Nothing to celebrate here!

I don’t know about you but life just feels Meh ( if that’s still a term) at the moment. Everything feels off and it is getting harder and harder to find the little joys in life with so much going on in the world right now. Yesterday was the culmination of Nurses’ week celebrations culminating with celebration of International Nurses’ Day which ironically ( for us Black Nurses) falls on Florence Nightingales birthday! There is a lot to unpack there but that is a rant for another day even though it could be argued that it does fit in with the sentiments i am about to express which is that it is getting harder and harder to find anything to celebrate about Nursing or being a Nurse more so a Black Nurse.

Nurses, who are the backbone of healthcare services all over the world and beyond are tired and feeling under constant assault. We are undervalued, underpaid,overworked and no one seems to want to hear our voices or opinions on how our livelihoods and those of our patients can be improved. Nursing is under assault and it is worldwide. Systems everywhere are out to get us and no one feels that pinch more acutely than us Black Nurses and i am tired and frankly do not feel like celebrating anything nursing at the moment. I know that for those of you have been brought up to believe that Nursing is give-all-no-complaint-noble-godly-self sacrificing vocation, this might seem as a ungrateful thing to say but unfortunately it is the reality.

Racism still has its foot on our necks despite report after report highlighting the far reaching consequences of the effects of racism on Black Nurses and although everyone acts surprised and expresses their displeasure the status quo is truly and firmly maintained or worse. It's like perpetrators and their over lords get more oxygen to double down and dream of more ways to heap misery. Cut pay, overwork them,remove any form of family support or any support for that matter, while making them jump all manner of hoops that they would be forgiven for thinking they were working in a circus. So no, there is nothing to celebrate here. Nursing is under attack and Black Nurses are bearing a huge chunk of this full on assault! I for one do not have the energy nor the required bandwith to celebrate. So until things change and the over lords start valuing nursing and the important part Black Nurses play in propping up healthcare systems worldwide and paying us our worth, there will be no celebrations.

WHAT'S IN A NAME? When being Kenyan saved my Nursing job!

I would be lying if i said i have never really given much thought to my name(s), after all they are me, my identity even during the times i have rebelled against said names! My whole life has been defined by my names so it came as no surprise when my career was about to be defined by them, even i did not see in what way.

I have ( and I know, many other Black people/ Nurses) lived and worked in a world where my name determined whether I got a job interview, whether I got a job, whether I got promoted or paid equally as my peers! You get it! My name seemed to be a barrier, so when the opposite happened and it became my saving grace, I was very surprised to say the least.

Working for an agency or the nurse bank gives you the flexibility to choose your working hours as well as where it is you would like to work. You also get to work with different teams on different wards and develop working relationships (or not), and this knowledge is often filtered through the various agency/trust bank grapevines. Which wards/units and teams were okay and which to avoid. This meant that there were wards/units that always struggled to get their vacancies filled and the ward and duty managers got clever. They devised ways to get these vacancies filled, unbeknown to us by creating false vacancies within the popular wards/units thus taking away choice, safety nets and in some cases putting patient safety at risk.

I got caught up in these ‘work houdiniships’ on a couple of occasions and apart of causing a of angst and disorientation, they also caused pay disputes with regards to who was meant to sign the timesheets and whose budget the pay would come from! you ended up chasing payments weeks after you had completed your shift. So, i tried to avoid them as much as possible, but oneday i got caught up in one houdiniship from hell.

I had booked a shift on a ward that i knew very well as i had worked on this particular ward as a permanent staff member before and knew the staff and the layout well. I turned up for my shift, bright and early only to be told that they were fully staffed and did not need me and had not booked me! I called the trust bank to let them know what was happening and was told that yes i was indeed booked in for that ward but was meant to work elsewhere to go help with washes and be the healthcare assistant for the day. The ward i was to be sent to was one everyone avoided due to how rude the staff there were making it a very unpleasant ward to work on, hence why they struggled to fill any vacancies. I declined and stated that i would rather go back home as the whole essence of agency/bank work was the freedom and ability to be able to choose when and where you worked, a point that neither the trust bank call handler nor the duty manager took kindly to and i was threatened with referral to the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) for breaking the patient safety code of conduct by leaving the hospital short staffed.

I left the ward after explaining the situation to the manager and matron and went home. On my way home, i received a call from the trust bank informing me that i had been suspended and all pending shifts cancelled pending an internal investigation, and that my return to working for the trust bank would be dependent on the outcome of the investigation. I was annoyed that they would do that and i was confident that nothing would come of the investigation as i had done nothing wrong! So i told her that while i felt it was unfair, their action, given that i was a full time bank worker, i would await the outcome of the investigation. I was then told to write a statement of events, which i did and emailed it to the head of the trust bank as requested.

