round the mulberry bush

Upon entering the small piggies warzone of a bedroom this evening, I stood on a miniature railroad thing that has very hard plastic trees and assorted buildings. It killed. If you have never trodden on a thomas the tank mini world, then think standing on a plug. Same pain. Because this hurt a lot, I lost my balance and ended up on my arse in a big pile of spikey lego. That really killed. I am left with some sort of puncture wound on  my right buttock. Therefore I now hate lego and feel it should be banished from the kingdom.

I have a presentation tomorrow. It’s  practice presentation in preperation for the real one in December which is my exam. We are looking at complex care in mental health so I have done mine on Domestic Violence, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the correlating issues. That sounds quite good, although I don’t think that the presentation itself will. I like to run over it time and time again in my ever anal way, but havent really had time to do that. We have had a week to prepare it. It’s not marked anyway, it’s just to get some feedback so I’m not too fussed.

I finally have my first shift on the trust bank this weekend. It’s been 16 months since I applied so it’s about time. The money is pretty good for weekend shifts, which is obviously exactly what we need at the mo. Hopefully things are beginning to look up. Regular readers (thanks you three) will know that times have been a bit dodgy and stressful for a while now so bit of good stuff is most welcomed.

Anyway I am off to drink a bit of wine, watch a bit of telly and then get my poor punctured arse up to bed!

Rumple got the job!!

I think it is finally really sinking in that this time next year I won’t be a student anymore. I will be a real live nurse. Weird. One thing that worries me a little bit is that I have never even been shouted at during my training, so will I cope if once I’m a nurse a poorly person tries to knock my head off.

It’s not that I have never challenged any of the patients/clients that I have worked with. I have. I got called a fucking Nazi once by a lady who had dementia and thought that the ward was a concentration camp. Understandable I reckon, seeing as I was the one telling her that the door was locked and she had to stay. She didn’t screech it in my face though, just stated it as a matter of fact. Thats about as far as any kind of confrontation has gone though.

I haven’t had the opportunity to practise any kind of de-escalation stuff, not really. I have been in situations where I have had to be negotiator between two patients who were about to kill each other over a cushion, but never to save my own ass from getting mullered.

I am hoping that the skills I had to use when I worked at the drug rehab unit (where I was a project worker up until I got pregnant with little piggy) will stand me in good stead. I got shouted at there quite a lot, and also had a stalker who it transpires was planning on raping me at some stage during his programme. Nice.

I am hoping that I get PICU (Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit) for my next placement where it is likely that I will have to de-escalate something or other.

It’s big piggies birthday today. He’s 12!!

I am now back in the swing of being a fully fledged student tosser. We went back to Uni properly on Monday. Much the same as the lovely Cellar Door (find her blog on my blog roll…tis very good) I have realised that being at Uni can be a pain in the arse. Theres nobody in my group that I dislike immensely. Theres some that I like immensely. There are many however would scare the shit out of me if I was ill and they nursed me. Either because a/ they haven’t got a fecking clue….or b/their general attitude is poor.

I think that the Uni can’t wait to get rid of us. Our group has a bad reputation due to the ratio of nobs to nice people (with nobs far outweighing the latter). On our first day back, we went over the ground rules extensively AGAIN. Our lecturers felt that this was necessary…you know the usual “respect for others opinions” etc. I felt quite insulted really seeing as I’m 33 years old, but hey ho..maybe the people that need to listen will ignore everything they said in much the same manner as they have done for years one and two  take it on board.

On a positive note, I have finally decided after much deliberation that my dissertation will be about suicide in schizophrenia..with particular attention paid to command hallucinations. It is probably the 846267549th idea that I have thought of, but I handed in my proposal this morning so thats that. I’m actually quite looking forward to getting stuck into it.

On another positive note, Rumple has a job interview on Friday. They phoned to let him know this afternoon. Seems to have lifted his spirits a bit cos he has not been liking this staying at home business. He has been particularly grumpy and quite difficult to be around. It has really knocked him though, being made redundant. So fingers crossed