First days of Summer

Like having your own private pool

In London there are several Lido's (open air pools) dotted about and seeing as how we've entered April, some of them are opening for business.

A friend of mine suggested going for a swim on Tuesday night at our local Lido and I thought "why not?". The great thing about going for a swim in an open air pool in the middle of April is that no-one thinks this is a good idea, so you rather have the pool to your self. Just remember your wetsuit.

The not so great thing about it is how cold it is. I didn't mention these are unheated pools, did I? Now I'd heard how being dropped in cold water can suck the air out of your lungs but I'd never experienced this. Turns out it's about as much fun as it sounds, and swimming in cold (the air temp was around 10 degrees Celsius, make of that what you will) water is a hell of a lot more tiring than you might expect.

We briefly (half a length) practiced some front crawl, until the pain in our frontal sinuses was so great it made our eyes buzz. Then we changed over to some old-school, head out of water breast stroke. It was a lot of fun, we swam about 1km at a very reasonable pace and even had a bit of chat whilst we went. I think we'll be back next week.

Obligatory London landmark shot

Yesterday was a fair bit warmer and meant that cycling to school was glorious. We had PBL all morning (case of the week: RA) and towards the end of the session there was an almighty crash outside our room and plaintive "can I have some help, please!" was heard. Ah, I thought, that's not good. I opened the door and narrowly avoided a pool of something brown. Iced-coffee. A young woman was kneeling next to her friend who lying on her side in the corridor straight and stiff as an ironing board, jerking slightly.

Seizure, right.

"She's having a seizure," the friend said "She's got a history of this, but I've never seen her this bad."

The girl having the seizure was grunting through a clenched jaw, but I could seeing nostrils flaring so I was pretty happy she had an airway. We rolled her onto her side just to be safe, though. I ducked back in the room, past my classmates who had got up to have a look. Because I'd cycled in, I had my emergency trousers in my bag (my thought being "get something soft under the patient's head). I managed to gently maneuver them under the still seizing girl's head. More people came out to see what was going on, a couple offered to call someone (even in the medical school the crash team will come running) and I directed the rest back to their rooms. I knelt behind the girl's shoulders letting her ride it out saying supportive things to the friend. It occurred to me that there wasn't much else we could do. Airway? Yup. Breathing? Yup. Circulation? Uh huh. Waiting 'till the crash team turn up? You betcha.

A couple of doctors sprinted up the corridor, the friend gave a potted history and I went back into dicussing RA. Slowly more people turned, there was monitoring attached, oxygen given and she looked like the seizure had stopped and she was going postictal. Good, I thought, now how do I get my trousers back?

Talk meat to me

So for our date night last week, Mrs Absentbabinski and I went off to Bodean's in Clapham and ate the finest Kansas-style barbecue that South London has to offer.

I had the "famous" Bodean's Burn Ends (see left), which comprised of about a pound of barbecued beef and pork which was the most delicious thing I have eaten in months. The restaurant is the wonderful line of booths with ESPN playing on flatscreen TV's and ice-cold Sam Adam's or Blue Harvest (my choice and hers, respectively).

We had clam chowder to start and that may have been a bit of a mistake. Understand that in London, when you order a main it is very rare that you end up too stuffed to finish it. Bodean's does American fare so faithfully that a few mouthfuls of the delicious pulled pork the meat sweats were upon me; by the final mouthful of beef I was beginning to regret my greed. I couldn't finish the fries. Mrs Absentbabinski had a sirloin steak that she struggled with. There was no probability of desert - A rarity in our household. Belt buckles were loosened. Top-buttons undone and brows dabbed. We both felt nauseous on the bus home. Every burp smelt of barbecue sauce and self-disgust.

Would I go back and repeat this? Oh hell yes.

First Bank Shift

"Everyone gets everything he wants. I wanted a mission, and for my sins, they gave me one." - Capt. Willard, Apocalypse Now


"Hi, Absentbabinski? Are you still available to work tomorrow?"


It was 8pm on a Friday night and I was just starting on my first drink. I could say no. I could get my drink on and have a lie-in tomorrow. I could also start paying my credit card bill off.


"Sure, what ward?"
"Jeremy Kyle - It's Elderly Care (ah, shit) or there's A+E?"


I've never worked A+E and I'm not cleared to give IV meds at St Clabert's, so I'd end up being an annoying, over-paid HCA. I guess it's eldery care, then.


"I'll take Jeremy Kyle. Long day?"
"Long Day, 0730 start"
"Okay, thanks"


A quick bit of mental arithmetic tells me I'll have to get up a bit before 6am. So time to stop drinking, get my Best Dress together and pack my lunch.