Two weeks later i received an email from the head of the trust bank asking me to report to her office. Being summoned is never a pleasant experience but i was surprised this time. It was a friendly setting and a very relaxed chat. She said she wanted to meet me and talk to me face to face before she decided how the investigation was to proceed. She proceeded to ask me where i was from as my name reminded her of a brilliant Kenyan Doctor she had worked with years ago at a previous trust. We talked about all things Kenya and how while my name was similar to the Doctors, we were not related in anyway and that i had never met him, let alone met anyone with the same surname as mine professionally during my working career in the NHS.

She then asked me to narrate what happened on the day, which i did and i also told her how common these houdiniships were becoming especially when the duty manager was the same one who had been on shift on that day and how on many occasions, she had moved me to wards where i was way out of my depth, like surgical trauma and when i voiced concerns she had replied that i was a qualified nurse with a PIN. This is when, i was informed of the complaint the duty manager had written, claiming that she had requested me to go to a different ward to help cover due to a crash call and i had refused. It was the first time i was hearing of this false account of events. I told her that she could confirm with the ward manager who had taken the call and spoken to the duty manager and then relayed the message to me, that there was no crash call and that i would not have refused to go to that ward nor left if that was the case! I also got to hear of the letter of support from the ward manager and matron decrying the drastic measure that had been taken to suspend me.

She then told me she had wanted to look me in the eye when talking to me, as she could not believe that a Kenyan would behave in the way that the duty manager had described, because she had worked with Doctor Onyango and other Kenyans and they were all very good at their jobs, reliable,honest, hardworking and put patient safety above all else, so she could not believe that i had been negligent. She had also looked at my file and in the five plus years i worked for them and there had been no complaints made against me nor any caution on my file. She lifted my suspension but said she would keep a note on my file for two weeks and if no issues arose during the investigation, then my file would be wiped clean.

I later found out that the duty manager was sacked after complaints from other nurses about her attitude and false statements amongst other things. I would like to say that houdiniships are a thing of the past but that’s not the case, unfortunately and because the largest agency/bank workforce are from the Global Majority, they bear the brunt of vexatious complaints. I picked up a great assertive tip from (yes), a brilliant Kenyan Nurse for those times you find yourself in a houdiniship:

“State that your skills set do not apply on that ward that you are being moved to, however, if they are happy to guarantee a waiver in writing that they will take full responsibility for any clinical and safety shortcomings that could potentially or accidentally occur, then you are more than happy to work on the new ward!”

I still haven’t met this Doctor Onyango but if he ever reads this, i would like to say a big thank you/erokamano and also a very big thank you to all my fellow Kenyan Healthcare Workers out there.

x

Shamim aka The Wandering Nurse.

The Busyness of DYING!

Hi, welcome to another episode on the wandering nurse podcast.

This episode is about me rambling on about Men's boxer shorts and my personal issues around death and my own mortality.

Psst... Let me tell you a secret.

Please allow me to interrupt your scrolling as I bring you News about boxershorts and not those fancy boy shorts but plain old Jersey mens boxer shorts! Lend me your ears, for you will not want to miss this piece of life changing news!

I have reached that age where i value comfort above all else. I don’t have time for fancy underwear that make me wonder what my femoral artery did to them, as they try to cut off my blood supply! and do not get me started on thongs! Why someone would want to walk around with a constant wedgie and sore bum crack is beyond me, but if that is your thing, much respect to you.

It is not much to ask for some level of comfort out of the many contraptions we are required to wear and it looks like i am not alone in this thinking because the history of women’s underwear has somewhat come full circle from drawers in the 18th century to 21st century boy shorts gaining popularity. So when my sister called me a couple of months ago to inform me that she was now wearing her husbands underwear, courtesy of her having forgotten to do her laundry, hence running out of clean panties and that from then henceforth she would be wearing his underwear! I laughed as it was soo her ( she does the most random things, like calling me yesterday as an emergency, just to let me know that Aquaman had been returned to sender- her words), any way i digress.

So i found myself one lazy morning adopting her sharing is caring ways and that is when i realised we had truly been conned as women! The levels of ease and comfort i got from the boxer shorts was on another level. My femoral artery could now do it’s God given work unhindered plus everything was all held in one place, comfortably . So i quickly used my Amazon prime addiction( it is a thing) to find women’s boy shorts and 48hours and quick wash and dry later , i was the proud owner of a couple of packs.

