Confessions of a Male Nurse Read Online Free PDF Page B

had met Mr Groom, I couldn’t believe my eyes; before me lay a sweating, rippling, heaving mass of flesh, covered almost head to toe in traditional Maori tattoos. He was one of the most obese men that I have ever had to look after. He must have been at least 180 kilograms.
    Carol tried to be encouraging. ‘He needs someone strong and you’ve done so much for him; you’re good for him.’
    I didn’t see exactly how I was good for him. We were too different. I come from an average white family, from an average white part of town. Mr Groom is an ex-member of Black Power, a gang with offices throughout New Zealand. Not a group to cross – even an ex-member – they eat boys like me for lunch.
    ‘Good morning, how are you?’ I asked Mr Groom.
    At the sound of my voice he rolled over towards me, the bed springs protesting beneath him, and greeted me with a huge, gap-toothed grin.
    ‘Morning,’ he replied, then, after pausing to catch his breath, ‘Could be better, bro.’
    Poor Mr Groom, he was only 35 years old, but he looked ten years older and had all the problems you would expect in someone twice his age. I could tell just from looking at his swollen legs, that it wasn’t all fat – there was fluid in them, a sure sign of a failing heart. Just to prove myself right, I poked my index finger into his ankle and left an indentation that faded away very slowly. Mr Groom’s joints also looked swollen and I wondered how much longer they would put up with being abused, before giving out completely.
    Mr Groom had never been in hospital before, but he’d developed a bad case of pneumonia. In most 35-year-old men, a case of pneumonia would probably not need hospitalisation, but because of his weight he needed to be with us, especially now, because it looked like his condition was deteriorating.
    With someone as big as Mr Groom, it’s never really just a simple case of pneumonia. He already had a diagnosis of heart failure. His joints always ached, and it was an effort to walk, even when well.
    Mr Groom was drenched in a cold sweat, his hands were shaking, and as I clasped his wrist, I could feel his pulse racing. His eyes had a glazed look about them, as if he was in a world of his own. But it was his laboured breathing that caused me most concern.
    ‘How long has your breathing been this bad?’ I asked him.
    Surely he hadn’t been struggling for breath all night? I knew the night staff would have done something.
    ‘It just got bad in the last hour’ – he paused to get his breath – ‘started about six this morning’ – pause – ‘came on really quick.’
    He smiled again at me.
    ‘Why didn’t you call the nurse sooner?’
    A rather pointless question, it wasn’t going to help, but I just had to know.
    ‘They had a busy night’ – pause – ‘didn’t want to bother them.’
    Not the answer I was expecting.
    There was no time to waste; I grabbed Carol who took one look at Mr Groom and immediately came to the same conclusion as I did. We went into the corridor to discuss our plan of action.
    ‘We need to get Dr Grey down here right away,’ Carol said.
    ‘Are you sure?’ I replied. ‘Why don’t we get the registrar instead?’
    Dr Grey was the new junior doctor and had only qualified in the last few months. It’s an unfortunate truth that some junior doctors don’t listen to the nursing staff, and it looked like Dr Grey was turning into one of them. Just the other day we’d pointed out to him that one of his patients normally took his blood pressure medications in the evening before bed, because the patient said if he took them in the morning, he fainted. Dr Grey had disagreed and prescribed them for the morning, and sure enough the patient collapsed because of low blood pressure. The nurses were there to catch him. They also suggested perhaps reducing his dose, but this never happened either.
    Carol thought over my suggestion for a moment or two.
    ‘You may be right, but we’ve got to give Dr