I love it when a plan comes together...

So have my four patients picked for my oral for my acute placement.

I have a rough idea of what to do for my research proposal. I am literally shitting it about this. I have major IBS just out of sheer stress.

I also now have a new phone number so mail me if you want my new number and I'll mail you back. I lost my old phone. Gash.

Navel Gazing part 2

I've always wondered how people see me. I wonder if they see through me, I'm not a particularly adept liar, I wear my heart on my sleeve. I have some secrets, and some things so painful that I carry them around with me like a wee sealed compartment. These deep things I don't tell people because I don't know if its the wording, I don't know if its the person I'm telling, I don't know if they find it so hard to comprehend or if they think I'm lying but they don't seem to understand what I'm telling them., but I don't know if these "deep" things show in some way.

So on placement I work very hard to recognise this. I try to keep on my "game face". I try and smile more. I try to exercise my better aspects of myself.

I try to cling to the fact that someone in another life said "we will remember t'kept wifey for her kindness". I try to hold on to that, so that in the face of it all, I remember everything I do is from kindness. In my nursing interview I said I wanted to help people. I get a sense of pride when I've helped people get better.

But that at times is overshadowed by the fact I worry people see me as pedantic (I know I can be a pain in the arse), crabbit, fat and socially awkward.

I usually try and overcome the social awkwardness by being a comedic clown of sorts, but obviously in a hospital environment thats not always appropriate. Certainly not on this placement having already been reprimanded for "unprofessional conduct".

And also something happened on placement that I'm not sure how it sits with me. At the moment its not sitting comfortably, so I'm mulling it over and might actually do a reflective piece on it to try and get to grips with it.

I know I did a bit of navel gazing last year too. Must just be a seasonal thing with me. For some reason at the moment I'm not sitting comfortably in my own skin at the moment, I feel tight, constrained, I would go as far as to say trapped by myself. I'm assuming its stress because its never rankled that way before.

This may have been a totally pointless entry.

Osce results and general updates

Well I passed my practical with 95%. 5% of fail right there.

No seriously I am quite pleased with that just waiting on one more coming back.

I am so tired this week, driving home the road was swaying and bowing when I was looking at it. One more day to go though.

Then I wont have to worry about driving home, as the RAH no longer will provide parking facilities for me, due to shitty parking rules.

I have one week to go on this placement and then we are back in uni for 4 weeks, during which time I have to start, research and complete a 4000 word research proposal and literature review. Its due in the week after annual leave finishes, which means yet again, I'm spending my summer holiday WORKING. I am not impressed at this.

I have struggled at times with this placement, its hard going, I find it hard to switch off when its home time. I think about my patients, I worry about my patients, and I feel sad when they die, although I would be lying if I said that at some point I don't feel a sense of relief for some of them. I find it hard to remain cheerful at times. I hear "admitted with exacerbation of COPD. End stage" and "malignancy suspected" quickly turning into "malignancy confirmed, patient unaware, telling tomorrow" and patients then asking "how my doing?" and having to lie to an extent, or rather edit the truth "You're doing well today" and trying to buffer it with small achievable targets that they can reach "You're doing well today. How would you feel about trying some food/physio/sitting up". Its not lying, it just feels like it is.

I dream about my patients. I worry about what I've missed, or ran out of time to do. I weep over broken promises, to the extent I've modified how I speak. I no longer say "two minutes" as it never is. It's now "I'll be back as soon as I can".

I worry that I haven't made enough of a difference to their care, made their transition easier or that in some way I've failed to alleviate their suffering.

I stress that I don't know enough. I care deeply. I just don't know if thats enough.

I think I'm reaching the stage of the course where some get burnout and some get tough. I don't know on which side I want to fall on.

Exam fever

Well, that's my exams not finished for the next few months.

Big written one and my OSCE (Observed Structured Clinical Examination) were done yesterday and today. I'm exhausted, my brains fried.

I'm not sure how I've done. The written one I thin I did well in one question, but possibly not the second question.

The OSCE, I'm not sure about either, missed some basic stuff just due to pure nerves.

HAW! AH'M ON THE NIGHTSHIFT

And crabbit. Its so hard trying to sleep in the daytime. Other people have lives n that, but do they have to be so fucking noisy about it.

And I hate the weans that are playing outside in the binsheds. It irks me irrationally (this could be the tiredness and stress talking), and theres a PARK, with swings and everything doen the road.

Aside from the fact it makes me feel like I'm living in some Third World country, where theres a complete lack of any sort of sanitation (the bin gremlins not the park), the wee buggers scream. A boy kicks a ball the girls scream. Oh look theres a bee, the girls scream. One girl screams, another one does just for shits and giggles.

I long for tranquiliser darts. "SCREEEEEEEAM" *Thwack* Sleep.

They should be part of your uniform allowance "Heres 5 tunics, 5 trousers,oh and your nighshift allowance of tranquiliser darts"

I will, in absentia, accept gags for them. And valium for me.

200th Post. Oh the excitement.

Well not been up to much of late to be honest.

Placement going okay - settled into it now. In to the swing as it were. Still finding the palliation side hard although its getting ..."easier" isn't the right word, but I would say I'm certainly feeling more comfortable with it.

Roller derby - been picked to play for the team in May. Some shenanigans ongoing with that, but I'm trying.

Weight: Out of control. Can't do Cambridge due to medical issues the past wee while, and until I'm signed off that's out the window, also don't want to do it before tournament at end of May.

Everything else: Quite worried about Paul and his work. Long story.