They unfortunately turned out as another con , like everything else marketed to women( like how are women’s shaving razors so expensive, while the same make of Men’s are cheaper and do the same job?). They were not as comfortable and by now i should have learnt that most of these concepts only work on industry size/ shaped women’s bodies ! So off i marched to Primark ( i was not about to spend premium money! i was not aiming to look like David Gandy or Beckham, see underwear adverts for reference) and bought me a pack of cheap as chips, men’s jersey boxer shorts underwear and lets us just say, i have not looked back since( well except for the odd days, mother nature pays her monthly visits and reenforcement trounce comfort)

Don’t take our word for it( we may just be a pair of mad sisters ). Go and get yourself a pair and you can thank me later! For those who already knew this secret and did not share, may your bum cracks be forever sore .Thank you for listening/reading and normal service shall resume next week .

P/S- they are a hundred percent cotton ( all round goodness for your ladybits!)

The Busyness of DYING.

January 29 2023

Today i was completely paralysed in bed, i could not get up, i felt like i could not breathe, like i had to train my body onto how to draw breath. This has been happening a lot lately, not the paralysed in bed part but the feeling like i can not breathe, like i am having a panic attack. I keep on telling myself that I'm probably too stressed for my own good.

My dad had called, very early in the morning, which is unlike him, so that spooked me and when i called back i expected the worst and yes it was bad news, a friend of a friends had died and while i did not know her that well, i had known her enough to feel saddened by her death and the family she leaves behind. This reminded me of life and how short it is and i was reminded of something that i have become aware of lately, in the past couple of years: I have been soo busy dying that i have forgotten to live!

To understand my busyness with dying, we have to go back a couple of decades to when i think the trauma of death and dying started, but i wasn’t aware of it till later( self reflection and introspection and all!). A friends wife shared a video post about childhood trauma of her talking about how she can not nurse any of her family members and gets annoyed when her husband falls sick as all she can think of is that he is going to die. It was a post i could totally relate to because i was the same, having looked after loved ones from a young age and watched most of them die, i had not realised how those experiences had affected me. Despite being a nurse by profession, i totally freeze when any of my family members are sick, i go into withdrawal mode and sometimes even anger, angry about why they are weak and have fallen sick. I literally struggle to look after them in any capacity and i had not realised that it was a trauma reaction caused by my childhood experiences of being a carer for several relatives and for my own mother as well.

But while witnessing those that i loved and cared about die around me definetly instilled the fear of nursing those close to me, my busyness with dying was majorly sparked by the death of my Mother. My mother died at the tender age of 46. When you are a child, you always see your parents as old and rarely think of their lives as individual people outside their role of being your parent. The significance of her age at death( which i only found out years later as i never knew her year or day of birth till later after her death) only hit me when i became a parent( although it took time for me to realise it).

Becoming a parent really changes your perspective of the world at large, suddenly everything is frightening and dangerous and all you want to do is to protect this/these little beings that are now dependent on you who do not come with an instruction manual. It is literally on a wing and a prayer and sometimes on lots of unsolicited, unhelpful advice! And also it is from your childhood experiences of how you were parented or how you witnessed others being parented. You suddenly start to see your parents through and from a different lens. You start to wonder and be interested in their lives as individuals, as parents, what their hopes and dreams were and you also start to measure yourself via their milestones ( or maybe that's just me).

I found myself calculating my mothers age at different stages and milestones of her life: how old she was when she had her first child, my half-brother? How old was she when she got married and had me? How old she was she had my other half siblings, you get the picture, and i would then compare her milestones to my own. It helped me know and try to understand her better, helped me try to understand the decisions she made ( good, bad and ugly). It also shaped my parenting skills and what experiences and skills i wanted my children to have and each time something went wrong or they didn’t meet my expectations at that moment, i would find myself telling them that i was doing/teaching them (whatever it was at that time) so that they would be able to stand on their own two feet and look after themselves when i was not around! It was all so automatic that it never occurred to me that from the day they were born, i had been preparing my children for my death.

I had built my whole life structure, work, experiences, memories, everything around my death. I was so busy dying that i was not living, not living my dreams and aspirations, not giving my self any grace or leeway to get anything wrong. I was constantly on a schedule to get everything done and done right so that when i was dead, my children would not struggle.

