy heart I go to break the news that I’m sorry, I can’t let her go this morning, she needs her medication. Her face drops but says to me ‘that’s okay, it doesn’t matter, it’s not your fault’. Deep down I feel like it is. I feel like I have let her down again. With a deep sadness I apologise again and go to leave the room, she asks if she can sit in there for a moment, of course she can, yes is the least I can say after letting her down. We are not average students.

A patient enters the office and his face breaks in to a smile when he sees who is on shift, which alone is enough thanks. “Good morning” he says, “how are you? Are you here again?” I laugh, “I’m always here”, I reply. I ask him about his plans for the day and we catch up on the night’s events. I smile, how lucky we are to be able to spend time with those who will forever make us laugh. It saddens me that so often they have been put to the side, deemed ‘insane’ and not worth bothering with. How lucky we are to get to know those in our care, their likes and dislikes, their history and future plans. We are not average students.

It’s medication time. My mentor and I prepare the clinic and start dispensing the drugs. 1^st patient arrives and takes a seat, it is so important that we take his physical observations at least twice a day. Pushing everything to the back of my mind I turn to him with a smile and gain consent to take blood pressure, pulse, respiration rate, oxygen levels and blood glucose levels. As I take them I become alerted to the fact that his blood pressure is climbing and his pulse is abnormal. Not to worry him I smile, a tool that every nurse should have; a vital part of our equipment. A smile can deescalate a situation within seconds. Looking at my mentor as I leave the room to bleep the duty doctor I give her a look to tell her what I’m doing. She knows exactly what is going on. I am so scared but that’s not something I am going to reveal. We are not average students.

Grabbing a 10-minute window I head in to the lounge to catch up with the patients. Coping with delusions, suicidal thoughts and various illnesses, our patients have an absolute right to not want to communicate with anyone. But anyone walking past that room, in that moment, would only hear laughing, joking and see smiles. We talk about everything from recent news to family history. As I sit there and observe the scene I suddenly get a familiar wave of nausea, confused, I look at the time. With everything I’ve had to do its 4pm and I haven’t yet eaten. Too often this happens. Thinking of the other staff it occurs to me that throughout the day, they have worked through their break to take patients out and provide first class standard of care. How lucky we are to spend time with both wonderful patients and incredible staff. We are not average students.

We are advocates. We are fighters. We are a shoulder to cry on and someone to laugh with. We get up early and stay up late, because we are passionate about what we do. We are part of a team and provide care to those most vulnerable. I left my house this morning questioning if I could do this. I lay in bed considering throwing in the towel. But we do it, we do it every day, we fight through the emotional and physical pain to fight for our patients, because if we, those who are most passionate about caring, a rising generation of nurses, if we don’t, who will? 

We are not average students.

Not pretty, so necessary, easy when you know how.

Unsurprisingly, on my course we have mandatory basic life support training. Fair enough. I mean, if someone needed CPR in a hospital and no nurses could do it we would have a bit of a problem, wouldn’t we. It doesn’t stop me groaning every time I see it on the timetable, or trying to work out if ‘a tiger broke in to my house and ate my timetable’ would pass as a valid excuse to stay in bed and miss it.

 

That is, until Monday.

 

So let’s give you a bit of background here, travelling back from Devon to Birmingham is never a short journey. I don’t even like trains. Not one little bit. Truth be told, little bit terrified of them. Judge me all you want. But knowing that the roads would be chaos, my housemate would be travelling with me and the only seat on the MegaBus would be next to the guy who hasn’t washed in 3 weeks persuaded me to bite the bullet and buy a train ticket. Exmouth to Exeter, Exeter to Birmingham. The journey started with me missing my first train, in true Sarah style I legged it across the road, bags flying all over the place to find a smug woman telling me that despite the train still being in the station, I couldn’t get on it. Fine. 

