The ward looked different today. It looked sort of green and was very dark. The walls were made of big bricks covered in a green like sea weed which was all wet and slimy. ‘Tap tap tap’. I look up to the end of the ward to see a crow sitting high up on a rock looking down at me tapping its beak against the rock. I turned the corner of the ward to look at the nurses’ station to see Sister Mary Poppins dressed in a black nurse’s uniform. She had really thick make up on and it was as though she had put it on without a mirror as the lipstick was up her cheeks and she had become crazed. She was pointing at me and shouting. I couldn’t hear a thing except this annoying tap tap tapping. She had what appeared to be electrodes in her hand. The other nursing staff stood behind her and looked odd and starting chanting “be one of us, you need to lose your brain”. Sister Mary Poppins was running after me with the electrodes. I could hear that tapping again. I jumped up banged my head on my bookshelf above and a book fell off and landed on me. Tap tap tap, I jumped up out of bed and opened my bedroom door. The cat had been trying to get out the room and this is what the tapping noise was. I turned on the light and stared back at my bed, I had knocked down the book Necessary Illusions by Noam Chomsky. I looked over at my clock in a panic. I was awake, twenty minutes before the alarm.
Sounds Like F Flat
I arrived for handover on time today at 7.30am. My uniforms were nice and clean thanks to my mum’s washing machine. I needed to wait a week before the delivery of my new washing machine as the old one had broke beyond repair. It was a couple of days since I was last in my ward. I sat waiting on my handover. Sister Mary Poppins was late. The F Grade was starting the handover. She had a voice as flat as Holland and her eyes were as cold as the two Yorkshire Puddings that lay alone at the bottom of my freezer. Mrs F Flat I called her. Fifteen minutes later the door opened and it was Sister Mary Poppins. She retorted how she had waited ages to get in the car park. I smiled inwardly at the thought but dare not look at her as she could turn me to stone like medusa. I felt like standing up and asking her to deduct fifteen minutes from her annual leave like the twenty five minutes she had deducted from mine when I was late. I knew this was impossible but felt a pang of injustice.
Open Up It Is The Police?
We split up the patients as usual into two groups and there were three nurses and a care assistant. I had a group of twelve patients. I started my usual routine drugs, breakfasts washing etc. While I was over at a male patient Sister Mary Poppins came in with someone she was showing around. She was obviously trying to make a good impression she was being civil. She opened the cupboards of the patients to show the capacity. As she opened a door there was an immediate smell of stale strong urine. I looked in the cupboard and saw a bag of wet things which must have been left there by another nurse. The smell was strong though. Sister Mary Poppins turned her nose up and opened her frog like eyes wide, staring at me with severe discontent as though she had been a police officer finding stolen goods in my cupboard. ‘Oh no’! I thought, she must have thought I left that there. What could I say? Instead, I shakily said ‘I will clean this up’! I apologised to the patient and stopped what I was doing and cleaned out the smelling wet urine soaked clothes in the shower room. Sister Mary Poppins took on the character of the female Professor Umbridge from ‘Harry Potter and the Order of The Phoenix’. I expected to get scratched out lines carved into the back of my hand to punish me.
From Academia to Pooh
Mrs F Flat mysteriously appeared to help out. She was watching me and making suggestions about the correct way in which I should wipe pooh from a male patient’s bottom. This is what I went to university for to wipe away urine and pooh? If only my mum could see me now, I thought. She was so proud of me when I graduated for the second time. I already had a Masters degree in Economics but loved caring for people and had worked as a care assistant to fund my educational ventures for years. Did I suddenly show that I was not qualified enough to wipe away pooh? During my break I could not eat, I can’t explain why.
When I came back to the ward, I was shown into Sisters office by Mrs F Flat. I sat down as though being controlled by the gaze of Mary Poppins. I thought back to my nightmare. Sister Poppins informed me about things she said she had witnessed from me. I was the naughty child again. I felt myself cower and shape shift into this little girl who was simply not good enough. Sister Mary Poppins said that she had been informed by Mrs F Flat about certain behaviours which I had apparently been displaying. I was informed that I was downright rude to patients. I felt anger, ‘when was I rude’ I thought? Do I have these strange characteristics that I display and I am not aware of them? Mary Poppins stated that this will all go on my record. I still for the life of me do not know what I did! Anyway, I apologised like the little girl and said I will try harder. I started asking Sister what I did with actual examples, but she put her hand up saying the matter is now closed, she is saying no more about it.
Special Moments
I kept asking her almost in tears about what I had done but she stated that if I said another word to her today she would make matters worse. I left the office with a heart that weighed a ton. So I was officially not allowed to speak to her. I carried on working with the patients. One male patient did not have long to live. The patient’s daughter was there with him. I spent some time with both the patient and the daughter. I console the daughter as she cries out loudly. She puts her arms around me and just cries on my shoulder. The man had been in hospital for sometime so I had a good rapport with his daughter. She informed me that I have been the only one who has shown genuine care towards her father. She didn’t know I was also hurt inside from what the Sister had said to me but my pain was nothing to what this woman was going through so I cast it aside like a pair of socks with holes in them. Later on at around 3pm the patient died and I organised the final formalities. The patient’s daughter gave me one big final hug as though she did not want to let me go as she left the ward. I thought about why I do nursing and it is these special moments when I can make a difference to others lives that makes it all seem right.
I started feeling better until I noticed the stare of Sister follow me as though again she where controlling my movements with her stare. It was time for tea and I walked past Sister putting on a smile that still appeared despite the fact that she has never said one nice word to me. I was like the tormented animal looking up to its master for approval. Sister looked at me but there was no smile back. Her icy stare could freeze the Atlantic Ocean. Sister walked up the corridor, she had clearly been walking back from the toilet because when I looked back at her I noticed she had tucked the back of her uniform into her pants and tights and she must not have noticed. Even Sister Mary Poppins was not perfect! Should I tell her? She told me earlier that I should not say anymore today or things would be made worse for me.
Thank You!
It was nearly the end of the shift and I heard someone from the end of the corridor shout my name but I couldn’t clearly see. Coming into the light was the daughter of the patient who had previously died. She handed me what looked like a card. She said she was not good at saying what she felt so she wrote it down in a card. She said this card was only for me. I left the ward with the card as I did not want to read it in the there. I worried in case she tried to pay me as we are not allowed to accept any such gifts. My shift finished and I sat in my car afterwards and tore open the envelope. Sure enough there was a thank you card with thankfully just a note inside. The words she wrote where so heart wrenching a tear trickled down my face. The first thing she wrote was ‘you are an Angel’. She wrote that she noticed the way the Sister and Mrs F Flat treated me and not to let them get me down. She wrote that I had a special gift with people and not to let anyone tell me otherwise. She said she would always be eternally thankful for my care. The front picture of the card had a nurse on it with wings. Many months later I bumped into her in the street and she introduced me to many of the people she was with as the nurse that cared for her dad. She called me an Angel!