Talk about unresolved childhood trauma! In my head, i could not possibly outlive my mother ( why i thought that is something i still have not figured out, given that i could go with my dad and live well into my nineties! But that is a story for another day).

So you must be wondering what all this has got to do with my being paralysed in bed, suffering from what seems like a panic attack, willing myself to breathe? Well it has everything to do with it, because this year i turn 45, which means i only have one more year to live ( if my fears are anything to go by!). My children, ( who might need therapy later), thank God ,are

on their way to becoming individual, wholesome adults and i was in a great place spiritually. In all sense and purposes i had accomplished what i had set out to do and i was ready, but was I? Why was i lying in bed paralysed with fear, unable to breathe? Why was i having frequent panic like attacks? The truth is, i don’t know! All i know is that somewhere along the line, i had completely forgotten to live, i had been so focused and wound up in being busy trying to prepare my family for my death that when i finally thought i had achieved that, i realised that i did not know what to do. If i was not busying dying what was i meant to do, how was i meant to live? And how was i meant to live in this one year that i had left? ( i know! Im a work in progress)

Surely if my fear was of dying, then my chosen profession of Nursing, would have cured me of that ( if we go b y Immersion therapy! ) as i had wholly and totally immersed myself in the art and science of life and death, so it stands to reason that my fear is of living! The irony is that i am a firm believer in fate and pre ordained destiny, th at when one’s pre-ordained time is up then it is up and that no one knows how or when they will die.

So in theory i could drop dead any minute, or right at the age of 46 ( not tempting fate) or go on to live a long and healthy life like my dad! I would never know, but in the meantime i am paralysed by the year i supposedly have left and learning the art of living. ( i did say i am a work in progress),

So while i figure out how to eat, pray, love my way to my supposed death, i am trusting and charging you all to keep me in check. Should i actually die at 46 or live past it, i hope you will all teach me how to live ( once i am done with the busyness of dying).

Psst...Let me tell you a secret

Please allow me to interrupt your scrolling as I bring you News about #boxershorts and not those fancy boy shorts but plain old Jersey  mens boxer shorts! Lend me your ears, for you will not want to miss this piece of life changing news!

I have reached that age where i value comfort above all else. I don’t have time for fancy underwear that make me wonder what my femoral artery did to them, as they try to cut off my blood supply! and do not get me started on thongs! Why someone would want to walk around with a constant wedgie and sore bum crack is beyond me, but if that is you thing, much respect to you. It is not much to ask for some level of comfort out of the many contraptions we are required to wear and it looks like i am not alone in this thinking because the history of women’s underwear has somewhat come full circle from drawers in the 18th century to 21st century boy shorts gaining popularity.

So when my sister called me a couple of months ago to inform me that she was now wearing her husbands underwear, courtesy of her having forgotten to do her laundry, hence running out of clean panties 😜 and that from then henceforth she would be wearing his underwear! I laughed 😂😂 as it was soo her ( she does the most random things, like calling me yesterday as an emergency, just to let me know that Aquaman had been returned to sender- her words), any way i digress. So i found myself one lazy morning adopting her sharing is caring ways and that is when i realised we had truly been conned as women! The levels of ease and comfort i got from the boxer shorts was on another level. My femoral artery could now do it’s God given work unhindered plus everything was all held in one place, comfortably 😂👏🏾.

So i quickly used my Amazon prime addiction( it is a thing) to find women’s boy shorts and 48hours and quick wash and dry later , i was the proud owner of a couple of packs. They unfortunately turned out as another con 😲😪, like everything else marketed to women( like how are women’s shaving razors so expensive, while the same make of Men’s are cheaper and do the same job?😐 🤯). They were not as comfortable 😠 and by now i should have learnt that most of these concepts only work on industry size/ shaped women’s bodies 🤨!

So off i marched to Primark ( i was not about to spend premium money! i was not aiming to look like David Gandy or Beckham, see underwear adverts for reference) and bought me a pack of cheap as chips, men’s jersey boxer shorts underwear and lets us just say, i have not looked back since( well except for the odd days, mother nature pays her monthly visits and reenforcements( seriously there is no emoji for sanitary pads or tampons 😶) trounce comfort)

Don’t take our word for it( we may just be a pair of mad sisters 🚶‍♀️. Go and get yourself a pair and you can thank me later! For those who already knew this secret and did not share, may your bum cracks be forever sore 😅🙏🏾 🧞‍♂️.Thank you for listening/reading and normal service shall resume next week 😊.

P/S- they are a 💯 percent cotton ( all round goodness for your ladybits!)