[The Life of Shaun #582] Down the Shore

I am officially halfway through my nursing course, but I feel very far from halfway to becoming a nurse.  Judging by the upswing from part one to part two of the course, I expect next year will be a doozy.  For now, though, I am enjoying the view over Rachel Beach on the New Jersey Shore.

My original plan for this Summer was to use the time between academic years to rack up some extra placement hours to hasten my graduation date next year.  But this isn't allowed per university policy, so, for the first time since my first university, I have a Summer off.  I am using the time to do an extended version of the holiday I had planned for two Aprils ago, seeing friends and family across the (mostly) South of the US: Jersey Shore; West Palm Beach and Dade City, FL; Savannah, GA; Charleston and Greenville, SC; Memphis, TN; El Paso, TX; Albuquerque, NM; Los Angeles, then a whirl around CA, ending in Tahoe, before closing out the trip in Vegas in September.

One week in, with six to go, I am feeling good and relaxed.  The last two weeks of uni were full-on, with three exams and two essays submitted, and I really needed to get away from the UK for a while.  All the Brexit malarkey and the UK's ever-accelerating journey down the road to American-style nationalism and political discord are disheartening and exhausting; I need a break.  With apps and global news, it's impossible to be totally disengaged from what's going on, but it feels good not to be in it for a while.  I just hope seven weeks is enough...

Wishing everyone a Summer of zen,

Shaun

Sunset from Rachel's patio.

My version of sunbathing.  I didn't last 15 minutes.

"30 YEARS! (+1) but we missed the actual anniversary because of COVID restrictions last year. In 1990, @shauncoley and I met at Eldorado High School, playing clarinet in the marching band. A lifelong friendship was born built on our mutual love of sarcasm, Tchaikovsky, and cheese sandwiches. We've expanded our tastes and the friendship continues! Happy friendaversary, Schnookums!"

  -klemify

Shaun H. Coley ~ Holloway ~ Islington ~ London N7 ~ UK ~ shaunism.blogspot.co.uk

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[The Life of Shaun #581] Life on T8

I've just finished my penultimate week of my first nursing placement; one week left and then it's back to academic life.  I'm looking forward to the (relative) lie-ins and no night shifts, but as I was leaving yesterday morning, I realised I was going to miss being on the ward.  It certainly hasn't been easy, and of course some days were better than others, but I've loved it.

I landed in quite an interesting spot for a first placement, a covid ward.  The ward is actually infectious diseases, but part of the floor was sectioned off for non-critical-care covid cases, and that's where I worked most of my shifts.  We had straight covid cases, but also, if someone came to the hospital for something else, and they were found to be covid-positive, they were moved to our ward.  Great, varied exposure for a first placement.

We had a three-week break for Christmas in the middle of the placement, and when I returned, I learned that our ward had been 'upgraded' from a standard covid ward to a high-dependency respiratory unit (HDRU).  This meant a whole new experience, as these patients were much more unwell and mostly on CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) ventilators, an aerosol-generating procedure, which requires a higher level of PPE.

The PPE is hot.  I'm more used to it now, but by the time breaks come along, I am still often dripping through my scrubs.  The work is more physically challenging, as the patients tend to have lower mobility, and I've had my first patient deaths on the HDRU.  But from a student perspective, it's been positive.  It's almost like having two placements in one, but without having to start from square one, and the nurse:patient ratio is lower, allowing for more in-depth care and learning.

And the people!  The people on the ward are phenomenal.  What they are doing, how they are handling it, how they are supporting patients and each other, it's genuinely uplifting.  There is such a unity of purpose, from the cleaners to the doctors, to take care of the patients and one another.  It's incredible to be a part of.

This won't be news to anyone, but coming from the corporate world into healthcare, I can confirm that healthcare workers are significantly underpaid.  The skills I see on the floor every day - not just from the hands-on staff, but from management as well - have so impressed me.  I see what people are having to deal with, how much they are taking on, and I can't believe they do it all, consistently and professionally, for so little.  

