Cardiff and Directions

I was up early this morning! Was due to provide First Aid cover at another national festival in Cardiff for 8am, but because I was in work this afternoon I only stayed until 12pm but it wasn’t a boring morning in the slightest! Never is, to be honest, because even if we don’t get any casualties the company is good.

I misjudged the traffic and left a bit later than I should have and got stuck in the traffic in the city centre and I ended up being 15 minutes late. I didn’t have time to do anything this morning, except the essencials such as getting dressed, washing, brushing teeth and going to papershop etc. While I was there I got the only cereal bar they had and was chomping at it as I drove. When I got to our base I was greeted with toast and coffee – perfect!!

We had a bit of a natter before being paired up and being sent out into the crowds. The organisers of the event could not have pushed us more to the back of the festival if they tried. There were no sign posts, except for a really small red cross first aid symbol on the map, which very little people had. So as we were walking about people were approaching us so it’s good we were out and about. Small things here and there, nothing major except a young girl who kept vomiting but my colleague and I didn’t deal with them, another two did.

While we were walking around we went into one of the many buildings, just to look around at the art work and the music etc that was happening that day. We heard a huge bump and turned around and saw a womans legs hanging out from behind a chair. We walked over to see if she was ok but she fell and banged her head against a glass wall. Went down with quite a wallop. Her head was hurting slightly but it was her neck which was giving her problems. After asking the general questions about consciousness, concussion and spinal injuries nothing was apparent but to stay on the safe side we tried to support her head but she wouldn’t have it, we offered her oxygen but she refused, offered a chair to take her to the first aid post to give her a good checking over and do paperwork etc (it was a very busy place and most of our kit is at base) but she didn’t want that either. Need to be careful with neck pain, especially after the whack she had. I think she was embarrassed, because she worked there, people trying to fuss over her but she just wanted to get on with the job but in the end we convinced her to come back to base with us, it was only a short walk anyway.

She laid down on the bed for a short time while we did some obs and checks, refused any further treatment (her neck was still hurting) so we gave her a head injury card to take with her and told her if she feels worse or doesn’t get any better or any other symptoms start to either call for us or if she’s at home, see a doctor or go to A&E. She was very appreciative of our care and help but unfortunately there’s only so much we can do. If she refuses treatment she refuses but we did the best we could.

Back out on ‘the beat’ my colleague and I preformed an operation. Seriously! Well, it was serious, but not on a living person. Nor an animal, before you say! There were a lot of stores etc around the place, offering different activities, freebies, lectures/talks, food etc and one of the stores was about a medical school. They had a plastic body and put the game ‘operation’ on top and we had to get the ‘organs’ out of him! When we did it we were given a free stress ball shaped like a doctor. It’s so cool!

So yeah anyway the morning was interesting, took me ages to get home because I tried to be smart. I thought I wouldn’t need the sat nav, only got to follow signs for the M4 – how hard can it be?? Well I did just that, and ended up driving towards Barry. I thought this wasn’t right, turned on the sat nav, “take the next exit… !!!” Ended up putting 15 minutes on my journey! Felt like it took forever to get out of Cardiff.

Tags: driving, life, red cross

Girlie Gardening – Part 3

Got up somewhat early today (early for me, anyway), had some breakfast, went down the paper shop then made my way into the garden again. I thought I got all the weeds and stuff yesterday but my dad said I missed a wild bush, I thought it looked quite nice and I thought it was planted but I removed it. After pulling out the weeds yesterday I could get to some more grass behind the bushes so I got the strimmer out and strimmed away. I moved a lot of the wood and stacked it in a pile in the corner of the garden, I’ll remove that sometime. Today I thought I’d finish the grass and start clearing up the rubbish.

Buckets full of manky water with Gawd only knows WHAT was in there. I tipped a lot of it down the drains and put some clean water down it after. When I looked up I saw a brown spider crawlling up my arm and heck, didn’t I scream!!! Dancing around like a mad idiot I blew the thing off my arm and couldn’t settle until I saw it on the path, knowing it was totally off me.

