Paulos the Greek

Nurse who isn't as young as he likes to think he is. My wife is a priest in the Church of England. Everything on this blog is true. But not necessarily factual. Tweet me @PaulosG (ps: not actually Greek).

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Umm. It’s been a while.

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Paulos the Greek turned 8 today! And how life has changed in that time.

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Tales from the ward

Helping an elderly lady onto the commode. She's part way on. We encourage her to move back further in the seat. 'I'm too knackered,' she says. 'I'm pissing now.' And she does. All over the floor. HCA scuttles off to get some cleaning stuff. When she comes back I advise her that if she's measuring urine output it's about four foot long to which the elderly lady replies, 'Your prick's not that big!'

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End of shift face-swap with my eyebrow stylist.

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Making plans to meet my lil sister for a drink tomorrow.

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Seven years ago today Father Wife presided at her first eucharist. I took this before she was fully robed while she prepared for the service. A few days earlier we were out for a meal. Over dinner FW was telling me about how her colleagues at the Cathedral had been helping her prepare to officiate at her first mass/eucharist/communion. As a caring husband who wished to support his wife I felt I should offer some advice. “If you accidentally knock the chalice over don’t yell, ‘Oh bollocks! I’ve spilled Jesus.’” Words to live by. I think she was deeply moved.

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I've decided to rewrite some nursery rhymes to help me process the whole post-referendum mess:

Borgie Jorgie Pudding and Pie Told the Electorate A big fat lie When the Electorate Came out to play Borgie Jorgie Ran away. **** Johnson and Gove Went up a hill To fetch a pail of water. Johnson fell down And broke his crown Because Gove stabbed him in the back. **** Bompty Jompty sat on a wall Bompty Jompty had a great fall All the King's horses And all the King's men Left him wallowing in his own mess as it was his own fault for sitting on a wall which didn't comply with EU building regulations. **** I admit that I may need to work on my rhyming a little bit.

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Some thoughts on the EU Referendum.

By Paul Glen, aged 47-and-a-half.

It's not been a particularly edifying process, has it? People on both sides accusing the other side of being idiots, lies, deliberate misrepresentation and slipping in a reference to the Nazis every now and then. Apparently we shouldn't trust the experts. And if a celebrity gives their opinion apparently we shouldn't trust them as they don't know anything. It's getting rather tedious, he said with typical British understatement.

When I was a lad the world seemed a somewhat scary place. We were heading for nuclear war after all. I had the lyrics of John Lennon's "Imagine" pinned on my bedroom wall. I played Queen's "Is This The World We Created?" over and over. But there were glimmers of hope. The Berlin Wall came down. Apartheid ended in South Africa. And the girl with the long red, wavy hair and crooked smile touched me in a special place. More recently a black man became President of the United States and America lifted its embargoes with Cuba. But the world is still full of division.

I work for an NHS Trust on a ward which forms part of a unit comprised of three wards. I recently had the opportunity to spend a month on each of the other two wards. The people I work with are a diverse bunch. Different genders, sexualities, religions (or none), political affiliations, ideologies and widely varying eyebrow styles. But when we have a patient who needs us none of that matters. The staff who work on these wards come from a wide variety of backgrounds. There are Poles, Spaniards, South Africans, Australians, Phillipinos, English, Zimbabweans and more. And we work together, in an imperfect system, for the greater good of others.

Those of you with an IQ greater than that of a sausage can see where I'm going with this. Yes, there are problems in this world of ours. Seems to me there always will be when people are involved. And maybe I'm naïve and idealistic but I believe in hope. I believe that when we transcend those things which divide us we can work together to make the world a better place than how we found it.

So lies, damned lies and statistics be damned. For all its faults, I'm voting to remain a member of the European Union.

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What if?

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Tales from the ward

I had an interesting conversation with a patient yesterday. It went something like this:

Patient: Paul, do you think I need a new scrotum box?

Me: Er, what now?!

Patient: Well it’s just that I’ve been spitting in it for two days now and I’m not sure if I need a new one.

Me: Are you sure you mean scrotum?

Patient: Yeah. The stuff I keep spitting out.

Me: That’s called sputum.

Patient: Oh. So what’s scrotum then?

Me: It’s your balls mate!

Patient: My what?

Me: Your balls. Testicles.

Patient: Huh. Well you learn something every day.

Cue everyone in hearing distance dissolving in fits of laughter.

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Via email from my Glaswegian Dad

Approximately thirty minutes into an outbound evening flight from Glasgow the lead flight attendant for the cabin crew nervously made the following, painful, announcement:

"Ladies and gentlemen, I'm so very sorry, but it appears that there has been a terrible mix-up by our airport catering service. I don't know how this has happened but we have 103 passengers on board and, unfortunately, only 40 dinner meals. I truly apologise for this mistake and inconvenience."

When passengers' muttering had died down, she continued:

"Anyone who is kind enough to give up their meal so that someone else can eat will receive free drinks for the duration of our 5 hour flight." . . . Her next announcement came 90 minutes later:

"If anyone would like to change their minds, we still have 40 dinners available."

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Hey, Tumblr. It's a while since I've done one of these. Cheers!

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It's a chilling on the swing bench kind of a day.

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Current status.

I need a nap.

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Something I just said to Father Wife

'I'm glad we're not American. You'd've shot me by now.'

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Nursing faux pas

I laid a patient flat in her bed to provide personal care and check for pressure sores. After finishing I used the bed controls to put her back upright. I asked her if she’d also like me to raise her feet. At which point I remembered she’d had bilateral above-knee amputations.

Oops!

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Something Father Wife just said to me

I will put your balls in a vice, bloody woman of the cloth or not!