And thank goodness they do.  Without healthcare assistants, for example, our ward would collapse - they literally and figuratively do a lot of the heavy lifting.  If you knew everything they were doing for your loved ones while in hospital, you'd think they deserved all the money in the world, but they start on £18,005.  Outrageous.

Of course, I have not made this change for money, and one placement in, I am still very happy with the decision.  I am looking forward to the pace of academic life for a bit, but I can't wait to find out what my next placement will be and see what's coming next.

Cheers,

Shaun

The Guardian visited my trust recently and wrote the following.  T8 is my ward:

'I cry a lot on the train home': London medics fight to save Covid patients

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jan/15/i-cry-a-lot-on-the-train-home-london-medics

Shaun H. Coley ~ Holloway ~ Islington ~ London N7 ~ UK ~ shaunism.blogspot.co.uk

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[The Life of Shaun #580] It's a Sin

If I had been born ten years earlier, I'd be dead.  So too would most of my peer group.  But we were lucky; we mostly came of age hearing stories about friends dying, rather than losing our own.  But if I had moved to San Francisco in 1984 instead of 1994, I have little doubt my story would have been a lot different - and a lot shorter.

Out of nowhere, the celluloid chatter in the UK this week has been about one thing: Channel 4's It's a Sin.  It's about a group of friends who escape from the provinces to London in the early 80s to be gay, and it's brilliant.  It captures so well the joy of finally being able to live freely, of finding your people.  It also captures the fear, paranoia, and indifference as disease decimated a stigmatised minority.  It's hard to remember now, with the Warp Speed of covid, just how slowly information (and worse, treatment) came out about HIV, the decades-long sense of a noose slowly tightening.

Watching the series, it's very easy to see myself in the plotline and which role I would have played.  How lucky I am to be sitting here today.  It's a bit of a rollercoaster, but well worth the ride. 

La!

Shaun

To my Jills, thank you.

"So much artistic and intellectual capital was lost to us.  America turned away from their suffering for so long.  It must have been awful."  -Natasha Watkinson

The original must-see film about the early years of AIDS.

Shaun H. Coley ~ Holloway ~ Islington ~ London N7 ~ UK ~ shaunism.blogspot.co.uk

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[The Life of Shaun #578] Twenty-Twentugh

What a sense of dread and disappointment I woke to on Wednesday morning.  It was one thing, four years ago, to vote for an unknown man against a publicly-maligned and divisive opponent.  It's quite another to know what kind of president Trump is and vote for more of it.  So, despite the lessons of 2000 and 2016, my spirit slumped seeing all that red on the map.

As the tide turned over the week, I grew more hopeful, and was proud and happy when the vote from black-majority Atlanta turned the tide against Trump.  But even when Pennsylvania pushed Biden to victory, my joy was tempered; there are still 70 million Americans who think Trump's behaviour is not only acceptable, but desirable.  Policy aside, the president is also America's head of state, and to want a petulant, entitled, lying bully to represent your country on the world stage is something I just don't understand.

Fortunately he's done, but Trumpism isn't going away.  Like the poison unleashed by Brexit, this rot is now endemic, and it's going to be a long slog to cure.  I have faith Biden is a good starting point.  He's innocuous but respectable, and he's a centrist, which America needs to dampen the knee-jerk polarisation that's characterised its politics since the Tea Party shrieked its way onto the scene.

So good luck, Mr. President, and Mme. Vice President.  May you leave America in a better, calmer, kinder place in four years' time, ready and waiting for President Harris to finish the job.

Cheers,
Shaun

Shaun H. Coley ~ Islington ~ London N1 ~ UK ~ shaunism.blogspot.co.uk

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[The Life of Shaun #577] Done and busted?

I am officially out of quarantine today, and I've passed the "double dip" risk period, where some people start to feel better, but then quickly deteriorate.  I am expecting fatigue and anosmia for some weeks, possibly months, from what I've read and heard, but it's manageable.

