November 29, 2008
· Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged alzheimers, depot, dossing, ex residents, exam, job, money, placement, rehab
Have had a really nice couple of days. It started with the exam and the job offer. Then that night I managed to get in touch with two of the ex residents from the drug rehab that I worked at. I have’nt heard from them since I left. Thye are both still clean, doing really well with families and jobs. It really made my night. Good old facebook!
Yesterday I got paid some unexpected money…130 odd quids form my last job. It was my holiday pay. That was a bonus. Then this morning, I received my official job offer from the nursing home. I am looking forward to starting. I think I will enjoy it. I hope so anyway.
My placement came ouyt yesterday aswell. I have an adult community mental health team about 20 minutes away from home. I didn’t really want another community placement. I much prefer inpatients. Never mind though, I’m sure it will be fine. Hopefully I will get to do some depot injections. I need to get plenty of practice in with those this year. It is the thing that makes me most nervous, which is why I bottled it when I was asked if I wanted to do one on my first placement. I wish I had now. I’m just really sacred of doing it badly and really hurting somebody. I must do it though, I don’t want to get to nearly qualified and never have done one.
On a sad note, one of the patients from my dementia inpatients placement died. He was lovely, so was his family. Some of those patients never had visitors, but this mans wife and daughter would come in every day and give him foot massages and stuff. I liked them a lot. Alzheimers is a very cruel disease and I suppose you start grieving for your loved one long before they actually go physically. I hope they’re all okay.
I am not even going to get dressed today. I will lounge around in my pyjamas, doing a bit here and a bit there. Bliss!
November 27, 2008
· Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged exam, job, manager, productive day, Rampton
Had my exam this morning. I think it went fine. Like the tutor said, as long as we learned the stuff that he taught us, we would be fine. Most of it was really straightforward stuff. There were a couple that I had to think twice about, but hopefully I got them right in the end and if I didn’t then I should still have done enough to pass. Fingers crossed.
I went for my interview this afternoon. I got the job…yay!! I can’t start until the CRB check is done which should take about nineteen years 6 to 8 weeks. I liked the manager, she was nice…and her background is psychiatric nursing…forensic…having worked at Rampton.
So all in all a productive day for yours truly. Think I might have a little Bacardi this eve!
November 25, 2008
· Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged dementia care home, exam, hangman, job interview, mental health law, piggies, thursday
I have a busy day Thursday. At 9.30 I have an exam about mental health law. I am a bit nervous. The pass mark is 60%. I have got some lovely coloured revision cards that contain everything I need to know. i think I remember most of the sections and stuff. Just hope that they stay in my brain when I get in there.
AT 3.00 I have a job interview. I got the letter through this morning. It’s at a dementia care home thats about a 2 minute drive/20 minute walk from my house. I visited when I was on my community placement. There are also 3 patients there from my inpatient placement. I loved working with them..so hopefully if I got the job I would like it a lot.
Of course, as I have moaned about before, I would like not to have to work atall whilst doing my training, but it’s a necessity. Especially if I want to swap to the degree for my third year. Which I do.
That’s all for today, I’m off to play hangman with the piggies 
November 24, 2008
· Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged anxiety, box, lecturer, snake
It was a very surreal day at Uni today. On Friday, our lecturer hinted that he had some kind of strange plans for today. He did so by asking if any of us had a heart condition. He needed to know so that he could complete his risk assessment…cue much puzzlement.
The theme today was anxiety. Lecturer entered the room holding a large box with an arm sized sleeve thing attached to the top. He instructed us not to go near the box while he went and got something..we were good, we didn’t, but we were all whittering as to what was going on…
To cut a long story short, there were 5 volunteers, (of which I was not one of them). They took it in turns putting their hand in the box and having a feel around..thus inducing much anxiety. Very good, I thought…he is showing us how horrendous anxiety can be, even in the abscence of identified stimuli. By this stage I was convinced that there was bugger all in the box…or maybe something inane like an orange..or a wig.
Throughout the scenario, lecturer was saying that he felt anxious, due to not being able to judge accurately how we would react and bla bla bla. He did indeed look a bit jittery and sweaty. Very good, I thought, he is obviously hamming it up to wind us up further.
This went on for some time. We discussed anxiety at length, the box remained motionless, everybody had finished poking their hand in and we all calmed down, safe in the knowledge that he had produced a very clever and insightful experiment, all through using the prop of an empty box and fear of the unknown.
I was wrong.
After the discussion, somebody happened to ask casually what had actually been in the box. Lecturer smiled and put his hand in…”Meet Al” he announced, and pulled out a great big bloody well SNAKE!!
Half of the class shit bricks and ran from the room screaming. Twas rather amusing. I went and touched the snake. It felt a bit weird, but okay. I do know that I wouldnt have liked to have touched it had it not been on my terms however.
