Talking of boycotts, just if you were in any doubt that Nestlé was still up to its old tricks, read this rather scary Guardian article about the situation in Bangladesh.
I really don't expect every one to follow my own example by being militant about refusing to buy Nestlé products (I check the brand of coffee in restaurants and won't even let hairdressers use L'Oreal shampoo on my hair) but I would urge you, when faced with a choice of buying a Nestlé product or something manufactured by someone else, please at least just consider buying the latter option? If you're not sure what products are Nestlé you can find a list here. Some of them you might find surprising - did you know Buitoni pasta and Herta hotdogs were Nestlé? San Pellegrino water? Felix cat food? They won't necessarily say Nestlé on the packaging.
If you need further convincing, it was this picture that really brought the message home to me when I first heard about the boycott a few years ago.
*And plenty of other formula-milk manufacturers of course, but Nestlé are the biggest manufacturer world-wide and still the most prolific flouter of the WHA International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes
Monday, May 21, 2007
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Mars comes to its senses
Phew! One less company I have to boycott. Funnily enough, I dreamt last night that Mars had made this announcement so imagine my surprise this morning...
My flat - a tribute
It may not look much from the outside, but I really really love my flat. It felt like home from the moment the estate agent walked me through the door. The buying process was a struggle - moving house and getting divorced simultaneously cannot be recommended - but living here has been instrumental in helping me recover from the divorce. The view alone makes me smile every single day and having a boat on the lake gives me the chance to experience the wildlife - and the methane-producing algae - close up.My neighbours are fab: Ali opposite who sweeps me off my feet at Salsa every week and his flatmate Matt who's terribly polite, despite being the quietest man in history, who hasn't said more than 5 words since I've lived here (so the complete opposite of Ali);Tom next door who still holds out hope of catching one of the lake's wily carp (no chance mate!); Caroline & Spencer below who are getting married in a typical HUGE Irish wedding (don't think Spencer knows what he's letting himself in for); Rachel who used to rent my flat before buying the flat below Ali, who lives with her cats Richard & Presley and is having a terrible year; the Japanese (Chinese? Oh, that's terrible that I'm not sure) woman whose name I don't know with the gorgeously cute children who live upstairs; the Polish couple, with Kristian the baby, who live above me and are always so friendly but hate us having barbecues; Carey who lives on the top floor and has become Caroline's drinking buddy after she happened upon us all sat in my rather large paddling pool during one our regular impromptu barbecues last summer.
I've loved living by myself - well, more recently with the cats of course - and having my own space. It didn't need any work when I moved in because Belinda & Hilton, who I bought the flat from, had done such a good job. It's open plan and spacious: they'd knocked out a couple of doorways and, having seen some of the other flats which still have the original layout, I think it was exactly the right thing to do. Buying little bargains for it, such as my dining table and chairs has been such fun - eBay is king - and I'm grateful for all the donations I received from my friends, such as my sofa from Zoe & Phillip, leather armchairs (which are now covered in claw marks goddamn it) and my bed, both from Linda & Karl. I've loved building flat pack furniture - my bed, wardrobe, two chests of drawers and a shelf unit to date - and have even (shock! horror!) kind of enjoyed keeping it clean.
So now the great 'pack up' begins. My friends Debbie & Ian move in here the weekend after next while I move to my dad & step-mother's in order to save some money for my trip. I know it's for all the right reasons, but I'm going to miss the flat soooo much. At least it's D & I who are moving in, so I know it'll be well looked after and I can still visit. They're going to be looking after the cats too, who I'm also going to miss big time. I'm trying to have as many snuggles with them now as I can to carry me through. sigh.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Game on
Well, there's no getting out of it now. Got my visa [check], booked my flight [check], cacking my pants [check].
5th September 2007, 1500 hours: Vancouver here I come.
5th September 2007, 1500 hours: Vancouver here I come.
Erm....was I missing something here?
Serbia? Our, admittedly small, Eurovision party put that way down towards the bottom of the list in all catagories: dull song, uncharismatic androgynous singer and a frankly weird performance. Even the FRENCH entry was better than that. THE FRENCH I tells ya. So so so glad to see the UK did not vote for it at all, at least we have good taste. The Greek entry (Yassou Maria) was clearly the best song and was robbed of its rightful victory. Go on, give it a little listen, you know you want to. I did like one of the comments on the Radio 2 message board (yes, I am that sad):
It was the Oatlands Village Fayre yesterday, which appeared to have upped the ante since I last went, by having a stunt show, culminating in a man setting himself on fire and jumping off a 100ft high tower onto a bouncy castle, which exploded. They also had a stall where, for £2.50, you could drizzle paint onto a piece of card and then spin it, which made it look way cool. I loved it so much I now have a complete series:
All the UK needs next year then is a little fat Billy Bunter-a-like to belt out a funeral march and it's in the bag.
