I came to on the floor ! A wave of nausea swept over me as my vision and hearing returned vaguely to normal !
The doctor still had one hand on the syringe and the largest needle I'd ever seen was up to it's hilt in it's targeted vein !
His voice was full of utter wonder and contempt as he looked down on me, literally, and said, " Are you all right Nurse Nash ? Surely, you must have told Matron you suffered from needle aversion phobia before you chose to enter the profession ? Is the NHS that short-staffed that it has to take on people like you ? "
"Now for goodness sake get up and continue helping me establish a drip in this patients arm !"
I hauled myself to my knees and then my feet in a very ungainly manner, rather in the reverse style of a dog settling itself into it's basket, before repositioning myself beside the patient!
I'd fainted and dropped like a ton of bricks when I saw the tip pierce the flesh as I stood applying pressure to the patients bicep to make the veins stand up !
I supposed I'd failed my first really big test as an auxiliary nurse !
Mind you, when Sister told me to phone for a doctor at 3am for him to come and insert the drip needle, the doctor who I'd woken from his brief and exhausted couple of hours rest begged me to do the job myself and only reluctantly agreed to come when I explained that it was my first ever day or as it happened, night, as a nurse !
Actually the doctor who had really begged me to do something myself was the one who could barely drag himself to catheterise a male patient by pushing the nozzle of a tube of anaesthetic gel up the poor man's doodah before sliding his tightly squeezed thumb and first finger along the tube forcing the aforementioned organ to look like a snake swallowing a horse whole !
I didn't actually faint that time but did feel slightly uneasy in a way only a man can feel uneasy !
So I guess that I really failed rather badly !
I've actually FAILED at very little in life but I have given up in exasperation at many things, mainly caused by my disbelief in the uselessness of others !
I was not unsuccessful with women once I'd realised that they are all insecure and only need a little flattery and a show of being interested in their entire life's problems to make their underwear much easier to remove ! " Oh No ! " unzip " Oh ! How awful ! " yank " You must have been devastated !" tug " And how did you get through that ?" unclip " And you chose these curtains ? How wonderful ! " pull " I just can't believe that ! " GOAL !!! " Rurlytellmemorezzzzzzz" ( Chaps: Allow three and a half minutes for the entire process ! I'm DEAD ! )
I can think of two foolish women who finished with me and many more who I became suddenly totally bored with, probably because they wanted to tell me about themselves rather than listen to the far more entertaining tales I preferred them to listen to about me !
No names but one of the world's most beautiful creatures said that she'd love to come out with me when I met her whilst working at the London Boat Show and she couldn't believe how long she'd been praying that I'd ask !
Sadly, my parents offered to take us with them on a night in town and I was so embarrassed by my mother's topics of conversation that I couldn't bear to see the girl again !
She actually asked her what size bra she wore as she had some spare ones that this creature from heaven might like !
And there I'd been sitting shortly before, drooling and wondering what treasures were hidden from view !
Passion killed stone dead !
She couldn't understand it and I couldn't explain !
No it wasn't Julia Roberts and Notting Hill was not made as a thinly veiled homage to my life !
I think that it was about then that my father, a doctor said he was worried that I was deeply unhappy and unsettled and might like to talk to a colleague in the local mental hospital !
Well the truth is that aged twenty and having given up women's underwear design ( true ! ) at Art College through boredom and starvation brought about by utter poverty, caused by buying rolls of silk for my design ideas instead of food for my stomach, I moved to Brighton which in the early 1970's was the centre of the universe, where, pretending to be gay at a party I met a girl and we saw the next year and a half go by glued to each other or so I thought until she glued herself to someone else instead !
I had become an auxillary nurse at The Royal Sussex Hospital; a position which guaranteed that I would be treated like something that had just crawled out of the gutter by just about every other medical professional and patient that I came into contact with, which was a lot of people !
But as I have never suffered from low self-esteem, I wasn't bothered. In fact I thought then and still do that I am at least as good as most of the rest of the world !
As detestable as that sounds, I was a very good nurse who even managed to sometimes stay awake throughout a whole nightshift on an orthopaedic ward after spending all day sunbathing on the beach !
I only once missed sister's silent approach as she regularly crept up behind me demanding to know if I was awake or whether I was ignoring several patient's cries for help on purpose, hoping that they would either shut up and go back to sleep or limp on their crutches to fetch their own bed pans !
She knew and I knew that I had been asleep but she also knew that she was a sexual predator who had the hots for me !
I only hadn't sorted her out because she ate onion sandwiches every night and I found her breath rather a passion killer ! Not any more I wouldn't !
I was the man to call for if a patient needed a good clean-up after an episode of double incontinence !
And I don't think we had rubber gloves or hand gel then, just a bucket of bleach to rinse off in afterwards !
I was the man to pick up gangrenous testicles which had fallen on the floor during dressing changes !
I was the man to pack fist-sized bedsores with honey as my skinny fingers could manipulate themselves around the back of exposed spinal columns !
I was the man to send to shave terrified women before appendectomies and to take sickly nuns to the toilet !
I was skinny, bearded, long-haired, perpetually happy and funny but far from accepting things as I saw them, I wanted answers to why and what.
Eventually a gay Irish Charge Nurse, the male equivalent of 'Sister' summoned me into his office and told me to stop bothering nurses by asking them things for which they and I had no need to know !
I immediately lost all my enthusiasm for the job and deeply irritated with the charge nurse, went and saw the matron and left !
What a loss to the profession.
I had another string to my bow as I had started making rings from the stones on the beach which I mounted on a long stick and sold walking around Brighton barefoot, wearing an ankle-length pink silk Chinese dressing gown !
Sadly, there are no photos of this period of my life so you'll just have to believe me!
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