Interviews, Appointments and Skin!

I’m so tired, I’m so tired.. haven’t long got back from work, managed to talk to the deputy and she couldn’t really advise me much which is fair enough as no one knows what is happening to this girl who I’m still covering sick leave for. I explained the situation though which is the main thing, about me applying for college for September, hoping to go to uni and looking at other jobs to extend my experience and she was totally understanding. She realises I’m young and she said she was surprised I have hanged on for so long with my position. She said it would be a shame to lose me, as all the staff like me and the tenants do but I have to move on sometime.

I have my interview tomorrow, I think I know where my certificates are and I need to look for something to wear!

I tried making skin tonight for the casualty simulation practice I’m having on Friday. It’s made with stale breadcrumbs and water and make it into a dough, and you can add colouring to adjust the tone to go with the skin. It looks ok but I think I’ll practice more tomorrow. I’ve ordered my blood and it should be here this week, then *HOPEFULLY* I’ll be all ready for next week. I’m helping out promoting the Red Cross and their services by doing wounds on small children in a supermarket car park. I’m a little nervous about it, mainly because it’s children!

I got confirmation about my counselling appointment today, the soonest one she has is the 31st July. I hope I don’t need to wait that long between each appointment!

Tomorrow Jim is coming down and then we’re driving to his for the weekend, I can’t wait. Meeting the family too which is pretty scary but they seem ok and hopefully it’ll go well.

Anyway I had better go now, see yaz!

Tags: health, jobs/careers, life, red cross

Serial Killers and Ben & Jerrys!

Gawd sometimes I hate being female. It’s that time now where it feels like there’s an armed serial killer blasting my insides and I just want to curl up and die. Started when I was at work, and forgot to take my medication with me that helps the pains so I had to grin and bear it for a few hours until I saw my senior and asked if she had any spare painkillers. Ended up taking double the dose I should have just to try and minimize it. It’s no fun anytime but at work it’s a nightmare, having to walk around continuously, visiting flats, sounding happy and sitting down when you just can’t get comfortable. I went as white as a sheet and my colleague kept asking if I was ok and said I should go home early but it was a bingo night so I couldn’t have really left early.

Work as busy, as it often seems to be these days. As well as bingo we had a tenant fall and had to end up in hospital, looks like she’ll need to have an operation tomorrow. I don’t trust the treatment in our hospitals these days and often people have gone into hosptial with somewhat simple problems and either getting an infection and having to overcome that, or not returning due to poor care. Fingers crossed all will be ok though.

So now I’m home and pigging out on Ben & Jerrys ice cream. Couldn’t decide between which flavour to get, so I ended up getting ‘Half baked’ described as, “A crazy concoction of chocolate ice cream and vanilla ice cream mixed with fudge brownies and gobs of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough”. Yummilicious!!

Well tomorrow morning I’m off to the market then hoping to raise some money for the British Red Cross Appeal Week, then going out in the evening with some friends, all being well anyway. Now I’m off to talk to my lovely boyfriend. See ya!!

Tags: health, life

Facebook and People

Well, Callum is sitting beside me and we’re both on our laptops, on Pet Society – an application on Facebook. Callum is in the ‘Stylists’ store and is clicking the ‘randomise’ button looking at the different styles you can make your Pet look like, some are cute, others are just plain scary. My ‘Orange Pie’ (name of pet) is betting in the Stadium and has won three times on the trot. Now she has bet on ‘Sketchy’ (Callum’s pet) to win a race and wonders if he is going to ruin her stream of good luck!

I forget I have these smileys… I need to use them more often.

Anyway, today Callum, dad and myself were invited to a nieghbours for a few hours. The family only recently moved to the UK from Europe and they are a lovely family. They are quite a big family and only 2 of them speak good English (the others know bits and pieces) so these two ended up doing the translating for the family. They were showing us their family video and shown us around the house, invited us to stay for lunch but we said we would another time.

I’m tired today, and my cough is still there it’s driving me crazy. I still can’t taste food which is annoying especially as it’s Christmas and there’s all sorts of yummy food around.

Hmm… “Sketchy finished in third place”. Ruining my lucky run.

Tags: christmas, health, life, people, thoughts

Merry Christmas!

Current Mood: Crazy

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

Hope you’re all having a good day. =)

I am feeling a lot better today. Thank goodness. I felt so ill last week I can’t put it into words. On Saturday I started panicking because it was almost Christmas and I was nowhere near ready for it, so I dragged myself out of bed and went to town but I was home within 30 minutes. I felt so weird, I couldn’t think properly at all and I just needed to get home and as soon as I did I collapsed onto the sofa. Totally draining. My nose is still blocked one minute, running the next, which is a pain but heck, I can’t complain. My poor boss has it now and is refusing to take time off work (Christmas time and all that) but I am just really hoping I don’t catch it again!!!

