Categories: uncategorized
Date: 04 February 2005 19:21:13
This morning one of the people I work with told me that last night she had found out that her younger sister (aged 40) has a tumour on her lung, almost certainly due to smoking as there is no family history of cancer, and it looks like there is a very poor prognosis. She is understandably devastated, and it made me want to phone up everyone I know who smokes (particularly one very special person) and plead with them to stop. I know I can't do that (and wouldn't), but there have been a few times when I've nursed someone who's been a heavy smoker through some horrible horrible symptoms and treatments, and I desperately don't want my loved ones to have to go through any of that. Sometimes I tear up just thinking about it.
With that cheerful start to the morning, I then went to see one of my clients. She is one of the clients who really, really, really gets on my nerves, one of those who makes my eyes roll and my heart sink when I know she's in clinic or on the phone. Anyway, I did what I had to do and was just putting on my coat to go when out of the blue she asked me (as many of my clients do) if I have any kids of my own. I gave her my usual pat answer (along the lines of no I'm too busy losing sleep over you lot) and then she asked me about "my husband". This totally caught me on the hop, and I made some comment about the generally crap state of my relationships, without particularly giving anything away, but it was just enough dropping of my "professional" guard for her to suddenly really open up about her own (infinitely more crappy than anything I've ever been through) relationship and her past history, stuff that she's never told me or (as far as I can tell from the notes) the previous health visitor. It was one of those moments when you know you're privileged to do the job you do (don't worry, I'm still going to leave though! lol). I desperately wanted to say "for goodness sake dump him, he's a good-for-nothing ****." But that would have been very unprofessional, so instead I said that I probably wasn't the best person to talk to about relationships as I was nearly as disastrous as her at them. Which probably was very unprofessional as well, but it did get a smile out of her.
It's funny. You get satisfaction from the strangest, most unexpected sources in this job.