It was the Oatlands Village Fayre yesterday, which appeared to have upped the ante since I last went, by having a stunt show, culminating in a man setting himself on fire and jumping off a 100ft high tower onto a bouncy castle, which exploded. They also had a stall where, for £2.50, you could drizzle paint onto a piece of card and then spin it, which made it look way cool. I loved it so much I now have a complete series:
Saturday, May 05, 2007
So how'd we do?
A rather excellent report from The Daily Show highlighting the self-congratulatory and demonising tendencies of the American media in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings:
Oh and if you can still hear Will Ferrell starting up every time you visit my blog, I'm sorry. He's nearly off the bottom of the page now so it won't go on for much longer. Scoot down there and shut him up for me, will ya?
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Oh and if you can still hear Will Ferrell starting up every time you visit my blog, I'm sorry. He's nearly off the bottom of the page now so it won't go on for much longer. Scoot down there and shut him up for me, will ya?
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Bang to rights?
Just watched the Panorama programme 'Midwives Undercover', which aimed to highlight the problems in Britain's maternity units using secret filming by a journalist working as a volunteer. It was alarming stuff, but one of the problems with having a lay person looking for problem areas is that, unless you know what you're looking for, you run the risk of making an issue out of something that really isn't that big a deal and, as a result, missing the really important things.
Certainly there was a big fuss made over the fact that the journalist was asked to hold a baby's heart monitor transducer in place for a 20 minute period "without having any training at all". Now, it is certainly the case that interpreting a CTG (cardiotocograph) trace takes training and if mistakes are made, they have the potential to be catastrophic. BUT holding the transducer in place is a job more usually done by an elasticated strap. Only if the baby is in an awkward position, as presumably was the case here, do you have to angle it a bit by hand. The woman was not in labour, so it was highly unlikely that the trace would show anything requiring immediate action and the midwives were popping in to look at the trace every 10 mins or so, as they would normally have done. So is it really a major story that the volunteer was acting as an glorified bit of elastane? To my mind, it's far more appropriate that the volunteer was doing this, than the midwife who had plenty of better things to be getting on with.
The other thing that crops up time and time again, whenever anything is reported about maternity services, is the inevitable 'my baby died/had brain damage because of what they did' story. I apologise if that comes across as heartless, it's not intended to be. The fact is however that babies do die, they do get brain damaged, and whilst we should never become complacent about it, and we should of course do everything we can to prevent it, we will never be able to save every baby. I cannot comment on the two cases discussed on tonight's programme, for the obvious reason that I wasn't there and I don't have any of the details, but warning bells always ring for me when phrases such as "So & so was already having problems before they arrived on the ward" are heard. Many - if not most - cases of brain damage are due to antenatal insults, meaning that the care in labour does not directly contribute to the outcome, the damage has already been done before you get there without anyone being able to do anything about it. Proving it one way or another is often impossible though and often results in hospitals offering (substantial) out-of-court settlements to parents. Whilst I have a lot of sympathy for parents who are naturally devastated and seek to apportion blame in someone's quarter, but I also have a lot of sympathy for those involved in the care, who often did their best, with an outcome that was inevitable.
It is definitely beyond question that there is a shortage of midwives in most units though and, yes, this can contribute to the kind of problems detailed above. Much much more often, however, it contributes instead to women - or whole families - having a thoroughly miserable and rather crap experience. This may be the poor cousin of the catastrophic events we love to hear about, but if you ask me, it's a much bigger problem. Women who've had crap care are more likely to have had unnecessary interventions (expensive to the NHS, detrimental to women's bodies), develop postnatal depression, be overly anxious about subsequent pregnancies which results in more unnecessary interventions - if they go on to have any more children that is. I often wonder how many women never go on to have the families they would have wanted because they were badly treated the first time; I have a friend who is finally having her second baby now, 14 years after her first, because it's taken her this long to pick up the courage after having such a horrible time with her first.
Ah well. It's only a job, eh?