I went into the kitchen and got some clear sandwich bags and put them on my hands to pick up the rubbish as I didn’t want them on my gloves nor my hands. I told my dad anything that we didn’t need, chuck it. Am tired of us keeping things we think we’ll use, but we don’t. I binned quite a lot of plant pots, a few broken buckets, cupboard doors, an old chair, crisps packets, rusty tins – you name it, it was there. I put them all in black bags and took them to the tips, but not before stopping for a break and eating a chocolate cornetto, yum!!! The bags were quite heavy and at one stage I had to ask one of the guys there to help me as I couldn’t lift them out of the car, nevermind into the tips!!

I then went to No Frills to see if they had any bird feeder tables. We have a washing line in our garden which we hang the bird food from. I haven’t used the washing line for the right purpose for a looong time, I’m always scared if I put clothes up there to dry a spider will crawl in and make a home there or something but I think I will take the risk and put clothes out there sometime. Especially towels, they’re a pain to dry.

As I stopped working today I took off my gloves and noticed a little red worm on one of my fingers. Icky, ick, ICK!!!

I haven’t got much time today as I am due in work this afternoon and want a bit of dinner first but maybe when I come home I’ll probably do some more. Depends how tired I am and if the weather is still good.

Tags: life

Girlie Gardening (Part 2)

Girlie Gardening part 1

I was in the garden again today. I’m not green fingered and hate the thought of gardening but it has to be done and the benefits are great when you see a lovely garden. So today I’ve been out in my rags with the grass strimmer and my gardening gloves, a pair of clipper thingies, a hand grabber and a saw!

My garden is quite big and using a strimmer is quite rediculous. I had to stop every few feet as my back was aching and I had to stamp my feet to make sure nothing was crawling up my legs. I thought I’d make an effort so I moved some plant pots out the way and was easily distracted – and scared off – when I saw the woodlous crawling and scurrying away to find cover. I thought I’d stop with the grass and wait until they had departed and found a new home because whenever I cut the grass I hate it when bits of it fling up at me, I always think that there’s part of an insect, some blood or a wing or something splashing into my face. Funniliy enough, always towards the eyes!!

The rose bushes got a bit wild so as I edged towards them I tried to dodge so that the branches wouldn’t go in my hair, didn’t want anything crawling in it.

Half way through the gardening I thought I’d pop to B&Q to see if they had any mesh to replace our garden fence. I couldn’t find B&Q so ended up in No Frills. Just before I left I measured the area where we want the fence and I estimated roughly 36ft. When I got to No Frills I checked out the mesh and had to use the converter on my phone to convert the measurements to feet. There wasn’t much stock down No Frills and nothing that caught my fancy so am hoping to go to B&Q tomorrow sometime. The tallest bit of mesh they had went up to my knees and I thought well that’s no good – it’s not going to stop a dog, is it?

When I got back home I had a quick drink then tackled the garden again. Finished off the grass and moved onto the weeds and stingys etc. Putting on my gardening gloves I edged towards one of our bushes, examined the stingys and weeds and pulled away. Using all my strength I managed to yank some of the bastards out but others were so stubborn it wasn’t going to happen. Oh the colourful words I used!!! So I grabbed the clipper thingies and knelt down to try and find the roots. My heart was racing – seriously!! I honestly thought a spider was going to jump out infront of my face and if that happened I’d be on the floor with a heart attack. I managed to clip away the stingies and weeds with a lot of the bushes but there was one weed that wasn’t going to go. I tried with the clippers but couldn’t snip it so I went and got my dads saw and sawed the thing in half. I saw a look of horror on my dads face as I handled the saw I don’t think he knew what I was going to do with it!

My hair is a bit long but the front of it is shorter so I tied my hair back and put on a headband to keep the front part back. As I was knealing over the weeds I saw something black fall across my head and I fell into a huge panic. I dropped the rake (thankfully didn’t land in my foot) and run my hands through my hair – forgetting I was wearing the gloves. This made me panic even more, imagine all the tiny flies, grass and general shite on them things!! So I fling them off and ran hands through hair onto to realise it was that – my hair!! My hair had come away from the headband and was covering my face. I felt a huge sense of relief.

When I was tidying up the garden I raked all the weeds down the garden path. As I was dragging some of the stingies kept catching onto the bushes as if to say “please don’t bin me!! I’m sorry please don’t bin me!!!” but I hated the buggers and just yanked at them, bloody things.

The garden does look a lot better now but I intend to work on it again tomorrow. I need to get some mesh sometime and maybe, just maybe, put some more plants out there but that was enough work for one day.

