Emma had the unenviable experience of a long wait in A&E, but there’s no criticism of the perpetually underpaid staff who do their very best, bringing blankets and biscuits when they’re needed.
I HAVE discovered the secret of the perfect night’s sleep. The kind of sleep where you don’t so much as move a muscle in the bed, where your duvet remains entirely unruffled, where you hardly know what day it is when you wake up and best of all, wait for it…where you actually feel completely refreshed and ready to take on the day, whatever it might throw at you.
I feel that now that I’ve cracked the code it’s only right and fair of me to share it so here goes: miss out on the previous night’s sleep, skip it entirely save for some brief nodding off in a chair. That’s all you have to do. Simple! Forget your herbal teas and elixirs, your warm baths, sound baths, ice baths, howling at the moon, fasting, meditating, banishing of blue light etc.; just deprive yourself of sleep for more than 24 hours and you’ll sleep like a baby.
Now, I have to admit that I made this discovery purely by chance after I recently accompanied a relative to the A&E at Cork University Hospital. We arrived on a Friday night shortly before 11pm and I’m fortunate to say that while I hadn’t been there in years, I was obviously well aware that we might be in for a bit of a wait so I came prepared, armed with a phone charger and a good attitude. It was going to take as long as it was going to take and that was that.
Now, what threw us was that we were actually taken off the corridor almost immediately, which gave us a false sense of confidence. Sure all going well we’ll be in and out in no time, we figured. Eh, not quite. As it played out, I left the following day around 7pm, which was shortly after when my relative was admitted to a ward. In the interim I’d say we experienced every emotion known to man (and a few entirely unique to a middle-aged woman like myself): acceptance (we can’t do anything about it, it’s outside of our control, so we might as well sit back and take it easy); anger (why is this taking so long…why, no but why?); stoicism (we can do this…can’t we?); denial (that’s it, we’re leaving!); delirium (I should have been a doctor, I think I’d rock a stethoscope and blue scrubs) and finally gratitude (Praise the lord – a bed with our name on it!).
It was a rollercoaster of extreme highs and lows, but what I have to stress is that I’m not giving out or complaining. Honestly, I’m not. Sure I have to write about something and this is a change from my usual weather talk. That rain we had last week was something else though, wasn’t it? And on a related note, why is wet dog smell so bad?. What struck me primarily about the A&E was how busy everyone was, how fast everyone was walking, and with such purpose.
Emma also experienced the phenomenal work of healthcare workers during a long wait in CUH.
There was no dilly-dallying going on and that’s for sure and there was still time for a friendly word, even if it was just a brief one, which was really heartening to experience. I nodded off at one point and when I woke up, I had a blanket around me which was a gesture that almost moved me to tears! Of course, there was loads and loads of tea. A cuppa that a staff member so kindly produced around 2am never tasted nicer. I don’t even like tea, but they were lifesaving and so were the biscuits. It’s the little things.
On the flip side, there were a few occasions where I saw staff having to manage some challenging behaviour, from dealing with patients who were a bit ‘worse for wear’ and being more than a bit unreasonable, to others who were just getting a little testy for waiting is hard, especially if you’re unwell. It was all taken in their stride, and my take-away from the experience was this: no matter what the staff are being paid, they deserve more, an awful lot more.
Fortunately my relative had just an overnight stay in the hospital and while I’m of very average intelligence there’s an awful lot of highly intelligent people out there who should surely be able to figure out a way to bust the logjam? No? In the meantime, might I be so bold as to suggest offering a choice of biscuits? If it wasn’t any trouble.
I suppose the dust has well and truly settled on the All-Ireland at this stage. I was never going to go to Croke Park, as I’m one of those that had to check if it was hurling or football as I settled down on the sofa to watch the match, but I had a few things I was going to throw out here about the mad scramble for tickets and how it brought out the best and worst in people but I feel at this point it’s all best left alone. Sport is cruel. With the highs come the lows. A bit like A&E.
Finally, this week, I was beyond joyous that after years and years, our apple trees finally produced fruit this summer. I was less joyous to see the crows attacking the trees every time I looked out the window. Those birds are so smart, I fear it’s only a matter of time before they take over the world and I was disgusted that the apples that survived tasted absolutely putrid. So unbelievably unpleasant. What’s the trick? Producing fruit is definitely harder than it looks. At least it’s almost time to get stuck into one of my favourite past times, some blackberry picking. Now, that’s lovely hurling.
