One August day

Monday 28 Aug

I am so knackered I can’t be bothered to switch channels even though Celebrity Love Island is blaring out of the TV. Its v. poor. Really dull. I watch it without actually seeing anything. I am in a zombie like state.
I actually ache. Food helps though. Feel much better for having eaten. Sleep is going to be so good.
This morning feels just like a moment ago, but it took a long time to get to this evening. And tomorrow is going to come far too quickly.
I walked onto the ward this morning and it felt different. I’d been away for a few days on a course run by the Media Guardian Television International Festival. It was just fab. Glamorous, intellectual, ego clash heaven and everyone was trying to network like crazy with someone. My brief trip into the real world ended though as I returned to the unreal world of hospital life. That Never Never Land, where normal life stops existing as people become sick and enter as patients. Some need the same help as they required as children, with feeding and toilet. As I say, normal life is left at the door.
Some of the faces on the ward were the same but we’d had new patients in since my few days away. I felt disorientated. Last week I thought I had got it all sorted. I could run a mental list through the ward, but today the nurses had obviously been playing musical beds again, switching patients around the ward. Sicker patients are nearest to the nursing station and when they improve another sicker patient comes and takes the elevated position.
The ward round was long. I couldn’t help but dream of having that coffee. Tomorrow it’s the consultant ward round and so today was in prep for that. Crossing all the t’s, dotting all the i’s. That kind of thing. It means making sure all the results of tests are at hand and necessary jobs requested have been carried out. For me that’s a day running around like a blue 'arsed' fly, but hey its no different from any other day really.
Today was definitely venflon day-I had to put in four. I must be improving. I managed them all. I failed on getting bloods through. Some tricky patients.
By 3.30pm and not having had a chance to stop I was beginning to feel dizzy. I was having problems seeing properly. It was time to eat before I became a heap on the floor. By 6.30pm I still had a pile of jobs to do. I had worked flat out and still was way over the cut off working day time laid out by European Working Directives. I couldn’t hold back the tears. I am not entirely sure why I cried, but I just did.
I am way too tired to tell you anymore. Its time to sleep. My feet actually throb. I am already dreading the morning coming round.