Imposter

Imposter

Here I stand feeling very out of place,

An ‘expert’ but in fact just a massive fake,

Having bad things happen to you,

Is not intelligence or excellence, it’s just bad luck.

My ‘skills’ that of surviving,

Engrained in my DNA not taught,

Hard to pass on to those who have fought,

There is little special in me,

Other than my ability to speak about my journey.

I stand in the team as an equal,

It’s amazing that they can’t see,

The fraud I’m perpetrating here,

My training? Laying in a bed not dying,

Enough said?

These people here my colleagues,

Some friends look for me to help,

Only wisdom I have is what fighting taught me,

The fight took much from me,

But gave me great friends and confidence.

Others greater than me think I can help,

So my soul I bear for all to see,

In the blind hope it helps even one person,

Helping people the most noble cause,

I just hope it’s not pain I bring.

So this I say in finishing, 

These are the internal voices,

They say I’m worth less than I am,

They make me think less of myself,

They undermine my confidence,

This is all true.

But they don’t define me nor you,

I do things to spite them,

 I do things in spite of them,

They will not control me,

I will fight them,

I’m too strong for them to win.

I wrote this on the bus to InS:PIRE as I wanted to be ‘productive’ on my journey. I think everyone has felt like they didn’t belong in a job or a role. I wrote this for people who feel that way and to tell you that you deserve to be in whatever role or position because your hard work got you there. You are good enough and don’t let that nagging voice tell you otherwise.

Delirium: My Biggest Foe

Delirium

Delirium is a terrible foe,

After just one battle my mind was battered,

It left unsure of myself and reality,

Its effects are seen years later,

Mentally affected this fact I know.

Detached from reality but grounded in one,

Being pursued by faceless goons with guns,

What to me were years of torture and strife,

Was merely but weeks in my 'real' life,

As real to me as anything I've ever done.

Easy to see the difference once in recovery,

But separating fact from fiction a difficult discovery,

When your brain betrays you it's hard to see,

Fact from Fiction, delusion from reality,

Everything felt real from touch to pain,

Perhaps I was simply insane?

The fact is this my trauma was real,

Just because its hidden doesn't change what I feel,

Kindness and Understanding is all that I need,

So once more I say from the bottom of my heart,

ICU's Nurses are a world apart,

Reassuring and soothing their presence was,

Understood my trauma without a word.

You might not see the scars it has left,

But what it has done to me is straight up theft,

Stole from me my memory and concentration,

It came in the night like a common thug,

Destroying me leaving me to deal with the devastation.

I have rebuilt myself from the ashes left behind,

Adapted to the issues and complications in my mind,

I am stronger and better than I ever was,

Been to hell and survived it all.

So this is my story, these are my scars,

Please help us raise awareness about this all,

To long hidden has Delirium been,

To shine a Light on the problem is my aim,

To help those affected feel less insane,

And even maybe help to mitigate their pain.

So remember the 13th of March,

Its Delirium Awareness day,

Understanding the problem can go a long way,

This just touches the surface but it is a start,

Remember Delirium can affect anyone,

Healthy or weak, old or young.

Delirium is a big problem that isn't really understood, if you are reading this please, help raise awareness on the 13th of March. If you can retweet the messages that will be about then and I hope I have helped you understand at least a little what its like to have suffered Delirium and the after effects of it. If you have any questions I am on twitter feel free to DM me or leave a Message here on the blog. But mostly Thank you for reading.

   

Hospital Life: A patient view.

The next few paragraphs where written in September 18 while I was in for my stoma relocation surgery (due to peristomal hernia and obstruction)

Ok so I’ve been in hospital ten days just now and a few things occur to me that maybe aren’t obvious to staff who work in hospital. First thing is sure this is your place of work but right now it is where I am living. You might think letting doors slam or dropping things etc is not a big deal but unexpected noises set tension in patients. Where you talk is important too, I understand that nurses, doctors etc need to talk to communicate things to each other but if you stand outside my door and talk about things it does two things one it constantly reminds me that I am not safe because anyone could come in at any time and two that I am not in my home I am in an alien place with different rules.

I think I am a pretty good patient, I don’t buzz for help unless it is something I can’t do myself or that I need to tell someone about (pain, bleeding dizziness etc) This however can lead to me being forgotten about, there is nothing wrong with every once in a while chapping on the door poking your head in and asking how things are. Remember patients are humans and like all humans we even the most anti social need contact with humans to maintain our sanity.