Certainly there was a big fuss made over the fact that the journalist was asked to hold a baby's heart monitor transducer in place for a 20 minute period "without having any training at all". Now, it is certainly the case that interpreting a CTG (cardiotocograph) trace takes training and if mistakes are made, they have the potential to be catastrophic. BUT holding the transducer in place is a job more usually done by an elasticated strap. Only if the baby is in an awkward position, as presumably was the case here, do you have to angle it a bit by hand. The woman was not in labour, so it was highly unlikely that the trace would show anything requiring immediate action and the midwives were popping in to look at the trace every 10 mins or so, as they would normally have done. So is it really a major story that the volunteer was acting as an glorified bit of elastane? To my mind, it's far more appropriate that the volunteer was doing this, than the midwife who had plenty of better things to be getting on with.
The other thing that crops up time and time again, whenever anything is reported about maternity services, is the inevitable 'my baby died/had brain damage because of what they did' story. I apologise if that comes across as heartless, it's not intended to be. The fact is however that babies do die, they do get brain damaged, and whilst we should never become complacent about it, and we should of course do everything we can to prevent it, we will never be able to save every baby. I cannot comment on the two cases discussed on tonight's programme, for the obvious reason that I wasn't there and I don't have any of the details, but warning bells always ring for me when phrases such as "So & so was already having problems before they arrived on the ward" are heard. Many - if not most - cases of brain damage are due to antenatal insults, meaning that the care in labour does not directly contribute to the outcome, the damage has already been done before you get there without anyone being able to do anything about it. Proving it one way or another is often impossible though and often results in hospitals offering (substantial) out-of-court settlements to parents. Whilst I have a lot of sympathy for parents who are naturally devastated and seek to apportion blame in someone's quarter, but I also have a lot of sympathy for those involved in the care, who often did their best, with an outcome that was inevitable.
It is definitely beyond question that there is a shortage of midwives in most units though and, yes, this can contribute to the kind of problems detailed above. Much much more often, however, it contributes instead to women - or whole families - having a thoroughly miserable and rather crap experience. This may be the poor cousin of the catastrophic events we love to hear about, but if you ask me, it's a much bigger problem. Women who've had crap care are more likely to have had unnecessary interventions (expensive to the NHS, detrimental to women's bodies), develop postnatal depression, be overly anxious about subsequent pregnancies which results in more unnecessary interventions - if they go on to have any more children that is. I often wonder how many women never go on to have the families they would have wanted because they were badly treated the first time; I have a friend who is finally having her second baby now, 14 years after her first, because it's taken her this long to pick up the courage after having such a horrible time with her first.
Ah well. It's only a job, eh?
Monday, April 30, 2007
Not a member of the Breastapo
Much to my surprise, I was on the Five Live breakfast show this morning. I say much to my surprise, because I only got a call from my friend Adam, who's a BBC radio producer - though BBC radio Essex I believe - last night at about 10.30pm, asking if I'd talk about postnatal depression (PND) this morning in response to the Royal College of Midwives' statement today that PND may be twice as common as we thought it was. This is, I feel compelled to point out, after a survey of only 500 women, which is unlikely to be terribly representative, but hey. Anyway, they said they'd call this morning about 8.20am and that I'd go on air about 8.30am. Fine. I was in a study day from 8am but was happy to run out for 20 mins or so.
I got the call at 8.20am, asking for my landline number. I gave it to them and asked for 1 minute to run down to my office. This I did, haring down 2 sets of stairs, to find the phone was ringing when I got there, and when I answered it I was told that I would be put on air immediately. Thus, if you choose to 'Listen Again' to this morning's show, you may hear me struggling both for breath and for thoughts, as I had absolutely no idea what they were planning to ask me. I winged my way through it, then headed back to my study day, whereupon my colleagues asked me what we'd talked about. I had absolutely no idea. I literally couldn't remember one question. Anyway, I listened back to it just now and it didn't sound half as bad as it felt at the time so that's okay.
I got the call at 8.20am, asking for my landline number. I gave it to them and asked for 1 minute to run down to my office. This I did, haring down 2 sets of stairs, to find the phone was ringing when I got there, and when I answered it I was told that I would be put on air immediately. Thus, if you choose to 'Listen Again' to this morning's show, you may hear me struggling both for breath and for thoughts, as I had absolutely no idea what they were planning to ask me. I winged my way through it, then headed back to my study day, whereupon my colleagues asked me what we'd talked about. I had absolutely no idea. I literally couldn't remember one question. Anyway, I listened back to it just now and it didn't sound half as bad as it felt at the time so that's okay.
Friday, April 27, 2007
The Porcs kick ass
I went to see Porcupine Tree at the Forum last night. Who? you might ask. I'm sure I've mentioned them here before but just in case: they're one of my fave bands and I've given you a little (fairly poor quality - sorry) taster here:
You might notice the camera jiggling slightly as I ROCKED OUT.
