Are you fed up with the lies? The pretence. Seems like fuckwittery continues. I was thinking about my own trauma.
Where it begins where it ends and actually it doesn’t. Played on repeat until those who know who they are reach out. Others taking joy at gaslighting.
Why would they, knowing how angry I am. Cowards who choose to ignore. Sweep it under the carpet, the abuse they were part of.
Your SILENCE roars.
My lack of forgiveness will probably kill me or perhaps it’ll just be my postcode? It’s all part of the same thing.
I couldn’t watch yesterday, the man who held so many lives in his hands, known for lying surrounded by people who just say yes to those more senior than them who also lie. Caught up with girlfriend troubles. Oh how refreshing blame the woman. FFS, you couldn’t make this up.
I’m called out on my swearing, how I’ve lost my filter, how it undermines my argument. I never had a filter but I worked with integrity, went where I didn’t want to go, treated like cannon fodder. Under used and under valued. Sharing visors that slipped off like party hats, surrounded by fear that those who weren’t entering rooms chose not to hear. Sought to minimise in a way that increased concern. You? Perhaps you don’t know that it’s the patriarchy that seeks to limit me.
I’m writing for sanity, I’m writing for life.
If I was in the room. I’d struggle to remain polite, actually that’s not true though perhaps it is your expectation given how I write. Just an everyday expectation that fits a script. You say there is evidence that lockdown wouldn’t have prevented deaths. My argument is that there was lack of education and that was there from the start. Is it any different now?
I remember how against those around me I took my children out of school, alerted anyone who would listen. Kept asking about presymptomatic transmission. But a Nurse.
Confirmed by email the respect given to a Nurse by other members of the so called team. The only meaningful engagement with a professor now retired.
So do I appear disengaged? Why is that I wonder? Perhaps look to yourself to see.
But nothing will change if you don’t engage? Are they the words on your lips?
Fuck your toxic positivity. Governments bare arse shown for all the world to see.
Now that some of the bull shit has been publicly displayed perhaps there’s an opportunity today?
Theresa Chinn writes in her blog what next for Nurses on social media, aware of the discomfort by our regulator at our voice.
But is that the problem? Silent for too long, kowtowing to heirachy when patient needs remain unmet? When there are clear safe guarding issues unaddressed by government and filtered down the line, left for Nurses and carers to muddle on without safety and adequate support.
So for me the path ahead? Demands for ventilation in public buildings, adequate funding, focus on health for all, challenging and growing examining our personal bias, who’s missing in the room. Championing patient voice. Ensuring our touch is gentle with those in our care. Listening to body language as well as what’s being said, focusing on communication skills?
We have so much work to do, we’re complicit in an ableist system that doesn’t care. What are your patients concerns and how will you address them? I’m sure my MP is fed up with hearing my view.
This morning a leaflet through my door for bladder leak protection. No where on that leaflet does it say you should speak to a health professional if you are experiencing incontinence. Why is that? Why is that allowed? Why wouldn’t the opportunity for health be taken? Perhaps that view is ableist? Others would know better than me.
Perhaps like the perfumed toilet rolls that may lead to itchy vagina’s? The douches that upset the natural protective pH?
Our role is bigger than our work, the bull shit is raining down on our communities that we are part, the very air that we breathe. There are not enough of us. Can you imagine the difference a Nurse could make? I was told there are Nurses in government, have we heard their voice?
When Robert Jenrick says we’ve worked hard why is it that my husband tells me school wear manufacturers in China were warning they couldn’t contain long long before there was any word from our government. Perhaps our ministers were looking the other way. Sadly Nurses not given that privilege.
I think my mental health is screwed, fucked by bastards who looked the other way, tried to ignore. But it’s so much easier for you to dismiss me as mad hey?! My language unpalatable, perhaps confirming bias that you already hold? Perhaps without understanding of the depths of anger for all those grieving citizens.
So here we are remembering the people arriving, not knowing where they were, arriving with no clothes, no pyjamas, no toiletries like others that I met. Family and friends unaware of where they were and why. The de humanising nature of that.
Remembering how spiritual support was sought, fears of PTSD. Efforts made to contact loved ones. Or not.
Changes in guidance over masks. Waiting for results with ordinary care in-between. Limits to how often I could speak up. Wondering why people felt so silenced until I found out.
A note from last year’s diary “It’s like this government do as I say, not as I do. A fucking piss take.” Meanwhile others redeployed again.
Reminded by others that twitter wasn’t my job. Searching for balance, seeking to sustain within the madness.
31st of May journal entry “It feels very frustrating. Spoke to …. today. It feels like we’re seeing a lot more covid than is being recognised. Today Someone said how reassured they felt when someone had a negative swab result. Meanwhile in plain sight we have people deteriorate very suddenly and it’s put down to the natural course of disease. I don’t believe it. So today a chat with … sudden hypoxia. …tested positive but remains apyrexial. I will write to …. and forward a covid graphic that I saw recently…
I was referring to symptoms listed by the WHO. Symptoms that our government failed to mention in guidance. Perhaps I’ve got that wrong.
Sudden hypoxia, fatigue, apyrexial, sweaty and flushed, diarrhoea. Reminded me of patients I’d Nursed with HIV back in the day. But what would I know being ‘just’ a Nurse.
The response to my email. “Don’t you trust us?” I think we’ve proved where hierarchy takes us.
So perhaps excuse me if I seem angry.
I’m grateful to the RCN who provided me with support when there was no other. I’m grateful to the Dr’s taking this government to court.
So what next. Will we address ventilation in public buildings? Look again at guidance? Support those who need to to isolate? Adequately test, trace and support to isolate to avoid yet another lockdown? With thought for care rather than punishment which seems to be the standard response.
Think about planning to meet long covid need, finance the back log, support community and GP surgeries under strain. Perhaps those who need to be are on top of that but perhaps you’ll understand why trust is low when every system I encounter seems to be broken, tied up in red tape with no meaningful action. Is government part of the problem or part of the solutions in providing equitable care?
Where are we now?
Better get on with the food shopping, think about the dress up at school, the food for cookery tomorrow, the forth coming exams. Planning our meals. Taking those calls from my cousin. And breathe. Better to get it out than hold on to this toxicity.
