Close quartering with intensive care operations provides uncomfortable insights. Your cloak of ‘invisibility’ enables close observation. On one occasion police appeared at the nurses’ station. My radar told me something was amiss with the latest arrival next to us. Snatches of conversation came drifting across to me.
The man in his 40s had extensive brain injuries. He had been alone and unconscious for many hours. Pronounced ‘brain dead’ on arrival, it seemed he had been the victim of some form of misadventure, warranting a coronial inquiry. Various male relatives or friends arrived during the late afternoon to hear the bad news and pay their last respects. At some point, his closest kin gave permission to turn life support off and that was that. He was gone. During the course of an afternoon, a drama played out in the streets of our largest city ended in a man’s death in the next bed.
In a lighter vein, one of the senior registrars was a ‘fang merchant’. I rarely saw her without a consumable. On arrival, she would eat and drink, heading off in the direction of in-house eateries at every opportunity. She snacked relentlessly, between wandering the unit like an authoritative behemoth, issuing instructions and declarations in all directions. This emissary of the “Red Queen” never acknowledged my existence, which was a blessed relief. I mused on a snippet of Carroll’s rhetorical nonsense that fitted the scene:
‘A slow sort of country!’ said the Queen. ‘Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that.’
We were running standing still, and not getting anywhere fast. I marvelled at the studied patience and quiescence of experienced nurses in the face of such wanton displays of hubris and self-importance. It was humbling to witness their discipline under fire, especially toward the end of a demanding shift.
The amazing nurse cohort came from all over the world. There was a ‘jordy’ from the north of England, Irish and Scots. I met an African, a Norwegian and a Canadian amongst the group. Asian nurses – from the Philippines, Thailand, India, Sri Lanka and China – were in a majority. While Nurse Managers and many of the senior ICU nurses were mostly native born there was a preponderance of registrars from Sri Lanka and India, countries where there is, ironically, a culturally based obsequiousness to status and authority.
Drives to recruit foreign nursing and medical staff on short stay visas have clearly plugged personnel gaps in areas of the labyrinth. Nevertheless, what does it say about long-term human resource planning in this essential service area? State and Federal Governments have served us poorly over decades.
A highlight of ICU days was the rousing support of family and friends. It is impossible to put too much emphasis on their role in getting me through. Large labyrinths are bewildering and hide their inner workings, but they can conjure a strange healing alchemy between people. The occasional kind native provides fleeting engagement and solace, but it is difficult to shake the sense of being an outsider in an industrial space with the warmth and charm of a dressed up dystopia. Yet, a veritable magic enlivened shared experiences with people close to me.
It was hard for visiting friends. Confronted with a comatose Carolie, swollen beyond recognition, their shock was writ large. Many poor souls do not survive their journey in the labyrinth. A lot needs to go right and close support from others is an amazing fillip for patients and family. In our case, lapsed friendships suddenly came back to life; distant friends sent healing thoughts. Visits from close family and friends helped me take stock of thoughts and emotions, which ran unchecked most of the time.
Our son visited spasmodically as he was settling into a new life as an acting student and share tenant in Sydney. He coped with the ‘coma’ phase rather well, sometimes helping to calm his anxious father. His years of working in a pharmacy had left him sanguine about the application of the hospital pharmacopoeia.
Some friends visited when I was not at the bedside and these provided a different succour; it comforted me to know someone was on vigil when I stood down for personal maintenance. They were there for her and that mattered a lot in the scheme of things. An occasional quiet lunch or dinner with family and people who knew me well was therapeutic in that I could download some of the angst and try to talk about something else for an hour or so.
A reiki practitioner focussed her healing technique from afar. My yoga class in Canberra channeled healing messages. School kids sent messages of love and healing wishes. We were going to need all their love and support.
To be continued...
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