You might notice the camera jiggling slightly as I ROCKED OUT.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Speedy laptops & broken hearts
So firstly, thanks to Silas who helped me whip my laptop into shape last night. It has been getting soooooo sloooooooooow on start up it was in danger of being broken into many many tiny little pieces, so I started by transferring all my music onto my external hard drive, freeing up a whole 15Gb! Then I ran disk cleanup and defragged it all like a good girl. Then - and this is where I became very clever indeed - I added some more RAM (giving me 496 big ones in total - which, of course, is far less impressive than it might first appear) before, finally, requesting remote assistance from Silas who checked that all my...well...bits were in order. Because I wasn't entirely sure what all my bits should look like. But anyway, he said they looked good. So that was nice.
Secondly, I can't believe that Steph & Max have split up*. I mean, come on. I know Max accidentally-on-purpose run over and killed Cameron - though he thought him to be his evil twin Robert at the time - and then got his head screwed over by Elle (Cameron's sister) who kept moving his car and baby and so on so he went a bit mad, then run off and disappeared, later sending a message to Steph via the Salvation Army to tell her to move on, after which she fell in love with her best friend Toady, who'd been there for her the whole time and did try to save her from the bad guy Guy, who shot Toady in the back and now he lives with a fragment of bullet in his spine, which might move and paralyse or kill him at any point, so when he came out of his coma he and Steph finally professed their love for each other, just before Max turned up again after having been spotted and followed by Elle, who was now very remorseful about her behaviour and and so told Janae, who had approached him and asked him to come home, which he did, which meant that Steph had to give it another go with him, what with them being married and having a child together and all that, which left Toady heartbroken. But Steph & Max've been through so much together, what with hating each other at first, and Steph heading off on a round Australia trip with some other loser bloke then coming back because she realised she loved Max (best kiss ever in a soap) , pursuading Boyd and Summer that she wasn't trying to replace their dead mum and then eloping to get married in jeans and Steph getting breast cancer and subsequently recovering, then getting pregnant with baby Charlie (the ugliest child in television), then getting the cancer back and refusing treatment until she gave birth and recovering again despite no one expecting her to.... I suspect she'll get back together with Toady which will be nice for Toady because he's very nice and has had a rough time himself, what with his wife dying on their wedding day when he crashed the car with the dodgy brakes into the sea. Anyway, I just think it's very sad. And sloppy writing.
*yes, very sorry, I am talking about Neighbours
Secondly, I can't believe that Steph & Max have split up*. I mean, come on. I know Max accidentally-on-purpose run over and killed Cameron - though he thought him to be his evil twin Robert at the time - and then got his head screwed over by Elle (Cameron's sister) who kept moving his car and baby and so on so he went a bit mad, then run off and disappeared, later sending a message to Steph via the Salvation Army to tell her to move on, after which she fell in love with her best friend Toady, who'd been there for her the whole time and did try to save her from the bad guy Guy, who shot Toady in the back and now he lives with a fragment of bullet in his spine, which might move and paralyse or kill him at any point, so when he came out of his coma he and Steph finally professed their love for each other, just before Max turned up again after having been spotted and followed by Elle, who was now very remorseful about her behaviour and and so told Janae, who had approached him and asked him to come home, which he did, which meant that Steph had to give it another go with him, what with them being married and having a child together and all that, which left Toady heartbroken. But Steph & Max've been through so much together, what with hating each other at first, and Steph heading off on a round Australia trip with some other loser bloke then coming back because she realised she loved Max (best kiss ever in a soap) , pursuading Boyd and Summer that she wasn't trying to replace their dead mum and then eloping to get married in jeans and Steph getting breast cancer and subsequently recovering, then getting pregnant with baby Charlie (the ugliest child in television), then getting the cancer back and refusing treatment until she gave birth and recovering again despite no one expecting her to.... I suspect she'll get back together with Toady which will be nice for Toady because he's very nice and has had a rough time himself, what with his wife dying on their wedding day when he crashed the car with the dodgy brakes into the sea. Anyway, I just think it's very sad. And sloppy writing.