Christmas Day has actually gone a lot better than I thought it would. I was finishing off my wrapping last night and realised I have actually bought a lot of presents, it’s no wonder my bank looks like it has taken a battering and when I checked to see if I got paid the other day, it seemed like I hadn’t (I was paid, just I spent so much it didn’t look like it…). Thing is, with Christmas I understand it’s all commercialised these days which, to be honest, I don’t like but then at the same time, I do like treating my friends and family and buying gifts for them… it’s just the effect it has on the bank. Ouch. >_>

Anyway today I was working. I had to dress up as St. Trinians today so there I was in my knee high boots, black skirt, fishnets, shirt, carelessly tied tie and scruffed up hair in bunches. Father Christmas popped by on his way home to drop off some presents for the tenants then we served a 3 course lunch and the boss let us home early. I didn’t bother getting changed, couldn’t be bothered. We looked like a bunch of hookers if the nieghbours wanted to talk, let them, I really couldnt care less! Haha

I was surprised by the presents I got today. I have a new Samsung SGH-G600 and it looks so sexy. Also got 9 pairs of socks (I love socks, so I actually don’t mind getting them for Christmas!), chocolates, wine, cute puppy themed diary/calendar, clothes.

Thing is… it’s not almost 9pm and it makes you think… all this stress and worry is coming to an end. All the headaches and worrying, lack of sleep for ONE DAY IN THE YEAR. It’s crazy. *Sighs* I think I’ll turn to the shopping channels. I watched Bid TV out of curiousity the other night and was shocked at the prices!! One lovely necklace went down from £300 to £50 or something… and there was a globe that went down from £1,100 to £81 :O I need to stop watching or I’ll end up buying and I can’t afford to. >_>

Anyway, Happy Christmas everyone! Have a drink for me, seeing as I’m driving in the morning to work I can’t (and wouldn’t, anyway) take the risk. No doubt there will be plenty of police on patrol in morning randomly stopping people and breathalising them.

Tags: christmas, health, life, people, thought

Our NHS

Current Mood: Mad

I am sick to death of the current state of our NHS. Since when did it become acceptable to let a person who may have cancer (who had it in the past) to wait a ridiculous amount of time to get an important scan done? Since when did it become acceptable for someone to be told to go to get their scan results on a certain date, turn up to be told the results aren’t in and to come back next week? Since when did it become acceptable to have to wait for another scan to find out what strain of cancer they have? Since when did it become acceptable for someone to wait so ridiculously long, I’m talking months now to find out what strain of cancer she has and she still hasn’t started the treatment?? In this time her cancer has spread to two other parts of her body and the waiting is bloody stupid and it makes me soooo angry. It really does. You know you have cancer but nothing is being done (other than being prescribed painkillers) and in the meantime your health is getting worse.

Then there’s this spreading of MRSA and C-difficile, what happened to being saved by the NHS? You should go into hospital to get better, it seems like more often than not you end up getting worse before getting better, sometimes, not even getting better!!

Then there’s the problem about the response time from ambulances to patients who call 999.  Maybe that’s because our trained paramedics are too busy wasting time having to sit with patients inside the A&E department until they are ‘passed on’ to hospital staff. So while a paramedic is standing next to a patient (who probably isn’t life threateningly ill and probably is one of the time wasters who call 999 basically wanting a bed for the night) someone, somewhere is having a heart attack, stroke or has difficulty breathing/stopped breathing and it means they need to wait longer than they need to for an ambulance. Thank goodness for the first responders, but it shouldn’t be this way.

Our NHS is so messed up, I think many people would rather sit and suffer at home rather than endure the treatment you get (or won’t get, as the case sometimes is). I understand they are stretched for staff, I understand no one is perfect etc but we rely on this service for our health, our money goes into this service and what’s to show for it?

It makes me sick.

Tags: health, life, people, thoughts

Colds, Reports and Legs

I’ve had a chest cold and it sure is dragging, I’m still coughing, last night and this morning I have been sick with it, makes you feel bloody awful.

I had a one-to-one meeting with my boss towards the end of last week, a personal development plan, basically talking about how your year has been and plans for next year etc… it was like a school report but reading between the lines I got an A* and need to ask my dad for more pocket money. :-p

I say that, but last night I was called into the managers office and was asked to bring my P45 with me… I was up in the communal lounge looking through the photos from all the years and found some of my deputy sporting all sorts of different hairstyles and fashion, dare I say, disasters. :-p I sent the photos down the office and my colleague tells me I have been called into her office, so I go downstairs and ask her if she’d like my locker key as well and we all started laughing.

I almost did something awful last night, there’s one tenant who’s a double amputee – has no legs – I walk into her flat and she’s smoking. Sometimes when I see people smoking I make small comments and last night I was about to say to her, “you shouldn’t smoke, it’ll stump your growth” but thankfully I stopped myself, my brain got into gear just in time! Although, knowing that tenant, she’d have laughed at the comment, but still, how embarrassing would it have been if I said that? Would have wanted the ground to swallow me. v_v

Tags: health, jobs/careers, life, work

Watch Your Own Heart Attack!

