When I was a student nurse I had a placement with the district nurses in The Manor which was the well recognised roughest part of Sheffield .
The nurse I accompanied , was a no nonsense city woman. She drove a second hand car, called a spade a fucking spade and swore at joyriders in the street with a broad Sheffield accent
She also told me not to look so fucking gormless on our many visits
Keep your wits about you she warned you look soft
I must have looked geeky….and painfully bookish
But I found her funny and warm and big boned and I so wanted to please her, so we got on
Like a boy does with his favourite teacher.
I remember accompanying her to visit a man in the top of a block of flats who had terminal cancer.
The man’s elderly and frail wife greeted us at the door with the comment “ Hes been a bit quiet all morning love” and I didn’t really notice my colleague quietly donning gloves and looping her stethoscope around her neck
The patient had bled to death in bed
He had bled from his mouth from a cancer of the oesophagus and unseen by his wife the blood had pooled inside his bedclothes and bed frame .
My mentor passed me gloves and an apron silently and asked the wife to make us a cup of tea.
My eyes grew to the size of saucers…the blood soaked the carpet black , like a pond in winter.
This was my very first traumatic death and I went on automatic pilot
But I learned so very much that awful day
I learned to be calm in a crisis
I learned how to break bad news with sensitivity and honesty
I learned how to spare people’s feelings with information they didn’t need and
I learned how important it was to cry in the car afterwards and be hugged by a co worker who knew more and better than I did.
Her name was Janet and she was a district nurse in Sheffield many moons ago now
And she died last week of cancer at home , with her family and friends and a dog called Daisy around her
from Going Gently https://ift.tt/3aZx7ip
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