*yes, very sorry, I am talking about Neighbours
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Trying not to let the bastards grind me down
Well, this has been a challenging week. Of my current team of four midwives: Debbie is on long-term sick with a dodgy knee, unable to walk without crutches, and is awaiting surgery; Sophie is building up her hours again after being on long-term sick after some heavy duty surgery but is on two weeks annual leave at the moment; Karen only joined up 4 weeks ago but has had 1 week on annual leave and this past week has been on the Trust Induction programme (this is what you do when the infusion pump makes this horrible noise/this is how you give someone a blood transfusion without killing them/this is what you do when you suspect someone is beating their child to a pulp/when someone threatens to kill you this is who you call. All thrilling stuff) so I've been all alone this week. This basically means being on-call 24/7 for all four caseloads.
I spoke to my manager and explained I'd be on my own and asked if I could get some help with the routine daytime work so I could concentrate on on-calls and emergencies. I was told that everyone was too busy so, basically, no. The previous week I had walked in on a member of another team- let's call her 'Rita' - slagging me off for always asking for help*, so my avenues were becoming rather blocked. I managed to rearrange most of my work till the following week and get 2 immovable visits covered, would just have to do the rest when I could.
Then the carnage begun. On Sunday, my car had broken down (overheating) so on the Monday, as well as helping my mum get up to Kings Cross so she could take the train home to Yorkshire, I need to limp it over to the garage to be repaired. As a result, I couldn't do a booking that afternoon and, as no one else would cover it either, poor hopalong Debbie took a taxi in to the hospital to do it for me. I spent the day fielding calls from one of Debbie's women who was in early labour. I returned from Kings Cross to find my car had been issued with a parking ticket, despite being parked perfectly legally**. I was called in later to look after the labouring woman, who had a nice waterbirth at 5am. The birth centre (midwifery-led, low-risk unit) was jammed though and my friend Nia, who was all alone there, had a birth which had a few complications so I was helping out. Labour ward (consultant-led, high risk unit) was also packed and I somehow ended up having a HUGE stand-up in-your-face shouting match with one of the co-ordinators from there, who was unbelievably rude to me and acting like a child. I got a call at 8am from one of my girls to say her waters had broken and I finally left the hospital at about 10.30am to go round and see her. I knew I had to hand my phone to someone as she may well labour during the day but, after catching Rita (who would have been the first choice to call) slagging me off, wanted reassurance from my manager first I was doing the right thing. I called her, only to have her have a go at me, saying that of course my colleague should be covering me, she didn't know why I was calling her, I should be able to deal with this. I cried for about half an hour. I then got a call to say my car was ready to be collected so when I got home I caught a bus which took an hour after going all round the houses and dropped me half an hour's walk from the garage. I got there to find it had cost £150 and I'd been blocked in by a van. I ended up shouting at a perfectly friendly man and crying hysterically all the way home. Finally got to bed at 3pm but woke again 3 hours later.
Got called back in that night to look after the girl whose waters had broken. She was only in very early labour but she had lots of family with her who were being a nightmare and refusing to take her home. I ended up being there with them all night till 9am, before we persuaded them that at 1cm, she really needed to be at home. I then went and found the (very scary) labour ward manager, who had been complaining about me starting this row with the co-ordinator the previous night by throwing my weight around and making demands (completely untrue), so I did my best to calmly sort out the disagreement. Called Rita to take my phone for the day only to be told she'd spoken to our manager the previous evening who had said that of course they shouldn't be covering my work and that if I was off, my phone should be covered by the hospital. This completely contradicted what I'd been told the previous morning and what I'd been shouted at for even questioning. My manager of course hadn't thought to let me know this new piece information however. I left around 10am.
Got woken at 3.3opm by the birth centre saying my woman was back in and they were too busy to take her so could I come in and look after her? Errrmmmm....no actually. I explained that if they couldn't take her, she should go to the labour ward (fate worse than death in my book but I had no option). I then spent the rest of the afternoon worrying about her.
