I feel the need..

The need to write! :-P

Easter has not really been a big deal to me - I do not believe in the reason, and the public holidays are an inconvenience.  *shrug* as a shift worker, it is just another day, usually one which is more peaceful, but also like sitting at a bus stop waiting for a bus that is about an hour late.

However, this last week (because with Easter being so close to Anzac Day and that Tasmania counts Easter Tuesday as a public holiday, it was seriously almost a week of public holiday! 😶) has been extremely laid back, and I've time to reflect and collect my thoughts a bit.  I even got some reading done.. can't say I was moved to actually WANT to do housewrok.. it's on my "to do" list.

But this week, I missed my dad.  I still miss my dad.  There is nothing specific about this time of year that has triggered that.. maybe things like going to the Easter Show when we were kids - he featured largely in that.  maybe it is the fact it is approaching 4 months since he died, and that marks 4 months not having talked to him or heard him.. or argued with him :-P

We had a different relationship that I have with my mum, but maybe that is the key too.  Even when any of us would ring her mobile, he'd answer with one of those eye rolls you can hear through the phone ;-)  "Hang on, she has wandered off and left her phone <insert location>" .  Well! She is a busy woman, who would rather be being arty ;-)

Maybe it is the fact that the work that they both started before he died has come to fruition, and in the photos my sister sent, he is missing from the spot where he is supposed to be.

Maybe it the fact that after the first stupidly hectic 3 months of 2019, the dust has settled, and stopping to assess means that his absence is more noticeable. 

Maybe it is because I have been able to be at the bedside and present with more dying patients and their families, doing my best to ensure they have the best experience of an extremely tough time.

It is a changed experience now.  And at the same time, it has not changed how I nurse.  Maybe I have a modicum less fear.  2019 has provided so much evidence that fear is what is dictating our societal structures, that I have reached a point of refusing to compromise me, for the fear of getting in trouble.  Odds are, when you get in trouble, you have to explain yourself.  Ok.. I can do that - I rarely do something without knowing why, considering the consequence, and not basing it on some sort of evidence as to why I should do it that way.  I am not a fan or "because I said" - despite having to actually use it occasionally - usually when explanations aren't getting through though ;-)

I recent;y had an experience with a patient who told me that I was the only person that spoke to him a certain way, and he liked that when I gave him his injections, I was the only one who it didn't hurt.  I told him I give myself 5 injections a day, I know how it feels when someone gives you an injection when they don't know what it feels like.   I have spoken about empathy and sympathy here before (I think..🤔)  I told him I would hope that if I was in the position that he was are in, that I would be cared for by someone who would treat me the some way they would expect to be treated if it was them.  Phew! that was difficult to phrase right.. I hope I have!

Anyway, things have settled.. and that is a good thing.. but it is the time of year in Tasmania when the wind is blowing a gale - maybe that bring the feeling that there is something coming.  The winds of change. perhaps?  😏  There ARE changes afoot for the next couple of months, and I guess it is, again, that feeling of sitting at a bus stop, waiting for a bus that is running an hour late..