Unorthodox, bringing his pet snake into Uni and all, but very amusing all the same.
November 21, 2008
· Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged care, carers, choked, moving, sever mental illness
We had a talk today about the impact of mental illness on carers. It nearly KILLED me!! it was so emotive and I think most of the group were trying hard to get rid of the lumps in our throats.
The lady that manages care for carers in the trust did a talk. She was lovely. She changed career path after having been a carer herself and realising how few resources there are for people who care day in day out for relatives with mental illness. I really respected her for that. Her passion for her job was really evident.
She brought with her a man who cares for his wife who has a severe mental illness. He talked about his wifes first episode. He read a poem that he had written to encapsulate his feelings at the time. It was beautiful, and really really moving. After he read the poem, he got choked. That made us choked. It was a very intense morning.
I am so glad that I have chosen mental health nursing as a career. i can think of nothing else in the world i would rather be doing…
November 11, 2008
· Filed under uni · Tagged breakfast, coursework, guinea pig, MHA, Norman Wisdom, procrastination, references, washing
I am putting off getting stuck into my coursework. I know it’s fine once I start, its just starting that i hate. The piggies are at school/nursery and Rumple is away at his induction, so I have the house to myself, and therefore could have a most productive day. So far this morning, I have done some washing, washed up, tidied downstairs, cleaned out the guinea pig, played with him for a bit, made numerous hot drinks, been on facebook and written this blog. I fear I am running out of diversions.
One clever thing that I have done for this assignment is typed my references as I’ve gone along. It’s quite obvious really, and I don’t know why I have never done it before. The last essay I wrote took less time than typing up the references. I very nearly lost the will to live.
Another glaringly obvious clever thing that I realised this morning is that breakfast actually means to break your fast. Genius.
And last but not least, there was a quiz in one of my journals this week. It’s about whether you know anything atall about the amendments to the Mental Health Act. There was one question that went as follows…”The minister who introduced the bill that became the 2007 act into parliament was: a] Rosie Winterton…b]Norman Wisdom….c]Norman Warner or d]Philip Hunt. How I scoffed at their Norman Wisdom suggestion. There’s a picture aswell so it’s definitely THE Norman Wisdom. I thought it was one of those trick questions like “who is responsible for making the application to detain a patient under section 2 of the MHA…a] an AMHP b] a buzzard or c]a rock…
However, when I looked at the answer, it said it was bloody well him!!! Norman Wisdom…is this right??? I asked my lecturer yesterday, he said I may have dreamt it. He laughed, so did most of the class. i hope I’m right, then I will buff them all out hahahahaha!!!
Right, I can procrastinate no longer…
November 9, 2008
· Filed under home stuff · Tagged coursework, happy, job, leg, piggies, relaxing, rumple, scary, swans, uni, weekend
This weekend is turning out really nicely. The piggies have been brilliant all weekend. Littlest piggy who is usually the most headstrong and source of much noise has been an angel. We have spent the weekend relaxing and being silly..pretending to be lions and such like and I have really enjoyed it. After weeks of much stress for me and Rumple, it is just what the Doctor ordered. I have done bugger all coursework, but I don’t really care. I am getting on okay with it..and even quite enjoying it (odd ball).
On the Rumple front, his company has been taken over and the new company have given him a job. They may still have to make redundancies, but at the moment it looks quite hopeful (have I blogged this before? if I have then skip this bit). He has his induction on Monday and Tuesday. He has a new van. Only thing is, he still can’t walk properly so will be off sick for a while. He is putting a bit of weight on his leg now though and has stopped using his crutches. He is still wearing the brace, cause I think he’s scared that if he takes it off and tries to walk, his leg will disintegrate. He still hasn’t had any Physio, he is still on the waiting list.
I have officially resigned from my job…and applied for a couple more. I think I need to be realistic about what I can and can’t manage. I try and be superwoman and it all goes tits up. I am my own worst enemy sometimes, and set my standards too high.
Anyway, things are getting much better at last. We’ve had a shit couple of months and it’s been horrid. Hopefully things carry on this way
By the way, on a random note, I have decided that swans scare me. Little piggies nursery is by a canal and they have narrowboats and ducks and swans etc. It is all very nice, but the swans are scary. They look lovely on the water, but when they are at the side of the canal and I have to walk past them, they make me nervous. Is it true that they can break your arm??? I think it might be.
November 5, 2008
· Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged awesome, civil rights, justice, liberty, Martin Luther King, Obama, segregation
Fifty years ago, African americans weren’t allowed to sit in the same areas as white people. They were segregated in schools, abused for the colour if theirs skin and their cultural background. Today, America elected an Arican american man to be their next president. Isn’t that awesome?
What the civils rights movement started some 50 years ago, came to fruition today. Amazing