Came back in to labour ward at 10pm to take over. Her care had been somewhat shambolic but I managed to pull this back in order. The whole family were exhausted, having been awake for nigh on 72 hours, even though we'd all made it perfectly clear for the previous couple of days that she wasn't yet in active labour and the best thing they could ALL do was to get some rest, but instead the poor girl had had 4 people standing round staring at her for the whole time. No wonder the labour took so bloody long to establish. It took every ounce of my strength to remain the very epitome of calm and supportive to every last one of them. This notwithstanding, her tired and stressed mother - who kept telling me she'd had 5 children and really should have known better - ended up shouting at me that she "didn't care about the baby!" and I can't tell you how close I came to walking out. I didn't though and, despite the best efforts of the doctors and her family to interfere, she had a nice normal birth at 4am. The mother immediately backtracked and said I'd been "very brave and very patient". Managed to do a quick turnaround with the paperwork and left around 6.30am. Got to bed at 7.15am and then up again at 12pm, racing into London to meet my cousin Camilla who was over from Denmark for a couple of days and was leaving that night so only had that time to catch up. Came back from London to go to the opening night of the new Gourmet Burger Kitchen in Walton, which was guest list only and I practically fell asleep in my (free and delicious) burger. Come 8pm I was supposed to come back on call but realised I was not fit to look after a flea. Called a lovely colleague on the birth centre who agreed to take my phone that evening. Went home and slept - aaaaaaaahhhhhhhzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Next morning I found out that my girl had gone into the high dependency unit over night with breathing difficulties, which turned out to be nothing, but if my phone had been on I'd undoubtedly have been called in. I spend the day running around trying to sort her out and fit in all the visits I hadn't been able to do all week, before heading into London to go to a friend's Hen night at The Sanctuary and FINALLY TURNING MY PHONE OFF FOR THE WEEKEND.
It might amuse you to know that, to add insult to injury, I had just finished writing this when my computer decided, for reasons best known to itself, to delete it all and I had to write it all out again.
Anyway, I can quite honestly say that if I wasn't leaving in August, I'd have handed in my notice this week. It's one thing working hard and feeling tired all the time, but quite another to have to deal with a face-full of abuse from all and sundry at the same time. Sometimes I really hate my job.
*Unsurprisingly, since I've not had a full team of six for a YEAR now and for the past 6 months have been running the team with a maximum of 3 and often only 2 midwives. What does she expect me to do?
**I appealed, supplying lots of photos as support and had an email on Friday saying it had been issued in error and had been cancelled. Finally, some good news.
I spoke to my manager and explained I'd be on my own and asked if I could get some help with the routine daytime work so I could concentrate on on-calls and emergencies. I was told that everyone was too busy so, basically, no. The previous week I had walked in on a member of another team- let's call her 'Rita' - slagging me off for always asking for help*, so my avenues were becoming rather blocked. I managed to rearrange most of my work till the following week and get 2 immovable visits covered, would just have to do the rest when I could.
Then the carnage begun. On Sunday, my car had broken down (overheating) so on the Monday, as well as helping my mum get up to Kings Cross so she could take the train home to Yorkshire, I need to limp it over to the garage to be repaired. As a result, I couldn't do a booking that afternoon and, as no one else would cover it either, poor hopalong Debbie took a taxi in to the hospital to do it for me. I spent the day fielding calls from one of Debbie's women who was in early labour. I returned from Kings Cross to find my car had been issued with a parking ticket, despite being parked perfectly legally**. I was called in later to look after the labouring woman, who had a nice waterbirth at 5am. The birth centre (midwifery-led, low-risk unit) was jammed though and my friend Nia, who was all alone there, had a birth which had a few complications so I was helping out. Labour ward (consultant-led, high risk unit) was also packed and I somehow ended up having a HUGE stand-up in-your-face shouting match with one of the co-ordinators from there, who was unbelievably rude to me and acting like a child. I got a call at 8am from one of my girls to say her waters had broken and I finally left the hospital at about 10.30am to go round and see her. I knew I had to hand my phone to someone as she may well labour during the day but, after catching Rita (who would have been the first choice to call) slagging me off, wanted reassurance from my manager first I was doing the right thing. I called her, only to have her have a go at me, saying that of course my colleague should be covering me, she didn't know why I was calling her, I should be able to deal with this. I cried for about half an hour. I then got a call to say my car was ready to be collected so when I got home I caught a bus which took an hour after going all round the houses and dropped me half an hour's walk from the garage. I got there to find it had cost £150 and I'd been blocked in by a van. I ended up shouting at a perfectly friendly man and crying hysterically all the way home. Finally got to bed at 3pm but woke again 3 hours later.
Got called back in that night to look after the girl whose waters had broken. She was only in very early labour but she had lots of family with her who were being a nightmare and refusing to take her home. I ended up being there with them all night till 9am, before we persuaded them that at 1cm, she really needed to be at home. I then went and found the (very scary) labour ward manager, who had been complaining about me starting this row with the co-ordinator the previous night by throwing my weight around and making demands (completely untrue), so I did my best to calmly sort out the disagreement. Called Rita to take my phone for the day only to be told she'd spoken to our manager the previous evening who had said that of course they shouldn't be covering my work and that if I was off, my phone should be covered by the hospital. This completely contradicted what I'd been told the previous morning and what I'd been shouted at for even questioning. My manager of course hadn't thought to let me know this new piece information however. I left around 10am.
