Please can I have my own Falkor?

I forgot how long ago the 80′s were…..

Not to mention how bad the hair was…….

They don’t make them like that any more…..

The Never Ending Story

I really hope you have the theme tune to the film stuck in your head while you read this.

I’m wondering if today marks the beginning of the end of the good mood weekend. I’ve been on a fairly even keel.  Now I’m trying to figure out why it has to change.

Yesterday I took my Nan food shopping (she’s dangerous with a trolley, but at the same time hilarious wandering around the supermarket aimlessly bumping into people and forgetting where the potatoes are.  I could not give her a trolley, but then she would fall over because she needs something to lean on), I bought some nice food too.  Then I didn’t do much in the afternoon, just relaxed, replied to emails, studied and then watched a film.

It’d be safer if my Nan had an invisible shopping cart. At least she would have an excuse to park it and not remember where she put it

Today was even more relaxed.  I had a few nightmares last night, nothing I can explain really, I just know they made me feel odd and uncomfortable.  This meant I kept waking up in the night and had to sleep with the TV on, because that seems to help with the nightmares.  I woke up at 4am and turned the TV off and then had bad dreams again up until I woke up at 9am.  I was still knackered so slept more until 10am.  Got up, dressed and usual stuff and felt OK mood wise, but tired.

After breakfast and tea (!) I felt more awake.  I chatted to Mum a bit about the up coming Diamond Jubilee (I don’t see the point in having a Queen, but that is a whole different post). Went to see the rabbits, had another cup of tea and then started studying.

At the moment I’m studying Veterinary Law.  It’s not really why I got into Veterinary Nursing but it is important to know so I don’t run the risk of being struck off or sued or imprisoned or something. It’s not what I’m usually interested in, but it isn’t boring because you have to use your brain.  I had a lunch break, went to see the rabbits again, did some blog reading and then did some more studying.

Eventually it came to the point where I’d had enough of the UK legal system.  It only took four hours! I went and sat with Mum for a bit again, we watched Jaws (I swear I will never get bored with that film) then I made myself some super healthy sugar free blueberry muffins. That was when I stopped feeling OK. I don’t think it was anything to do with the muffins.

Then I sat and looked at pictures of Manatees.  I think when I do this, and the whole point of my other blog, is to fulfil the need to find something.

The trouble is, with the chronic empty feeling, you never bloody find what you are looking for.  You just kind of have to amuse yourself, hope that it goes away for a little while, enjoy it while it’s gone and then be miserable and questioning when it comes back.  The importance of amusing yourself, in my case hunting for some random animal and a tattooed man, means I stop wondering WHY I have that empty feeling.  It doesn’t solve the problem, it just distracts from it.

There is no reason why I feel empty.  At least I don’t think there is. I sit and wonder and wonder and wonder and ponder and I can never come up with the answer. I just feel empty, but I don’t know why and I don’t know what I need to fill the empty.  Maybe there isn’t an answer.  The emptiness just is.

It reminds me of “The Nothing” in The Never Ending Story.  It’s a nothing that takes over and destroys everything, but you don’t know what it is, because it is nothing.  Maybe I need someone to read my story, like Bastian did with The Never Ending Story, but I know that is already happening.  At the end of The Never Ending Story the Princess tells Bastian there is only a grain of sand left of Fantasia, but with his wishes and imagination the world will be restored.  I guess that’s where reading other blogs comes into it, reading other people’s wishes and using my imagination.  But when do I get to ride Falkor?

It is different from depression though.  It’s not depression, it’s just empty, nothing.

I worry that this is where Charlotte takes over.  I can’t pin point when it is and I kind of forget when it happens.

It gets frustrating feeling empty. I guess I let my guard down when I wonder too much.  I guess the solution to the problem is to quit taking up so much time wondering, but it is difficult because the feeling stays with you. It itches and picks at your skin.  It aches to be empty.

Maybe I should go and talk to Jack.  The trouble is when I feel empty I don’t know what to say to him.  I just lie there.  Empty.  Maybe Jack feels empty too, but that is just because I feel hollow.  What would he say to me and Charlotte now? “Don’t worry, it won’t feel this way forever.  Fight the storm, sail on, you’re stronger than you think“.