Tags: life

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

Nosebleeds, Makeup and Mint Imperials

I have a headache. I have a headache. I have a headache. I have a headache.

Work today was nonstop busy. Started with handover which took an hour because the person giving it just couldn’t stop gassing, then started our rounds which took 3 hours then we had three tenants who were unwell, one with heart problems, other severe constipation and another one who had really bad nose bleeds. I spent a lot of time with the one who had nose bleeds and it was due to her not taking her BP medication, although she wouldn’t admit to it. Oh no, would she heck. I spent a good amount of time in her flat yesterday trying to explain and the evidence she wasn’t taking her medication properly were right there infront of her. Tonight after spending time in her flat trying to explain and comfort her I think I needed the BP medication to lower mine! Haha

My arm has been hurting like CRAZY the past few days. It’s hurting right now. Last night I tried putting a support bandage around it and it seemed to help a little but not much, I just couldn’t settle down last night at all and was up about 4am mastering Suduku!! I actually finished a puzzle too YAY!!!

Was talking to my Red Cross manager and they’ve managed to find me a makeup kit for the casualty simulation and I’m todging over that. Can’t wait to play with it. I was asked to go for an exhibition for first aid to do makeup and casualty stuff but it’s the weekend I’m going to Widnes to spend time with my lovely boyfriend and have a BBQ etc if weather is right, been planned for a while now.

Anyway my mum is visiting at the moment and she’s eating Mint Imperials. Driving me absolutely crazy. Eat quietly. Stop crunching. Suck the sweet until it’s tiny then swallow it, ok? Please? As if.

Tags: jobs/careers, life, people

Hiyaz

*Pinches self* Yes I’m still here. Last few weeks have been so manic it’s unbelievable.  I won’t write out everything that has happened as I’ll be here all night and it may bore you into a coma but to put it in short form…

• I have a new boyfriend (been together 5weeks now), his name is Jim and he makes me very happy. He spent a week here and it was so perfect, it felt like heaven. Nothing beats the feeling of being in his arms or his company. The distance is a bitch, he lives in Widnes which is quite a trek from here but I know we’ll make it work as we think a lot of each other. I’m seeing him again next Thursday and time can’t go quick enough.

• I’ve been doing a lot of Red Cross stuff, was on a Casualty Simulation weekend and got to play with makeup, creating bruises, burns, cuts, fractures and learn how to be a casualty like medical conditions and unconsciousness. I’ll now be asked to help out at training courses and ambulance assessments to either apply makeup to casualties or be a casualty myself. People always say it’s easy to be unconscious, all you have to do is lie there with your eyes shut! It’s so not true. It’s very hard. Once the senario has started and you need to play unconcious – that’s it, you’ve gotta stay in role until the assessor says, “casualty come alive”. You need to keep your eyes closed try not to flicker them, control breathing and sometimes pretend your airway is getting obstructed so the people being assessed will open your airway. If you’re ticklish that’s not good as you can’t laugh or smile. Seeing as your eyes are shut you can’t see what’s happening around you and need to trust and allow people to tough and get near you. Also your body needs to go entirely limp, it’s hard because instinct is to help if someone is raising your leg or lifting your arm, turning you onto your side or transfering you. So yeah anyway it was a great course. I’m waiting for my makeup bag now.
• Went away for a horse racing weekend doing first aid. Saturday was quiet then on Sunday we had to call out 3 ambulances and an air ambulance. After most of us left at the end of the day there was another casualty who had to be air lifted to hospital.
• I’m into Suduku!! Jim’s fault!! I’m working on another puzzle right now so this is taking a while to type haha
• Oh and I turned 21 last week! Had an absolutely great birthday, could not have been better.
• I’m looking into other week – the situation at work hasn’t really changed and I’m sick of it now. The girl I’m covering for is still off and our new employers have done nothing about her, but then they’ve done bugger all since taking over anyway, with anything. We’ve got no policies at work, no paperwork, not even letterheads. They haven’t got a website and the left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing.
• I took the IHCD exam and failed it, with the other 11 people also. Everyone failed apart from one and I was so upset, I was an absolute wreak. I could not stop crying. The first assessment I went on was Trauma and I think I was more traumatised than the casualty!! I should not have done that one first. Anyway I am hoping to resit it soon with more practise. Thing is I was kinda put in for the training a bit too late and I crammed it all in, I didn’t do too bad though, I know I can do it just need to chillax and practise more.