Got woken at 3.3opm by the birth centre saying my woman was back in and they were too busy to take her so could I come in and look after her? Errrmmmm....no actually. I explained that if they couldn't take her, she should go to the labour ward (fate worse than death in my book but I had no option). I then spent the rest of the afternoon worrying about her.
Came back in to labour ward at 10pm to take over. Her care had been somewhat shambolic but I managed to pull this back in order. The whole family were exhausted, having been awake for nigh on 72 hours, even though we'd all made it perfectly clear for the previous couple of days that she wasn't yet in active labour and the best thing they could ALL do was to get some rest, but instead the poor girl had had 4 people standing round staring at her for the whole time. No wonder the labour took so bloody long to establish. It took every ounce of my strength to remain the very epitome of calm and supportive to every last one of them. This notwithstanding, her tired and stressed mother - who kept telling me she'd had 5 children and really should have known better - ended up shouting at me that she "didn't care about the baby!" and I can't tell you how close I came to walking out. I didn't though and, despite the best efforts of the doctors and her family to interfere, she had a nice normal birth at 4am. The mother immediately backtracked and said I'd been "very brave and very patient". Managed to do a quick turnaround with the paperwork and left around 6.30am. Got to bed at 7.15am and then up again at 12pm, racing into London to meet my cousin Camilla who was over from Denmark for a couple of days and was leaving that night so only had that time to catch up. Came back from London to go to the opening night of the new Gourmet Burger Kitchen in Walton, which was guest list only and I practically fell asleep in my (free and delicious) burger. Come 8pm I was supposed to come back on call but realised I was not fit to look after a flea. Called a lovely colleague on the birth centre who agreed to take my phone that evening. Went home and slept - aaaaaaaahhhhhhhzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Next morning I found out that my girl had gone into the high dependency unit over night with breathing difficulties, which turned out to be nothing, but if my phone had been on I'd undoubtedly have been called in. I spend the day running around trying to sort her out and fit in all the visits I hadn't been able to do all week, before heading into London to go to a friend's Hen night at The Sanctuary and FINALLY TURNING MY PHONE OFF FOR THE WEEKEND.
It might amuse you to know that, to add insult to injury, I had just finished writing this when my computer decided, for reasons best known to itself, to delete it all and I had to write it all out again.
Anyway, I can quite honestly say that if I wasn't leaving in August, I'd have handed in my notice this week. It's one thing working hard and feeling tired all the time, but quite another to have to deal with a face-full of abuse from all and sundry at the same time. Sometimes I really hate my job.
*Unsurprisingly, since I've not had a full team of six for a YEAR now and for the past 6 months have been running the team with a maximum of 3 and often only 2 midwives. What does she expect me to do?
**I appealed, supplying lots of photos as support and had an email on Friday saying it had been issued in error and had been cancelled. Finally, some good news.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Friday, April 13, 2007
Brookie
Yesterday, my mother & I took a quick trip on Concorde. Not that it left the ground, you understand, but it was damn good nevertheless.Brooklands Museum has one, 30% of which was actually built there, and they've done a really good job with it. You buy a boarding pass and meet on the transfer bus for a briefing, then up into the cargo hold (tiny!) to see some information about Concorde's history and the story of this particular vessel. Then, you pass up through the cabin where there are original seats from the 70s, 80s and 90s/00s, before taking your seat at the front of the plane and experiencing a full take-off and flight experience (lasting 10 mins!) . Very good indeed and surprisingly emotional.
The rest of the museum is well worth a visit too. To my delight, I got to sit in one of Ayrton Senna's F1 cars although I am sorry to report that my hips are obviously wider than his were. A fact that the (rather advancing-in-years) museum assistant was not slow to point out, in some detail in fact, even going as far as to speculate on my dress size. Which he got wrong. The insulting way. He then tried to guess my weight, which he also managed to get spectacularly and not-a-little humiliatingly wrong. Hmmmm.
Nifty gifty?
That's it, I've bailed out. I'm sorry, I know I've let you all down, but I just couldn't hack it anymore.
I've gone back to a litter box.
Basically, a combination of Rudy's pathological fear of any kind of hole in the disc over the toilet and refusal to use it if he discovered one (or, worse, choosing alternative locations) and his penchant for trying to bury his litter to China, resulting in litter and - let's be frank - poo all over the bathroom floor every day has meant that my patience has finally waned. I'm not saying it's not a great idea to toilet train your cats, because it is, and if it was just Gertie I'm sure she'd be well away by now but Rudy's such a bloody wuss. He's sat on my lap as I type this but it's okay, he can't read. But honest to God, you should have seen the mess this morning.
