Carry on Nurse

I dropped off the planet recently.

After a long week of pain ended with an even longer night of agony I ended up visiting an out-of-hours clinic a week last Saturday and before I knew it I was in A&E, followed quickly by a bed in Ward 5 in the Victoria Infirmary here on the Southside of Glasgow.

I was disappointed to find that morphine didn't get rid of the pain, it just made the rest of me detached so thankfully a heavy dose of anti-biotics began to make some progress after a couple of days. Really though I put my recovery down to getting some Oxygen on Monday morning.

I am amazed by the things I saw and learnt in just one week on the ward. I saw doctors, and not just junior ones, be doing rounds at 7am and checking up on patients after surgery at 8 or 9 at night. Nurses, from the Sister down, pulling 12 hour shifts. The dedication was something that makes any job I've ever felt challenged by pale into insignificance.

I also learnt more about life in a few days than I have in years. The tales other people had to tell, and those I witnessed, from the guy stabbed 14 times, to the amputee who was up and about barely two hours after getting his leg taken off, to the total crazy hard-man from the Gorbals who wouldn't co-operate with anyone with enough tranquilisers in him to put down two elephants.

I'm only out for a couple of days, but hope to get discharged properly tomorrow. But if I'm ever in a hospital again I hope I'm in a place as good as Ward 5. They may never read this, but I'd like to thank all the staff and doctors who have looked after me there.