So yeah that’s a little update. Hope all is well with you all!!

Tags: life

An Update

Well it’s been a few weeks since I last updated, during this time quite a bit has happened!

The weekend went really well and I totally enjoyed it, spent time with great company.

The work situation, well I heard from employers and they have given me a contract, thank goodness!!! I was really worried about it, but my boss was on my side and worked hard to keep me. I’m still casual though, and the other girl could return anytime, that leaves me a bit unsettled and because of this, I am looking for other work, and my boss does know this so I’m not doing it behind her back or anything. There was a position going in the local psychiatric hospital working with elderly people who have mental health problems but it was only 6 months temp and it wasn’t worth applying. Yeah, yeah…  I know. It’s quite ironic I was going to apply considering I probably belong in one!! If I got the job, I would have gone to my first shift and not returned home. LOL

I have my IHCD exam next weekend and to say I’m shitting myself over it is an understatement. I have been so busy studying. Today I went to work only to do my laundry and while it was drying I did some studying in the staffroom. I sent my Red Cross service manager a text asking how to remember a way to remember part of a system (boring stuff, won’t go into it here), and he replied and told me. Then a few mins later I got another text off him saying, “How are you getting on with I E S S W A E Y?” …. I replied asking what was that, and he said, “Thought that would get you – it stands for “It’s Easter Sunday So Stop Worrying And Enjoy Yourself!!” LOL

Geeze I almost choked on my orange juice, see I really do only have a small mouth. I have ran out of coffee which is a total disaster, seeing as it’s Easter no shops are open so I’ll have to suffer until tomorrow morning. WTF. This ain’t fair. Also – I have cut down my alcohol intake a lot this week!! I am trying to purify myself so I can be clear headed (ish) for my studying and exam next weekend. Although saying that I am doping myself up on anxiety tablets so perhaps I’m not all that detoxicated afterall!!

The lady I was talking about in last entry died last week, I wasn’t on shift when it happened but at least she is in peace now. I went to her funeral on Thursday and a lot of my colleagues turned up – 12 of us in total. Sadly not many relatives or friends went and it got me thinking – you live your life until you’re old, when you’re in your 80s and you end up with very little people around you. Sadly some people don’t have anyone. I hate the thought of that. It’s really sad. I guess sometimes as the saying goes – you come into this world with nothing and you leave with nothing. Although with this lady she left with our love, I have to admit there were some tears at the service. Her family did thank the staff at my workplace though for the love and care we provided in the final months of her life, they were praising us for our compassion and sometimes going beyond what our job entails to ensure she was comfortable. Anyway it was a nice service, it’s just hard having to walk past her flat when I’m doing my board now, I’m so used to walking in, her sitting in her chair watching TV then looking at me, smiling and saying, “Hiya Kid, how’re you?” RIP. x

Tags: life, red cross, thoughts, work

Work and Rushing

Today has been rush, rush, rush. I have hardly stopped. Had to go to the shops this morning and do some washing and ironing. Booked a taxi to take me to work at 2:50pm but it got here 15 mins early. Taxis are never early!!! I was upstairs in the bathroom and I hear the taxi beeping outside. Can’t a girl have a pee in peace? Haha

Anyway work was busy too and was really sad. One lady there is terminally ill (posted about her a while ago) and today she went onto the syringe driver. She refused to go on when I posted the last entry because once you go on that, that’s it. In a few days, perhaps a week or 2, you’ll most likely die. It is the last resort and is given to terminal patients who are in severe pain. This lady put it off for as long as she could but now she accepts she can’t fight anymore and the pain is just too much. I went to see her today, I see her whenever I can as do my colleagues and she was so weak she couldn’t talk, her small skeletal frame you can tell how cancer has eaten away at her body. Tonight I went to see her before I went off my shift and she was asleep, most likely won’t wake up from it. I held her small hand in mine and kissed her on the forehead. She doesn’t want to go into a hospital or hospice, wants to die at home in the company of people who love and care for her.

This lady has been so scared of dying. Wanted the pain to stop, to give up, but at the same time so frightened of what happens during and after death. Didn’t want to be left alone, we did and are doing everything we can to give her company around the clock. Now she has nightsitters, who I think are qualified nurses who can administer another painkiller when she wants it (as well as the syringe driver she is on now, but from what I understand that automatically adminsiters the morphine based medication).