On this side of things, I wonder how much more widespread SARS-CoV-2 is than is known.  I never developed a cough, the key feature of covid-19, which makes me think there must be an appreciable number of undetected cases out there.  Hopefully millions, and the severe cases we see are extreme outliers.  But who knows, and who knows when we'll have that data reliably.

Until then, wash your hands and up your quinine.  The latter won't help with covid-19, but it might help with your nerves, which is just as important.

Cheers,
Shaun

Shaun H. Coley ~ Islington ~ London N1 ~ UK ~ shaunism.blogspot.co.uk

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[The Life of Shaun #576] Anosmia Phởk

I lost my smell last night.  It happened over the course of a phở.

At the start, it was fragrant and flavourful; by the end, it was flat with a metallic undertone.  I didn't think much of it until I had some Ben & Jerry's and it had the same metallic 'note'.  This kicked off a series of smell tests from bathroom odoriser to Czech schnapps, all of which were a hard fail.  (Dog farts too, so it's not all lose.)  I know this is a common effect of covid-19, but it's a bit scary as developing new symptoms makes me presume that the virus is still gaining ground in my body rather than being on the wane.

This morning I feel the same; same sore/scratchy throat and fatigue since last Saturday, so I don't feel on the decline.  I'm checking my blood O₂ regularly, and it's at 98% when I am sitting upright, so no warning signs yet.  Nothing to do but wait and hope it stays mild and the senses return in full.  Tedious.  May it remain so.

Cheers,
Shaun

Shaun H. Coley ~ Islington ~ London N1 ~ UK ~ shaunism.blogspot.co.uk

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[The Life of Shaun #575] 40,000,002

Covid-19 has made its way to our little corner of Islington - Sushil and I are now part of the statistics.  Well, technically only I am; Sushil's test came back negative.

I started to feel ill on Thursday, and on Friday I had a fever, so I entered my symptoms into the NHS test-and-trace app, and they sent tests for our household in the post.  We took the tests Sunday, mailed them to a lab in Glasgow on Monday, and I got my positive result this morning.  Though Sushil's test was negative, we are pretty sure he was the vector.  Despite the upswing in cases in the UK, his work has continued to insist he commute into the office daily by tube, and the week before I was ill he felt "a bit under the weather", which by his Indian immune system standards is near-death.

I felt rather miserable on Friday, but my fever broke on Saturday, and since then I've felt mostly alright.  I've been fatigued with a bit of a scratchy throat, but nothing too bad.  I know this virus can go up and down, but I am hoping that since the initial hit was relatively mild, I am on the path to recovery.  If this is my brush with covid-19, I'll take it.

Convalescing,

Shaun

Shaun H. Coley ~ Islington ~ London N1 ~ UK ~ shaunism.blogspot.co.uk

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[The Life of Shaun #574] If I were 19 again...

...I would become a nurse.  I've been throwing around this catchphrase for years.  I even looked into it quite seriously nine or ten years ago, going to an open day at a local university.  I couldn't imagine relating with the 18ish year-olds who would be my cohort over the three-year programme, and decided I was too old to be that poor again.

But the thought never really left me.  It's been bouncing around between the back and front of my head.  And these years later, things are different, both with me and my options.

Practically, they now have a truncated version of the course for people with a BSc in another discipline who are making a career change.  It's two years instead of three and, while I'd be on the upper side of the age range, I'd be with my peers, other adults beginning their second (or third) careers.

But more importantly, personally things are different.  I am looking for something else out of life than I was then, and I've had some years to build up my financial side a bit so that aspect's not as scary as it once was.

So today was my last day at Barclays.  I have a long weekend break, scheduled with a massage and lunches, before starting my next chapter on Monday: the MSc in Adult Nursing at City, University of London.

I'll never be 19 again, but I can still do this.

Excited and terrified -- but more excited,

Shaun

In the requisite tone, my application essay, if you are keen on a bit more colour:

I can't recall when I realised I wanted to be a nurse, but it's been on my mind for some time. I remember a night, about ten years ago, at home with my flatmate. At some point in our conversation I said that if I were 19 again, I would become a nurse. We talked about it, and how if I had followed that path, I wouldn't have travelled as much, and I might not have moved to London - any path you take opens some options and closes others.