I really think Charlotte is going to end up on the outside as Sailor goes to sleep for a bit.

Nevermind, I’ll be back.  This is the new Never Ending Story after all.

Love HS xox

P.S I realised today I haven’t cut for a whole week.  A whole week.  I haven’t done that for a long time.  Fingers crossed it stays this way.

I love manatees (& sharks)

Reblogged from Tattooed Guys - Cute Animals:

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If I had a manatee, I’d call him Hugh.

I think I should get a double win today.  Hunting for manatees I found WFAHM with a mantee, but ALSO the elusive tattooed guy(s) and shark.

Both via Simonxsludge instagram

Success on manatees and tattooed guy AND sharks!!

I love manatees

Look for pictures tattooed guys with manatees (don’t ask, it seemed like a good idea at the time).  I found these and wanted to share…..

I’ll let you know of my success on manatees and tattooed men.  Fucking hell I need to get a life.

Love HS xox

You are more important than you realise

I had something I wanted to say, but my minds gone blank.

I wonder how much I am to blame for all my troubles. I’ve been pondering, am I as bad as I think I am?

Yesterday I had to work with a new Vet.  General opinion was that no one liked him, S and L were very judgemental and so were the receptionists.  J said he was really nice.  I like to make my own mind up on these things.  I’m not going to dislike someone just because everyone else does.

I had to do a dental with this guy.  When I’m not at work I am really shy and find it difficult to start-up conversations with people.  At work I’m different.  I’m more confident.  I think maybe that’s because every one in the Vet industry has in common that they like animals, so I’m never lost for things to talk about because I can always talk about work.

Anyway, he was very quiet during the dental.  He would talk to J when she popped in, so at first it felt like he wasn’t talking to me because I’m just a nurse.

Veterinary Nursing is soon to become a profession in its own right (I hope).  VN’s have just celebrated their 50th anniversary of existence in the UK.  It’s not easy to train to be a nurse, much like you don’t walk in off the street and choose to become a human nurse.  It takes time and knowledge.  Some people, and some Vets, do not appreciate the role of the VN and think we are lower down on the scale and we don’t matter.  There are various times Vet’s have treated me as a commodity and glorified cleaner.  This guy almost got put in the same box, until I started to talk to him.

I think maybe he had been lumbered with S for too long this week.  She tends to treat people with contempt for no good reason.  I guess he shoved all the nurses in the same box – as in all nurses in this practice were bitches.

I just acted like normal, acted the same as with any other Vet I’d work with.  It broke the ice a bit. We chatted and had a laugh, told stories and in the end he gave me some information about volunteer neutering projects that I am keen to do, and he has already done.

When J came back she apologised to this guy for S being a bitch all week.  She told him not to take offence, but she is just like this.  He  wondered why she acts like this.  We told him there was no reason, or none that either of us knew of.

It makes me wonder a lot of things.

What happened to S that makes her this way? Maybe she needs more therapy than I do.  She definitely could benefit from Prozac or Lithium slipped into her tea, but that’s illegal so I won’t be doing that.

I worry that I will end up like her.  But thinking about it, I don’t think I will.

Sure, I see things in black and white.  Something is or it isn’t. I tend to really like people or hate them, find them completely intolerable and completely wipe them off my radar.  I have no middle ground.  This again suggests BPD as a diagnosis.  The idolising and demonizing thing is classic.  I’m sorry to say that I do this with my best friends all the time and I often switch between loving them and loathing them, but in general I treat everyone the way I would like to be treated.

J and I had a nice chat in the sun at lunch time.  It came up about S again and I said it is really a shame she is like that, but she doesn’t even know she is doing it or the effect it has on people or that people don’t like her for it.  She must have a pretty lonely life.

I pondered the difference between me and her some more.

A lot of my life I have been treated like shit.  From bullying at school, how my dad and brother can be sometimes, not to mention the way Asshole treated me, the C shenanigans and the infamous B.

All those times I was treated like shit, a commodity, a useless nobody who didn’t matter, struggling to keep myself alive, I still continued to be a nice person.

