As I have previously pointed out, I am a fairly easy-going and most forgiving person. Why I even forgave my girlfriend for breaking a bed and burning down my toilet.
At first I was a little resentful when she bullied me into being a psychiatric nurse during the summer break from university. The first time I wiped a woman's bum, the first time I held a guy's dick while he peed, the first time I laid out a dead body - on all these occasions I managed to shrug off my resentment towards the person I held responsible for putting me in such situations. In any case - and to my utter amazement - I was having a ball.
The hospital's initial plan was to rotate the various male nurses through the maximum-security women's ward, with a new guy being placed there each month. The reality was that my term in the women's ward just kept being extended on a weekly basis. This was somewhat flattering - I felt a bit like some singing idol whose Vegas run was extended because of audience demand! But, of course, mine was very much a "captive audience".
The dilemma was not that I was irreplaceable. Far from it. It was just that most of the guys in this field were either very serious about the job and enormously dedicated to psychiatric nursing as a career, or they were men who perceived their role to be much like that of a prison warder or a night-club bouncer. Neither type was really interested in spending a month as an all-singing, all-tap-dancing nurse-entertainer! Looking back, I can understand their reluctance. After all, for me it was just a holiday job - I would soon be handing in my notice and heading back to university. I was a mere dilettante, bobbing about like a champagne cork in a sea of earnestness.
So, week after week, my stay with "the girls" was repeatedly extended and, eventually, we reached the point where I just had to turn in my notice in time for the first semester of second-year law. I had dreaded this moment because I would need to confess that I had never really been intent on a nursing career. Yet again, I was a bit annoyed with my girlfriend, Julia, for getting me into this pickle in the first place. And yet again I was able to forgive her. At the time she was the acting Director of Nursing and she somehow smoothed things over and I never heard a single tut-tut from anyone.
On my last day, we had a magnificent morning tea in the locked women's ward and I received lots of hugs and kisses from elderly dementia patients who probably thought I was their grandson. I played an old war-time song called "We'll Meet Again" on the piano and most of the ladies sang along in a key of their own choosing. And then we formed one last conga line in order to head into the dining hall for lunch. Even though we laughed a lot, I was a bit teary by the time lunch was over.
That afternoon, as I packed up my portable gramophone, guitar and LP's, I received a telephone call from Julia. She explained that she was a nurse short in the ward for alcoholics transitioning into the community. Apparently an AA meeting was to be held there that afternoon and she needed a nurse to sit in.
"But I know nothing about how to run an AA meeting" I protested.
"There's nothing to it" she replied. "They all know what to do. They pretty much run it by themselves, but we must have a nurse present to verify that a proper meeting did actually take place."
So, reluctantly, I trudged over to the ward concerned. I had always imagined - perhaps naively - that AA meetings were confidential to the participants, that outsiders were not welcome. Apparently this was not the case in a psychiatric hospital.
All the guys were ready to go when I arrived, their chairs grouped in a circle and the television turned off. Just as we were about to begin, a chap named Ed turned up and took a seat. Ed was in his fifties and was a long-term patient who had evolved into a permanent fixture around the place. He shared a small cottage on campus with another old-timer and the pair of them mowed lawns and weeded the hospital grounds. I knew little about him other than that he had been around "forever" and that he was regarded as harmless.
A fairly routine and dreary meeting ensued, and I was close to nodding off when one of the regulars pointed out that this was the first meeting Ed had ever attended. I gathered that it was incumbent upon Ed to stand up and say something about himself.
He rose to his feet and said: "My name is Ed and I am not an alcoholic."
And that's when I made my big mistake. I was actually enquiring about his reason for attending the meeting when I said: "So why are you here Ed?"
He apparently thought I was asking why he was in a psychiatric hospital. His reply took my breath away.
"I fuck chickens" he said.
Well, I'm sure I blushed and I know I had no idea what to say or do next. All the regular attendees just fell about laughing and the meeting came to a quick conclusion.
I later checked out Ed's story. And he really did have an unfortunate penchant for fucking chickens!
I had forgiven Julia so many things over the previous few months, but this was the final straw. An allegedly routine meeting had left me feeling queasy about KFC for the rest of my life!