Not that I've gone for any litter box. There are so many plastic monstrosities on the market - I tells ya if I had my time again I'd start up a company that produced nice and stylish products for pets rather than cheap-looking tat and stuff covered in cartoon cats and dogs that are clearly supposed to be cutsey but are actually horrendous beyond belief - but I don't want my flat to be a shrine to the cats (sorry - bad mummy) so I've gone for something a bit more...well, maybe you should decide. It looks at first glance to be an ordinary (possibly slightly rubbish) plant pot and (not too bad looking) fake plant but no! Inside is a cat toilet. Rudy took to it straight away and peed in it within minutes.
Now be honest. Is this actually quite cool, or is it unbelievably naff? I can't decide, but I think that I think it's quite a nifty solution. Either way, eBay truly is a goldmine for the weird and wonderful.
I've gone back to a litter box.
Basically, a combination of Rudy's pathological fear of any kind of hole in the disc over the toilet and refusal to use it if he discovered one (or, worse, choosing alternative locations) and his penchant for trying to bury his litter to China, resulting in litter and - let's be frank - poo all over the bathroom floor every day has meant that my patience has finally waned. I'm not saying it's not a great idea to toilet train your cats, because it is, and if it was just Gertie I'm sure she'd be well away by now but Rudy's such a bloody wuss. He's sat on my lap as I type this but it's okay, he can't read. But honest to God, you should have seen the mess this morning.
Not that I've gone for any litter box. There are so many plastic monstrosities on the market - I tells ya if I had my time again I'd start up a company that produced nice and stylish products for pets rather than cheap-looking tat and stuff covered in cartoon cats and dogs that are clearly supposed to be cutsey but are actually horrendous beyond belief - but I don't want my flat to be a shrine to the cats (sorry - bad mummy) so I've gone for something a bit more...well, maybe you should decide. It looks at first glance to be an ordinary (possibly slightly rubbish) plant pot and (not too bad looking) fake plant but no! Inside is a cat toilet. Rudy took to it straight away and peed in it within minutes.Now be honest. Is this actually quite cool, or is it unbelievably naff? I can't decide, but I think that I think it's quite a nifty solution. Either way, eBay truly is a goldmine for the weird and wonderful.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Time in a Bottle
As you may already be aware, this is one of my favourite songs of all time. Just so's you know, in case any of you are still hanging around by then, it's what I want played at my funeral. Yes, of course this version.
Russian Roulette
I like to play Russian Roulette. Not with guns, because they're illegal and I don't know where to get one, much less fire it, and I'd probably get arrested. Although if I did it with guns then I'd have to do it on telly and become famous and Derren Brown would want to meet me and obviously we'd fall in love and get married and have lots of lovely beardy children and live in a house full of stuffed animals. Sigh.
But instead, I like to play Russian Roulette with food. Every so often I'll forgo my usual brand of whatever and buy the 'basics' 'value' 'savers' 'no frills' version and see how it does. When it works, finding you only have to spend 13p on a can of chopped tomatoes in the future can be immensely gratifying. This week's purchase was Sainsbury's Basics Corn Flakes. For the record: nasty.
But instead, I like to play Russian Roulette with food. Every so often I'll forgo my usual brand of whatever and buy the 'basics' 'value' 'savers' 'no frills' version and see how it does. When it works, finding you only have to spend 13p on a can of chopped tomatoes in the future can be immensely gratifying. This week's purchase was Sainsbury's Basics Corn Flakes. For the record: nasty.
Monday, April 02, 2007
Did you see Baby Faced Bodybuilders on BBC3 tonight? Now I knew that body builders have long used fake tan to 'highlight' their muscle definition but it seems that nowadays they just look like something out of the Black & White Minstrel Show. You'd think the PC brigade might have something to say about that.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Very nice news indeed
Congratulations to my dear friends Sarah & Andy who had a beautiful 7lb* baby girl at home in their kitchen on Tuesday. All went very well, and the midwife was absolutely brilliant apparently...**
They've just got to name her now, because the nickname she had during pregnancy, Little Barry, doesn't seem quite so apt now.
*'medium-sized' according to Andy
**well, it was me, so of course she was
They've just got to name her now, because the nickname she had during pregnancy, Little Barry, doesn't seem quite so apt now.
*'medium-sized' according to Andy
**well, it was me, so of course she was
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
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