I’ve mentioned before that when Asshole wanted to split up with me, he was nasty. So, so nasty.  I was still me.  I was still nice.  I’d still cook his dinner, do his washing, tidy up.  I’d still be emotionally available and do nice things for him.  I still loved him.  I just thought he was having a bad time at work and was taking it out on me.  Part of an agreement of love is to be there for the other person.  So that was what I was doing – being the blind stupid human punch bag I was and being there for him, because I wanted to be a good person for him.

When we finally split up he said “I didn’t want to have to be the asshole in this and break up with you.  That’s why I was being so horrible to you.  I was hoping you’d get fed up and leave me.”

OK, when you read that last paragraph, you think “What a c**t“.  Yeah I do too. He actually said that.

Despite all of that, I am still nice to everybody.  I’m pretty fucking damaged, but at least I’m nice.

Except to myself, maybe.

I guess the way S and I hugely differ is that she treats people how she has been treated in the past.  Her opinion is (and I’m paraphrasing here) ”Why should they have it easy? I’ve never had it easy, I always had a hard life.  I should make everyone elses life hard“.  On the other hand I still think “Treat everyone the way you would like to be treated.”

Am I naieve?

I’ve been through so much, and I don’t want anyone to feel the way I felt/feel.  That’s why I put myself out for other people all the time.  I’m a people pleaser.  I guess you could look at it as I only do stuff for the gratitude and so that people like me, but that isn’t the case.  I just don’t want people to feel sad or depressed,  this feeling fucking sucks, so I end up doing what will make them happy, regardless of whether it makes me happy or not.

Conclusion? I should be proud of myself.  I could be a hard-hearted bitch after everything that has happened, but I’m not. I should only be out for me.  But I’m not that either.  Even though I say I hate people and prefer animals sometimes, I still have that compassion for other people, so they can feel happy and don’t have to suffer, even if it means they take advantage of me and I feel crap.  That makes me a good person, even if I don’t feel like it and people don’t always treat me like it.

I can think of worse personality traits to have.  I’d rather be this person that S.

I do think I need to get more of a balance.  Make myself happy a bit more as well as keeping other people happy, because if I’m not happy too, then what is the point?

Now I need to work on getting Charlotte to believe this too.

Love HS xox

Promise?

Have a nice weekend my blog buddies and MFF’s

Love, pizza, popcorn and hugs from HS xox

You are as useless as a male nipple

There is the saying “Never work with children or animals“.

I love working with animals.  I’ve gloated on about this a million times before, but I really love it.  I’ve missed talking to them.  Sure, they don’t understand me, but they appreciate being talked to.  I made lots of doggy and kitty friends today.  How can they say never work with animals? They bring so much joy with their antics!

Of course there are sad, angry, frustrating times too. Most of the sadness and anger is caused by working with people.  Children are annoying, especially when they are running circles around the examination table in the middle of the room and you are trying to listen to the heart rate of an obese panting Labrador.  Those are the ones I’m always willing to fall over, or hit their head on the table, so they shut up.  How mean is that? Some kids are nice and quiet.  I like the ones who ask questions and I can explain what I am doing to them.

Anyway, I think the saying should be “Never work with people“.

******

Sometimes I wonder about my clients, even more than I wonder about the Staff Bull Terrier’s that chase their tails, the cats that climb up trees and can’t figure out how to get down or the suicidal hamsters leaping off the examination table. I’ve been a nurse for six years.  I worked as a livestock assistant for six years before that. NOTHING makes me laugh more than some of the classics they come out with.

I’m not poking fun.  Maybe I am a bit.  But if I didn’t poke fun, I’d get more annoyed and exasperated by their stupidity.  I’m not saying that they are all stupid, there are some brilliant owners out there, it’s just sometimes I question my own mentality, because maybe they are the ones who are mental?

*****

For a start.  Take the owner who rushed her little white dog down to the surgery, I think it was a Bichon Frise, because it was “bleeding! bleeding everywhere!!! What do I dooooooo! her guts are hanging out!!!”

Sounds extreme doesn’t it? Would you panic in this situation? I didn’t.  9/10 times when an animal is “bleeding everywhere” it is a miniscule drop/not bleeding at all.  I’m always ready for bleeding, but I don’t tend to panic about it.

When the owner turned up was this particular dog bleeding? Was its guts hanging out? Nope.  It had a red sock stuck in the fur under its belly.  I’m not sure how it was stuck there.  But is it me, or do intestines look nothing like socks???? And isn’t blood supposed to, like, you know, drip?

