Part I - Handover

You always know when you've arrived for duty at Random House. If the acrid stench of stale piss doesn't get you first then the low, almost subliminal murmur of hushed voices interspersed with the occasional cackle of maniacal laughter will. And that's just the staff room..

Andy kicked open the door to the nurses' station - standard procedure - and went to chuck his backpack down on the chair which wasn't covered with skid marks. However as such chairs do not actually exist at Random, Andy plopped his bag down on the floor as usual and decided to stand for a while. The day shift was handing over the day's activities to the night shift.

Everybody turned briefly to nod a welcome (and the occasional knowing raised eyebrow, Andy noted), then the collective (un)consciousness was returned to Maudlin, the nurse-in-charge for the day. As usual, everybody was doing their best to stifle a yawn as the monotonous drone continued, but if their slightly watery eyes gave them away, Maudlin appeared not to notice.

"Brian had quite a good day today. He got up for breakfast and had a shave and a shower and passed a good bowel motion.." ('But not all at once I hope,' thought Andy to himself, 'At least I won't be chiselling too many dried crusts from Brian's flabby buttocks at showertime tonight then..')

"And Mrs. Flopsy had a good day too.." ('Yeah, well if you consider getting out of bed, staring at a dry face-washer for 20 minutes, smoking 50 cigarettes and shitting your pants, a good day,' Andy continued to muse to himself)

"However I'm afraid Simon has been masturbating in his room again. We made him go for a walk, but you might want to give his doorknob another wipe with an alcohol swab before you go into his room to check on him tonight."

'It's funny how these shift handovers go,' Andy reflected to himself. Often so much emphasis on the basic bodily functions, especially in elderly and surgical settings. These are subjects which the average outsider is less-than-comfortable with. But within Nursing circles, such natural functions are of primary importance and, stripped of any taboo which the prudish outside world might put upon them, they become the topic of 'normal' conversation.

This is one of the main reasons why nurses, doctors and some other (lucky) health professionals have such a far-out (or maybe just more realistic) concept of reality. When a patient desperately needs your hand up their arse to remove ten days of painfully-impacted faeces, small talk kinda goes out of the window. There is little place for taboos in nursing, especially Psychiatric Nursing

Andy looked down at his watch: 7:05pm. This was going to be a long shift..

 

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