What I can remember is why I felt that way. I hadn't had any major health issues, but I'd had enough encounters with health services to have an impact: stitches and a broken arm when I was a kid, mole biopsies and wisdom teeth extraction as a teenager, a varicocelectomy and sexual health screenings as an adult. What I remember the most about these encounters is the nurses, their presence not just during, but before and after each procedure, tending to and soothing me, patiently answering my unending questions. I remember how much calmer and reassured they made me feel, and at one point thinking I wanted to be that person for somebody else.

A little over five years ago, I was that person. My mother was diagnosed that February with stage IV lung cancer; she underwent one round of chemotherapy, but decided that the effects weren't worth the few extra months she might gain, and refused further non-palliative treatment. She was fine for a while, but around August she started to slow down, and by the end of October, my sisters and I all recognised what was coming. I flew to Illinois to live with them and take care of my mom.

At first she was just weak and needed help in and out of bed and her wheelchair, but soon she needed to be hoisted up and down. Next came the pain, finding ways of mitigating it without diminishing her awareness: patches in the morning, ibuprofen in the afternoon, morphine for a good night's sleep. As the tumours spread and grew, she became weaker; her right arm gave out, followed by her legs, and she relied on me completely not to be bed-ridden. Of course, eventually she was; it became too difficult and painful to get out of bed, so my sisters and I took turns tending to her, feeding her, cleaning her, helping ease her pain.

She died a few days after getting into the bed for the last time; she hated being dependent, so we were all glad it was quick. Those were the hardest months of my life, but also the most thankful and purposeful. I was glad every day I could be there for my mom, to help her through the difficult end of her life. I could see on her face when she was scared, or the pain was coming back. And getting to be that person - the one who calmed and reassured her - felt like the most natural thing in the world.

When I was 19, I didn't know what I wanted to do, other than get out of my hometown and travel.  I knew education was the route out, so I studied hard and received a BSc in Computer Science with honours from a top-tier engineering school in the Northeast, followed by a job in technology at IBM. After five years, I moved to London and sat an MBA to expand my career options, landing a job at Morgan Stanley, then Barclays.  I've had a challenging, varied and successful career in competitive, ever-changing industries, but the primary rewards have been outside of the workplace. As I've begun ticking into my 40s, I've reassessed what I want out of the rest of my professional life. I want to dedicate my time, capabilities and energy to something that is more personally rewarding and meaningful, and the only thing that makes sense to me is that thought that's been bouncing around in my head for more than a decade: being that person for someone - being a nurse.

Shaun H. Coley ~ Islington ~ London N1 ~ UK ~ shaunism.blogspot.co.uk

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[The Life of Shaun #573] La Serenissima

When to visit Venice was something I'd thought about since moving to London in 2005.  Back then I said I would visit either when I was older or in a couple, as it's not a swinging singles kind of city.  As tourism morphed into hyper-tourism, that when became more of a whether to visit Venice.  Of all the world's destinations that are drowning in their own success, Venice is possibly the worst impacted of all.  I've been to enough overrun hotspots to know that, whatever the inherent charms, they are difficult to see behind a wall of fanny packs and selfie sticks.

This is something that's become a bit of a challenge for me; when a place is "hot", I dread going there.  I know that it's hypocritical to travel and then bemoan  "too many" others doing the same.  When I was growing up in Las Vegas, all I wanted to do was get out and travel, and that's been a huge part of what's made me the person I am.  How could I be against the same opportunities for anyone else to see what's out there and where they belong?  But logic couldn't stop the horror I felt when I saw the changes in Barcelona or Berlin between visits several years apart.  There's a difference between increased tourism, and tourism on the scale that obliterates what was there to begin with.  It's a fine line, but when a city no longer feels like it's for its residents, it's been crossed.