 

It was a long journey, one of those ones where you just wish you could apparate, damn you JK Rowling for introducing me to something that I can’t do in the muggle world. But eventually we arrive at new street station. Excited to get outside and have a cigarette I practically gallop through the station, not taking in to consideration the old woman who had a near miss when she stood in my path. About to light up and I see two guys staring in to a lift. I’m not even going to hide it to you guys, I am nosey, like ridiculously nosey, so I wandered over and explained that I have my first aid qualifications and I’m a student nurse, is there anything I could do to help? I was not ready for the events that were about to unfold. 

 

Man, in lift, unresponsive.

 

Danger. Response. Shout for help. Airway. Breathing. Circulation.

 

Nothing.

 

Not even one little pulse. Or a tiny breath. No pink cheeks but a grey tinge. Nothing like casualty or holby city or greys anatomy.

 

3 rounds of compressions. Defibrillator thrown at me. Adrenaline pumping. 3 ambulances. 5 paramedics. Police. Station staff. Pedestrians wanting a good look.

 

Its funny, you can go through it a million times, I mean, I help train people to know how to do this, I’m training to be a nurse, but there is always that little bit of you that feels you might not be able to do it if you were faced with that situation. 

 

Trust me on this one, you can.

 

Something in you brings back everything you know, everything you were taught in your emergency first aid course or at brownies. Every bit of advice you have been given that you stuck in the back of your head because what you are really thinking is when will I ever even need this?

 

Do me a favour; think back to when you last watched casualty, or greys anatomy, or holby city. Can you remember? Good. Now rack your brains to think about a patient who needed CPR, being bought in on a trolley with doctors, nurses and paramedics yelling medical jargon all around them. The patient (who more often than not is looking incredibly healthy) is found to have no pulse, CPR is commenced.

 

Now have a really good think for me, imagine what that medical professional on your TV looks like.

 

Not even breaking a sweat?

 

Pushing down less than a cm on the patient’s chest?

 

In a calm, quiet environment with nobody peering through the windows?

 

Exciting? Yes. Beautifully presented? Yes. Accurate? No.

 

If you really think about it, CPR is not pretty. It is not glamorous. It does not only last for 2 minutes then the patient sits up and thanks everybody for their help and could they please get a cup of tea. 

 

It is brutal.

 

It is ribs cracking underneath your hands.

 

It is confined spaces with awkward angles, because believe it or not the patient doesn’t often lie flat on their back with plenty of space and no danger around

 

It is sweaty

 

It is fast paced

 

And nothing can prepare you for the feeling that you could be breaking someone’s ribs. Nobody can tell you about the rush of emotions you will feel afterwards, pride, happiness, guilt, fear. You want to cry and laugh at the same time. 

 

But listen to this, you can save somebody’s life, and when you are actually in the situation, there is so much adrenaline pumping round your body that you don’t even think about it, you just do it. Everything around you slows down and you focus. You focus on getting that heart pumping. Everything inside of you wants that family to get a phone call saying ‘although he needed CPR, it was given at the scene and he is now stable’. You want them to live.

 

And it doesn’t bear thinking about what you would do if it was your family member or friend. But take this moment to think about it, would you want people to know what to do if it was your loved one who collapsed? Knowing basic first aid is a vital skill that I personally believe that every single person should know.

 

Some statistics show that in the UK, fewer than one in five people who suffer from a survivable cardiac arrest receive the life saving aid that they need from people nearby. Less than one in five. Isn’t that appalling? 

 

If you are reading this and you don’t have first aid training, why not? You could save someone’s life. I don’t know what happened after the ambulance took that guy away the other day; I have no idea whether he lived or died. But you know what, I know first aid, I have been taught how to do CPR, and thanks to that I was able to give him a fighting chance. I don’t think I will ever find out the outcome, but the opportunity was there to give someone back their granddad, dad, son, friend. 

 

And no, it’s not pretty. It’s not something you ever want to do.

 

So do me a favour, contact your local first aid provider, Action for Life (07511623924) or myself, and learn, in the words of the fray, how to save a life.

 

Because it's easy when you know how.

Thank you.