I end up in bed at 10pm (a personal best for me), dreading a ward full of crazy old people and staff who couldn't care less. It's a bit of an open secret that (at least in the NHS) elderly care is staffed with either the most caring, skilled and professional nurses who will always be ready to help or... Well, people who aren't the above.


Cue a night of broken sleep and fear.


When I get on the ward the night staff are smiling. Smiling. They had a busy night but they're friendly and helpful and explain how the ward runs. They point out the changing room and when handover will start. I quickly realise they are the former of the two classes of nurses and I think "I'll be able to do this".


We get handover, I introduce myself to my patients and grab a drugs trolley. I've got two patients with IV Abx, but everyone else is on the usual blood pressure meds, anti-arrythmics and laxatives. I can do this. I only have to argue with browbeat encourage one patient to take their tablets. My patients are by and large lovely. I take waaaay to long to finish my drug round (my motto for the day is "I haven't done this for six months!"). There are only a couple of washes I do because the HCA I'm working with is efficient (more so than I am) and industrious. I get two admissions but they are straight-forward, old people who've fallen down. As per elderly care I have more than my fair share of pooey bottoms but I don't care - in fact on some level I like it. It's one of the bits of nursing I've always loved, helping someone do something that they can't do for themselves. And making the experience as normal and natural as possible. 


The shift was really good. I liked the people I was working with, and to their credit they decided I wasn't that much of a liability and asked if I'd like to come back next time they're down a pair of hands. 


I said "sure".

A case of the Mondays (again)

Overslept
faffed around
jeans crumpled after they've been tumble-dried
No time to make the bed
Waited in line at the train station, only to find I had money on my oystercard
Missed my train
Running late
ATM only dispensing 20's, no 10's

Realise school starts an hour later than I thought.
Been sat by myself only to have a good friend say she'd been here for an hour downstairs.

Hilarious.

P.S. These diamond shoes are too tight and all these Benjamins won't fit in my wallet.

Oh, and another thing

So I went for a run on Sunday:

Not a great time for a half-marathon, but I was glad to get in under two hours. Next time, I'll have done more training.

This just seems plain wrong

So I found this on someone's YouTube video whilst I was looking for a nice Pulmonary Embolism video. I know I shouldn't be surprised, but it's just depressing that this kind of thing goes on; naturopathy is pretty much one of the worse kinds of bunkum but seeing someone promoting it and denouncing actual medications that work to prevent death? It just seems wrong.

I always figured that the alt med users were like atheists in foxholes when they became seriously unwell. You bad-mouth medicine whilst it can't cure your muscle aches/ lethargy/ "bloated feeling", but when you get diagnosed with cancer or have an MI you're all about the "western medicine". Guess I was wrong. Sadly. Apparently you can get a DVT and think that "blood cleansing" is the way to go.

Knowledge-worker hands

One of the things that revision time always gives me is time to reflect. Nominally, I'm sat on my bed looking through powerpoint presentations, or reading old notes, trying to condense pages of information into bullet points so that I can remember and regurgitate it on demand.

Revision is boring. Occasionally I have learn something for the first time because I missed (by choice or by the fairly dreadful course planning) the lecture, but mostly I am revisiting or, indeed, revising, my knowledge base. Whilst I slog through the material I will confess my mind starts to wander a bit, and one topic that I keep on coming back to is my role in life as a man, whatever that means. And like any good physical exam, I start at my hands.

The phrase "knowledge worker hands" I stole from Merlin Mann, and it refers to that nice soft palm and fingers experience that comes from living via the keyboard or whiteboard. When I nursed, my hands were invariably dry or cracked from the alco-gel or the soap I used dozens of times a day. There were callouses from pushing and pulling things all day long. I came to see them as nurse's hands. Working hands.

Since the start of my course, my hands became softer, better hydrated, fewer (if any) callouses. And I have begun to feel a certain disdain towards them. Maybe it's a loss of identity, or a natural distrust I have of soft hands on a man (utterly ridiculous, I know), but my hands became knowledge worker hands.

I've started climbing recently and I now sport callouses and scrapes and an ever increasing grip strength. I've started practicing Aikido again, after many years away from it and realised that I had lost any sense of the "killer grip" my new sensei talks about. The grip that when applied to your wrist causes your hand to claw up. I've picked up my guitar again and I notice my fingertips are soft and hurt after a short time of playing. I wonder if this is all a response to how I see medicine in some way. I know that it is hard and demands so very much, that surviving the long hours and ability to think on your feet is a skill. But my hands soften and that bothers me on a very fundamental level. I don't really understand why. Maybe this is material for a midlife crisis that's just been delivered a few years early.

My feet are runner's feet. My hands must not be knowledge worker hands.

Go figure.