Kindness Never Hurts 

This is an extract from a chapter in my book that I’m currently working on, which depicts a lot of my experiences from my nursing life. What I’m rambling about here and trying to make sense of, is why we can’t all just be kind to each other. The world these days seems to be becoming increasingly full of hate, anger and fighting. I use it to remind myself a lot of the time to be kind- both to other people and myself. None of us are immune to forgetting this and we all sometimes need a gentle reminder to step back, rethink what’s happening and gain a better perspective of what is in front of us. Yet, I feel in the fast paced modern times we live in today, there is often no time permitted for us to be able to do this.

As The Dust Settles

Cars zoom through the traffic lights, driven by people in suits and office attire rushing to get through before it goes red, soon replaced by people stopping sharply at the red light and cursing at not being able to sneak through- clearly late for work. Pedestrians dashed across the road in between gaps in the traffic. Horns beep as people pull out into lanes of traffic, jostling for better positions in the queue. Cyclists weave in and out, some cursing with hand gestures at passing cars. Buses elbow their way through the cars to their stops. A distant ambulance siren draws near, and pulls into the A&E entrance. 

I realise, that I’m staring, blankly. I’m in my car at 0820am, which I parked here last night at 7pm. I had just finished a night shift and was now trying to gather some sort of energy or motivation to drive myself home. My left hand on the steering wheel, and my right on the keys about to start the car. What a night shift it had been.   I realise, that I’m staring at life passing me by. People cursing and getting irate at the most trivial things. I realise, that this morning there is one less soul walking amongst these people and no one has batted an eyelid. Life hasn’t changed. The city continues to swirl unfazed. Yet here I sit, unable to work out what to do with myself. Fragile and like a coiled spring of emotion, I dread driving home amongst the same irate and short tempered people on my way home. I know my driving won’t be top notch, I’ve only managed 4 hours sleep in the last 24 hours. I know my spatial awareness and alertness also won’t be top notch, I’ve only 1 hour ago been holding the heart of an 18 year old man in my hands. In the most traumatic way, he died. 

He was stabbed in the chest. Brought in to us unconscious, pale, no pulse and bleeding profusely from the wound to his chest which we eventually cut open to get access to his heart to try and restart it and stem the bleeding, in a desperate attempt to try and save him. The moments flashed up in front of me, like someone holding something close up to my face each time. 

The feeling of the blood squelching under my feet. Wiping away the blood on his chest so I could apply monitoring equipment. The anguished screaming of his presumed girlfriend who was witness to it all, as she was held back by staff after forcing her way in. The way his hair had been carefully styled for a night out, now ruffled and bloodied. His blank, pale face staring blankly upwards as the life rapidly drained from him. The bloodstained band on his wrist, that looked as though it had been made by a child as a gift. The feeling of the cold plastic bag of blood in my hands as I squeezed it with all my might trying to get some blood into him. The dull muted thumps as I pumped up and down on his chest trying to restart his heart. The sight of the unnerving, gaping and bleeding hole in his chest when we opened him up. His heart in my hand, as I felt the hole with my index finger where the knife had punctured. 

The echoing silence of the room, as we finally called a halt to our efforts, pierced only by the out of room wails by his girlfriend and family. 

Another flashback of the night shone in my face like an aimed torch:

I thrusted through the doors of resus ahead of a patient with whom I was doing a critical transfer to CT scan. As I stood holding the doors open with my emergency grab bag over my shoulder, my bloodied gloves and slightly frayed plastic apron, an impatient relative from another part of the department that we were about to pass through grabs my arm and stops me.

“Excuse me, my mum’s been waiting for 2 1/2 hours to see someone now, how much longer is this going to take?!”

Somewhat irritated, I snap “I don’t know, ask one of them” and pointed towards some of the nurses working in the area. She looks at me almost offended, when suddenly the patient I’m escorting coasts up to the doors behind me. The relative stops and stares. The patient is lying in the bed, intubated with countless drips and infusions hanging on the side of the bed rails, blood soaked sheet underneath them and a team of people including myself tending to them. It’s not a pretty sight.

“I’m sorry mind out please” I said sharply, ushering her to the side. She duly steps aside, her gaze not leaving the passing convoy of staff with the patient, myself included.

I felt really bad after that. As I think about it, she didn’t know what had been happening behind the closed doors. She was just here with her mum who had been brought in and was trying to do right by her. Regrettably, she had indeed been waiting a long time. 

As I sit here in my car, I just wish life would slow down for a second. In life outside the hospital, everything is so rushed, urgent, now, GOT to be done- thoughts for others and their wellbeing seem to be more often than not an afterthought. Everyone is in a bubble of their own. Why can’t we all just get along? Can’t we all stop hurting and killing each other? Can’t we all accept and appreciate our differences rather than separate each other based on them? Stop fighting with everyone, stop with hostility, stop wrestling to get ahead of that queue in the traffic lights, stop shaking your head angrily at the person going that little bit slower. I’m tired of seeing people hurt. I’m tired of seeing people knifed and shot. I’m tired of hearing the piercing screams of pain from relatives who see their loved one die before them. I’m tired of seeing people needlessly die. 

Of course, I know this is just a fantasy. Of course, it’s not realistic to expect everyone to get along and for everything to be all happy days.

But wouldn’t it be nice? 

I turned the key to start the car, but it wouldn’t start. The lights came on, but the engine didn’t turn over. The lights coming on flashed another moment of the night in front of me. 

In the immediate aftermath of the man stabbed in the chest, I was taking an elderly lady with dementia to the toilet. She spoke mostly incoherent nonsense, but she always looked into my eyes with a smile, for no apparent reason. I walked her arm in arm into the toilet cubicle as she wobbled towards the seat clinging onto my arm with vice grip. The door closed behind us and it went dark.

“Oh, sorry, let me just turn the light on! Sorry about that, where is it, there it is” I flustered, flicking the switch.

The room lit up, and there she was stood looking at me with that smile.

I laughed nervously. She raised her finger to speak.

In a moment of unexpected eloquence and lucidity given her dementia and nonsensical ramblings, she declared, an index finger raised upwards:

“It is better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness”

Those words whirled around my head as I stood outside the loo door waiting for her to finish. At a moment where the last few hours were still raw, fraught and I felt as though I was holding back a pressure pot of emotions, a lady with dementia and no awareness of the world around her settled my racing mind.

Clutch In

the message on my car dashboard read. Remembering I needed to press the clutch in before the car would start, I obliged and turned the key. 

Lets just get home, eh mate?