Tags: health

Putting on the Pounds

I’ve been eating quite a bit recently and I think it may be comfort eating because I haven’t felt all that great. Tenants at work have been a little… mean… about my figure and really, sometimes it feels like the older they get the younger they act. One of the tenants asked if I was pregnant the other day. Another asked what medication I am on as I have put on a lot of weight. Then on Friday I was walking past a few tenants and they say, to each other, as I am walking directly past them and they know I can hear, “gosh hasn’t she put on a lot of weight?” then they were talking about how fat I am.

Lovely, isn’t it? Gives you a real confidence boost!

Maybe they are justified in commenting, it’s not very nice – but it’s the truth. I weighed myself the other day and I have put on 7lbs. Not a horrific amount but still – I have put on some weight. You’d have thought with the amount of walking we gotta do at work I’d be falling down a drain. Someday I’m going to wear one of these things that monitor how many steps you walk.

Tags: feelings, health, jobs/careers, life, people

Birds and Underpants (NOT to be misread as birds IN underpants…)

… because that’ll be just weird.

Gawd I’m soooo stressed. And tired. And irritable. And just generally in a bad mood, so it seems. I’m also in pain too. I think I may have hurt my elbow when using the hoist at work today. Think I used my arm a bit too much with the hoist and stretched a muscle or something so it hurts to bend my arm but it’ll be alright.
Work has been busy this week. A new tenant. Actually, two. No, three! Three new tenants. Two of them were birds though. A tiny little sparrow got trapped between one of the firedoors. How on earth it got there is anyones guess as we haven’t got a clue. My boss phoned up the RSPB but they said they couldn’t get there until the day after so my boss got out the screwdrivers and got the bird out and put Chirpy in the office in a box with shredded paper, something to drink and some food. Boss even went outside to get the little fella a worm and he was taken to a sancturay – we heard today that the bird was released.

Another bird was found this morning, outside one of the flats. It seems it was attacked or something because it couldn’t fly and apparently when my boss went to pick the bird up he moved away or something… the boss put the bird under her wings (so to speak) and kept it in the office and phoned up the RSPB and someone collected it. They said it doesn’t look good for the bird because it was unable to fly..

A lot of paperwork this week. Phewwwwy!! Assessment this, assessment that. Admission forms (for those who have had to go to hospital) as well as the daily report forms. The poor trees that have to suffer because of the city council.

Tomorrow I’m helping out at a community centre. The place I work are setting up a stall that have bits and pieces from the tenants so we can sell, and put the money we make into their fund which goes towards trips etc. It took a good few weeks sorting out all the things we were given. From tables to cooking utensils to mexican hats to clothes such as shirts, trousers, skirts and underpants/knickers – which went into the bin. Don’t know about anyone else but I wouldn’t like to buy a second hand pair of undies. Overall there’s a lot of good stuff there. Someone recently passed away and their relative didn’t want any of the things left over in the flat and she gave them all to us, many of the things were brand new and it would be a shame for them to end up in the trash, which is where they would have gone.

On Sunday it looks like I’m providing first aid cover in Cardiff. There’s a marathon and I hope for the competitors sake the weather will be decent for them, better than it has been for the past two days – weather here has been absolutely crap.

Tags: health, jobs/careers, life, people, red cross

Therapy

I am seriously considering trying therapy. A few friends have mentioned it to me in the past and I have been thinking about it but each time I just let the fear take over and do nothing more but I know I need to break through that fear and do something about it, otherwise the intense feelings I go through will end up being the death of me.

In this blog I rarely talk about how I’m feeling. I know, I should, a few people who read this blog have told me I should make it a lot more personal and I am trying.

There are certain issues that I am trying to get past but whatever I do, they’re always there and I hope they’ll just go away but truth is, it’s not happening. I feel a lot of bad feeling towards myself, self hate, to the extreme. It goes back to my childhood, family life, and people who hurt me, the pain doesn’t go away. Most recently my step-mum’s death, well, I say recently, but that was in 2006, it still feels like yesterday and the horrible memories of the last few weeks of her life will remain with me forever. The guilt eats me up. Whenever people say they feel guilty over what they could have done before a loved one died I always say, “Feeling guilty isn’t going to solve anything”, and I know that’s true but I just can’t get it into my thick head. Feels like I deserve the pain. It feels like I should be suffering, because if I acted sooner than I did, my step-mum might still be here today and that feeling rips me apart.

My little baby Sam died in Jan this year too. It’s just so hard. He may have been a dog but he was like my best friend and losing my step-mum, then my dog, plus something happened in December which really messed me up, which I don’t feel like talking about. It’s just too much.

I’m sorry. I’m whining, but I needed to vent somewhere. I’m sick of unloading my crap onto my friends, I feel like a nuscence all the time even tho they say I’m not. It feels like therapy is the best way to go. I’ll type up more later.

Tags: feelings, health, life, thoughts