I am a fan of Bhutan's tourism policy: "high value with low impact".  You have to spend a minimum of $200-290 per person per day in the country, depending on season/party size, which prevents low-value/high-volume tourists, and ensures the country isn't overrun with mobs bouncing from one Instagrammable spot to the next.  Yes, this means many people, including me, will likely never be able to afford to visit, but that is of lesser concern than preserving the place for the people who live there.  The Bhutanese model couldn't be copied exactly in cities like Venice, but changes in the same spirit could help stem the tide: higher hotel taxes, limiting the number of hotel rooms, licensing AirBnB rentals and limiting them to 30 days/year, and above all, banning cruise ships.  Every decision has winners and losers, but weight should be given to who benefits - residents or corporate interests - not just the monetary value.  Just as houses should be homes, not investments, cities should be for living in, not for profit.

All that being said, with covid-19 hammering tourism, we decided now was the time to go to Venice, when it was relatively empty.  And what a joy this version of Venice is!  The city is popular for a reason, and its popularity well-deserved.  It's in a league with only Paris and Prague as far as architectural beauty, and the total absence of cars is a dream.  We were able to walk up and eat/drink anywhere, getting prime tables with canal views, no reservations required.  The city has a few "must-sees", but the real joy lies in aimlessly wandering the streets away from the tourist hubs and just seeing what you come across.  I was pleasantly surprised to walk through some rather gritty, local-feeling areas.  But nothing could hide the damage that tourism has done to Venice as a place to live.  Almost everyone we heard on the streets was speaking German or French; the city was sparse, but did not "feel Italian".  It's going to take more than one Summer of pandemic to right the wrongs done to Venice.

Arrivederci,

Shaun

Ponte dell'Accademia from our room, one of four bridges spanning the Grand Canal.

Piazza San Marco, the spiritual heart of Venice.

A canal...somewhere.

My favourite scene during our visit: a beautiful, elegant Italian lady arriving at a friend's for dinner or the like, going about her life while the tourists scutter around her.  It seemed an apt metaphor.

Ponte di Rialto, the most elegant bridge on the Grand Canal, and Insta-Central.  My photo was taken from a public transport boat.  #genx

The Grand Canal.

A gondola returning in front of the Palazzo Cavalli-Franchetti.

Sushil and me sporting the latest Italian fashion.

San Giacomo dell'Orio, my favourite neighbourhood we explored.

Backstreet Venice at night.

Shaun H. Coley ~ Islington ~ London N1 ~ UK ~ shaunism.blogspot.co.uk

[The Life of Shaun #572] No pain? All gain.

Six weeks ago, as I sat down at my computer to work on some essays, I felt a deep, localised pain in my right shoulder.  It died down to soreness pretty quickly, eventually merging up with my neck, and just kind of sat there.

Two weeks ago, I was awoken at 04:00 by piercing pain in my upper right arm, which kept me awake for hours trying to find some contorted position that reduced the pain to throbbing, so I could doze lightly back off.  In the morning, I booked an appointment with my GP, who referred me to an orthopaedic, who gave me an Xray and MRI.  The result: inflammation in my right shoulder, which he believes is exacerbating the slipped disc he found in my neck.  I've now been referred to a spinal specialist, who I will see today and, hopefully, will start me on the path to recovery.

I remember visiting my friend Mike McGirr in Atlanta, shortly after he had back issues, and him telling me 'I'm not afraid of death anymore, I'm afraid of pain.'  While my brush with chronic pain is not in the same league that he, my cousin, or countless others experienced, after a few days into it, I was able to begin to relate.  Sitting awake again at 04:00 in the morning, trying to wedge myself into a tolerable position, I thought that if this were going to be my life forevermore, I could understand how the will to keep going could fade away.

Through trial and painful error, I've landed on a regime (400 mg of ibuprofen, every five hours, day and night) that is ameliorative enough I can stay in bed rather than migrating to the couch, but cured I ain't.  Whoever said 40 is the new 30 obviously never had a pinched nerve.

Be kind to your joints, folks.  You'll miss them when they're gone.

Shaun

Shaun H. Coley ~ Islington ~ London N1 ~ UK ~ shaunism.blogspot.co.uk