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.