Confessions of a Male Nurse Read Online Free PDF

not letting enough blood through, resulting in poor oxygenation of the heart muscle. It’s the lack of oxygen that causes the pain.
    Mr Dexter had a small bottle of spray which he was supposed to squirt under his tongue whenever he had chest pain. The medicine dilated his blood vessels, including the ones that supply the heart. Hopefully this would allow more blood and, therefore, more oxygen to the heart muscle.
    He explained that he had given himself a dose five minutes ago. I instructed him to give himself some more spray. It works very quickly, within moments of taking it. I waited the recommended five minutes to reassess.
    ‘How bad is the pain now?’
    I didn’t get a chance to hear how the pain was, because the call bell in Mr Simpson’s room went off, and continued to go off. It wasn’t stopping. I ran to his room.
    ‘Oh shit, it’s agony,’ Mr Simpson said as soon as he saw me.
    I looked at his thigh and knee and placed my hands on them. I could feel something hard in his thigh. It wasn’t swollen to the naked eye, but I could definitely feel a lump that wasn’t there before. It was also hot. By the time I went to feel for a pulse in his foot, the other nurses on duty that shift were in the room.
    Katie took charge, and within minutes had the doctor at the bedside. Katie told a terrified Mr Simpson that his graft wasn’t working, and that he needed to go back to theatre.
    The head surgeon was urgently called back into hospital. During the next hour, myself, the junior doctor and the registrar made what preparations we could to get him to theatre. That hour was probably the most terrifying in Mr Simpson’s life. There was a chance that he would not only never play golf again, but possibly lose the leg altogether.
    When he finally left for the operating room, the last of the adrenaline left my body and I felt physically and emotionally drained. It was also at that moment that I remembered Mr Dexter and his chest pain, as well as my other four patients that I hadn’t seen in all that time. I ran to Mr Dexter’s room, expecting to find him either clutching his chest in agony or dead.
    He was sitting up reading his book. ‘Are you okay?’
    ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’ he replied.
    I briefly felt relieved, but I rushed to check on my other four patients. Their medications were late . . .
    . . . but they’d all had their meds. They were comfortable. All their needs had been taken care of.
    Katie and the other nurses had seen to every one of my other patients.
    This kind of generosity was not to be unique. Over the next two years I learnt that, in this ward at least, it was normal; the nurses worked as a team, and always watched out for each other.

Big man, big heart
    Part 1: Who is Mr Groom?
    Feeling part of a team was what made nursing truly enjoyable for me. I no longer dreaded going to work each day. I didn’t have that nauseous feeling in my stomach whenever I had to approach a senior member of staff. The biggest improvement was in the confidence I felt about looking after more challenging types of patients, which was fortunate because I was about to encounter one of my biggest challenges yet.
    ‘Are you okay having Mr Groom again?’ asked Carol, the nurse in charge.
    What could I say? No, I’m worn out, he’s too heavy, too much work?
    I had been looking after Mr Groom for what felt like forever and was hoping for a bit of a break, but whenever it came time to allocate his nurse there was always a silence in the office.
    My adventures with Mr Groom had begun four days ago. I had just returned from my days off. The problem with coming back from time off is that you are at the bottom of the priority list when it comes to picking and choosing patients. To be fair, everyone is generally pretty reasonable when allocating patients, everyone takes their share of the demanding ones, but every now and then there comes along one patient whom no one really wants to be responsible for.
    The first time I