At first I was a little resentful when she bullied me into being a psychiatric nurse during the summer break from university. The first time I wiped a woman's bum, the first time I held a guy's dick while he peed, the first time I laid out a dead body - on all these occasions I managed to shrug off my resentment towards the person I held responsible for putting me in such situations. In any case - and to my utter amazement - I was having a ball.
The hospital's initial plan was to rotate the various male nurses through the maximum-security women's ward, with a new guy being placed there each month. The reality was that my term in the women's ward just kept being extended on a weekly basis. This was somewhat flattering - I felt a bit like some singing idol whose Vegas run was extended because of audience demand! But, of course, mine was very much a "captive audience".
The dilemma was not that I was irreplaceable. Far from it. It was just that most of the guys in this field were either very serious about the job and enormously dedicated to psychiatric nursing as a career, or they were men who perceived their role to be much like that of a prison warder or a night-club bouncer. Neither type was really interested in spending a month as an all-singing, all-tap-dancing nurse-entertainer! Looking back, I can understand their reluctance. After all, for me it was just a holiday job - I would soon be handing in my notice and heading back to university. I was a mere dilettante, bobbing about like a champagne cork in a sea of earnestness.
So, week after week, my stay with "the girls" was repeatedly extended and, eventually, we reached the point where I just had to turn in my notice in time for the first semester of second-year law. I had dreaded this moment because I would need to confess that I had never really been intent on a nursing career. Yet again, I was a bit annoyed with my girlfriend, Julia, for getting me into this pickle in the first place. And yet again I was able to forgive her. At the time she was the acting Director of Nursing and she somehow smoothed things over and I never heard a single tut-tut from anyone.
On my last day, we had a magnificent morning tea in the locked women's ward and I received lots of hugs and kisses from elderly dementia patients who probably thought I was their grandson. I played an old war-time song called "We'll Meet Again" on the piano and most of the ladies sang along in a key of their own choosing. And then we formed one last conga line in order to head into the dining hall for lunch. Even though we laughed a lot, I was a bit teary by the time lunch was over.
That afternoon, as I packed up my portable gramophone, guitar and LP's, I received a telephone call from Julia. She explained that she was a nurse short in the ward for alcoholics transitioning into the community. Apparently an AA meeting was to be held there that afternoon and she needed a nurse to sit in.
"But I know nothing about how to run an AA meeting" I protested.
"There's nothing to it" she replied. "They all know what to do. They pretty much run it by themselves, but we must have a nurse present to verify that a proper meeting did actually take place."
So, reluctantly, I trudged over to the ward concerned. I had always imagined - perhaps naively - that AA meetings were confidential to the participants, that outsiders were not welcome. Apparently this was not the case in a psychiatric hospital.
All the guys were ready to go when I arrived, their chairs grouped in a circle and the television turned off. Just as we were about to begin, a chap named Ed turned up and took a seat. Ed was in his fifties and was a long-term patient who had evolved into a permanent fixture around the place. He shared a small cottage on campus with another old-timer and the pair of them mowed lawns and weeded the hospital grounds. I knew little about him other than that he had been around "forever" and that he was regarded as harmless.
A fairly routine and dreary meeting ensued, and I was close to nodding off when one of the regulars pointed out that this was the first meeting Ed had ever attended. I gathered that it was incumbent upon Ed to stand up and say something about himself.
He rose to his feet and said: "My name is Ed and I am not an alcoholic."
And that's when I made my big mistake. I was actually enquiring about his reason for attending the meeting when I said: "So why are you here Ed?"
He apparently thought I was asking why he was in a psychiatric hospital. His reply took my breath away.
"I fuck chickens" he said.
Well, I'm sure I blushed and I know I had no idea what to say or do next. All the regular attendees just fell about laughing and the meeting came to a quick conclusion.
I later checked out Ed's story. And he really did have an unfortunate penchant for fucking chickens!
I had forgiven Julia so many things over the previous few months, but this was the final straw. An allegedly routine meeting had left me feeling queasy about KFC for the rest of my life!