At least now she is sleeping she is totally out of it and isn’t scared of the inevitable. I really would be surprised if I sign in my shift tomorrow and find out this lady is still alive. Terribly sad. I know we are support workers but we do get close to our clients using the service and we have been caring for her a lot these past few months. I think it’s going to hit all of us when it happens. All I hope for is she goes peacefully in her sleep, no more pain, no more suffering. I hope it’s not as scary as she fears it’ll be.

I’m going to bed now, night all.

Tags: life, work

Miss Forget-me-not

Current Mood: Loopy

I went to town today with the intention of:

1) Sorting out my money
2) Sending off my passport application
3) Putting a new battery in my watch

But I…

1) Forgot banks shut early on a Saturday
2) Forgot to take documents
3) Forgot to take watch.

I’m useless!

Tags: life

Two Idiots

Current Mood: Skeptical

I have had the ‘pleasure’ of being in the presence of two idiots in the last 24 hours. A plank on the motorway and my dad.

Story Of the Plank On the Motorway.

I was driving to Cardiff via the M4 late last night and it was dark (obviously). There are some major work contruction work around this part and as a result, only two lanes are operating. I was in the outside lane. In the nearside lane to the front of me, was a car and infront of him was a lorry. I saw the lorry slam on his brakes then swerve half into the next lane (one I was in) then of course the car behind hit the brakes and managed to get into the other lane thankfully there was enough room otherwise it would have been ugly! What caused this? A cyclist who has the IQ of a plank who decided to cycle on the motorway, didn’t have any lights or nothing, not that it would have made it excusable if he did. He wasn’t even cycling straight he was all over the lane, good thing the lorry driver was looking and the roads weren’t that busy otherwise there’d have definitely been a pile up.

Story of My Dad

Sigh. Where do I start? Well to sum it all up – his relationship with woman less than half his age who cannot speak much English, who’s family is taking my dad for a ride. Yeah I think that pretty much sums it up. Don’t get me wrong, the age isn’t really a bother to me but everything else is. I could rant about her family for ages but this post would end up extremely long so I’ll just include the outlines. He has known her and the family for a year and at the start they were really lovely, but then they started hinting towards money problems and we agreed to give them a loan. They promised they would start paying it back the next month but they haven’t yet, I’ve been told I’ll get a first payment this month – we’ll see. I’ve heard it before. L (dad’s fiancee) is from another country and she went there for a few months to look after a relative of hers, she kept putting off the date because she couldn’t afford the fare so my dad paid for her ticket because he missed her etc.

 The day before she is due back, her family asks if I can drive with them to Bristol Airport to pick her up, because I can talk English and may be useful if they get any problems along the way. I was ok with that. No problem. On the day, about 15 minutes BEFORE we were going to pick L up, her family ask if they can borrow my sat nav because theirs was faulty (I got it back straight after the journey, made sure of that). Asked to borrow petrol money as they didn’t have enough to get there and back (they ended up paying themselves). Dropped the bombshell that the father who was driving the car didn’t have a full UK license, only a provisional and wanted me, as a full license holder, to show my license if anything goes wrong. WHAT THE HECK!??? This really irritated me and I was certainly NOT happy. So they wanted me to go because of my English, huh? Yeah. Right. And I was born yesterday too. They are a nice family in the way that they don’t want,want,want all the time but they do expect a lot from us, and I worry my dad is falling into it.

I know they have been planning to marry for a while – L’s family had a lot to do with that, pushing my dad, he is quite content just living together or something. But now he is going for the marriage, and tonight L came by and dad asked me to go into the other room and shut the door so I couldn’t listen. I did listen. He said to L they can get married next year and he has … thousand to help them both settle down. I didn’t catch the amount, but it ended with thousand. He ust have got a loan or something because we don’t have that sort of cash. He is so besotted with her, I have bought up my concerns with him and he’s convinced L is for real. I pretend I’m “happy” when she’s here but deep down I don’t like her, and I’m getting tired of him talking about her. But he’s happy. She’s happy. I don’t know… Maybe calling my dad an idiot is a bit extreme and wrong, I just think he’s been badly sucked in and I worry he’s going to get hurt. I just don’t like the family. There’s nothing I can do about it.

Tags: driving, family, feelings, life, people, ranting, thoughts