This dogs brain is hanging out.

*****

One of my favourite stories is the owner that came in for a repeat of the medication for his dogs skin.  The dog was on steroids (another Staff Bull Terrier),  the owner asked for “asteroids“.

Sure it’s an easy mistake to make steroids/asteroids, there is only one letter in it.  My imagination immediately kicked into overdrive – I saw this guy, in my head, trying to administer an asteroid to his dog.  Think about it.  Amazing. I understand drug names are confusing, but asteroids.  I love it.

I imagine the asteroid a bit bigger and with flames coming out of it. But this picture will do.

*****

Another dog story.  There is a well-known disease in the Vet world called Hyperadrenocorticism.  Too long to pronounce isn’t it? Often it’s called Cushing’s Syndrome because Dr Harvey Cushing discovered it. In front of clients we always call it Cushing’s Syndrome.

I once had a whole Nurse consult going through care with an owner for her dogs disease.  She kept calling it Pillows Disease.  Brilliant.  Just brilliant.

Dogs with Cushing’s usually get bald patches on their sides, I imagine Pillows Disease as having pillows on their sides.  I don’t even bother calling it Cushing anymore – it is always Pillows Disease now.  At least in my head.

This dog has a severe case of Pillows Disease

*****

We have a pair of well-known crazy clients.  I’m sure they aren’t all there.  They are literally insane.  Maybe not mental insane, just really fucking odd, not all there.  They have a Chow Chow who is just as mental.  When they got him I went through puppy diets with them.

Owner – “Does it have chicken in it?”

HS - ”Most dog foods have chicken in, it’s the best source of protein, Vet formulated, blah, blah, blah…..”

Owner – ” Chow chows can’t have chicken.  The breeder told us.  She is a Chow Chow specialist and has been breeding for years“.

HS – “…… OK……. Well in my experience I have never heard that.  Sure they can get allergies, but that usually happens later in life.  I’ll check with a Vet but I’m sure……”

Owner – “It’s something to do with their blood.  It’s because of their blood they can’t have chicken.”

HS - ”?…..”

Owner – “Oh yes, the breeder said it is because they are warm-blooded.”

HS - *un-able to stifle laughter*

Owner – *Stares*

HS – “All dogs are warm-blooded.  All mammals are warm-blooded.  You are warm-blooded.

Owner – “But Chow Chows are special.  The breeder said.  She is a specialist.  All other dogs are cold-blooded and Chow Chows are warm-blooded”

HS - “Um, no they aren’t.  I think the breeder was having you on……….. or you miss understood or something…..”

They didn’t believe me.  I had to get a Vet to step in on that one. To this day, I still laugh about it.   Am I being mean? You all know dogs are warm-blooded, right? Or did I miss something and all other dogs are lizards.

Oh, I’m wrong. Here is a cold blooded Boston Terrier.

*****

It amazes me how some people won’t call genitals sensible names.

Sure some people think that words for genitals are crude.  BUT we are medical professionals.  Do you really think we get tought “Minnie” or “Flower” or “Cootchie” in Vet School?  It’s a vulva.  The word vagina is also acceptable.  If your dog is female, she has one.  Don’t be embarrassed about it.

You are only allowed to be embarrassed about it when I point out “Your dogs belly button isn’t swollen, it is it’s vulva“.

The same with poo.  So many people call it “Whoopsies” or “Number twos“.  Is it because we are British that we can’t say poo? It’s just poo!! Everyone poo’s! If you don’t like poo, say faeces.  Even shit is better than whoopsies.

It annoys me, but at the same time, people being reserved about these words still makes me laugh.

*****

OK one last one and this is a mix of owner and nurse stupidity…….

An owner brings his male Labrador in for a tick removal.  He’s been pulling and pulling at this tick and it won’t come off, so maybe a nurse should do it.

HS – “So where is the tick?”

Owner – “On his belly” *rolls dog over* “right there” *points*

HS – “That is one of his nipples.”

Owner - ”Boy dogs have nipples? What’s the point in that?”

HS – “Well, you have nipples, what’s the point in those?” *mouth before brain facepalm*

 

Love from HS xoxo