If I say that for handling the change of one of my IV drugs (steroids) to oral pills that you should speak to a specific consultant in my medical team don’t come back and tell me you spoke to a different department, I am telling you because they are the dr who handles them long term to me. Also when I tell you to speak to him before the surgery and a week later you still haven’t done it and your plan is to dump me back straight onto my maintenance dose don’t expect me to sugar coat it. I am a nice person and will speak to you civilly but when you don’t do your job after I have asked multiple times my tongue will sharpen, it might be numbers to you but it’s my life we are talking about.

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In contrast to this my stays in my local hospital’s (same hospital) combined assessment unit this year has been vastly different and I understand that the norm for them is to have a patient for 24-48 hrs before moving them onto a ward but as I was suspected of having flu and was neutropenic so needed a side room on Infectious diseases ward (like winning the lottery). So I was kept in CAU for 4 and 3 days respectively, even though I was ‘infective’ people always checked in to make sure I was ok and if I needed anything. When it came to discharge they asked me about how I usually stepped down my steroids, because guess what I’ve been doing it for 17 years I know what I am doing. I was treated like a human, never treated like an idiot and though isolated never ignored.

Since rediscovering this post which I had half finished I had a short talk with a Junior Doc. The doctor was talking about a more senior Doc whom they admired in their service and it was interesting that the things they admired most where not the ‘hard’ skills like intubation or knowledge of dosages of drugs to give or catching a condition from a patients strange symptoms. It was the soft skills, their ability to speak to a patients family in a way that soothed their distress, calming a patient who was troubled by not knowing where they where or dealing with other Docs to exchange ideas and try to get to bottom of patients problems.

As a person who has been a patient in hospital on and off for 17 years having spent what probably totals at least 2-3 years in hospital I can tell you one thing: Soft skills matter. Unless you are one of the best in your field where your excellence might allow you more leeway than otherwise, you need to be able to talk to patients and their family. You need to be able to speak in a language they understand and gauge the level at which you need to speak, ie. I understand more technical medical language than the normal person due to my exposure, so often they speak to me in a more ‘medical’ way but that’s not suitable for everyone.

As a medical professional whether it be a Doctor, nurse, physio, pharmacist or support staff in a hospital with inpatients you need to make them feel safe and included in there medical treatment. This is easier to achieve than you might expect as often simply speaking to the patient and explaining why you are doing x is enough. If you are unsure what to do think what would you want if you where in the bed and often you will have the answer. When a patient gets discharged they won’t remember who came up with a diagnosis or who got that tricky cannula in or who did x procedure. They will often remember the Doctor who took 10 minutes to explain what is wrong with them or what the treatment is for or what the test results tell them.

So basically in short never underestimate the power of speaking to a patient, you might change their stay from a scary experience to one they feel they have at least some control over.

The Good and Bad times

We all have good and bad times,

We have to reveal in the good,

But push through the bad and the sad,

Trying not to get mad but always be glad,

For the good times and the people we love,

People sent to us from Heaven above.

The joys of the highs never lasting long enough,

The lows of the bad lasting longer than they should,

But in the darkest of times there is always a light,

The reason to fight, friends and family,

The people who made the good times great,

Also hold us up on the darkest days.

Love conquers all is a cliché,

But a kernel of truth lies in it,

Love gives us strength when all else fails,

A reason to crawl with your finger tips,

Love makes us the best us, gives us courage,

It makes us burn so bright we’re seen on the dark nights.

Death, fear, depression seek to snuff out the light,

Like a cloak of darkness they obscure your sight,

But all they have done is hide the radiance,

Look for the glow of those you love,

They will illuminate the path back home,

No dark is too dark to traverse back to family.

I saw a lot of people I follow on Twitter having a hard time and a few of my good friends going through some hard times. I have had two hospital stays in January for neutropenic sepsis so I was a bit down. I am extremely fortunate that since my ICU stay my ‘robustness’ has improved I have ways of staving off the dark thoughts or pushing through them quicker (Video Game Stardew Valley, poetry, expressing patient opinions etc). I wanted to let the people who are having hard times know I am thinking of you, I might not know what to say to you to help but I’m always thinking of you and worrying (it’s my nature I worry.) And I am also hoping this can help them see that it’s dark just now but it won’t alway be. You are all important to me and I am thankful for everyday I get to spend with everyone even if it is just an occasional tweet.