Louise Curtis - A Nurse's Story

‘Hello, my name’s Louise and I’m calling from A&E. Your husband is incredibly unwell and I think you should come down.’

‘But I thought visitors weren’t allowed into the hospital?’ she said.

‘I think we can make an exception in this case. Come down to be with your husband.’

‘Oh God, OK I’ll be there as soon as I can. You’re sure it’s OK for me to come in?’

‘Yes. Ask for me when you get here. Just to add, you need to understand that you will be coming into a hospital that is caring for Covid patients. You’ll need to wear PPE and there is a risk of contracting the virus.’

‘I understand,’ she replied.

‘Is there someone who can bring you?’ I asked. The last thing I wanted was for her to drive to the hospital in a panic and end up in a road traffic collision. We’d already had those two fatalities that evening.

‘My son can bring me.’

When his wife arrived, the intensive care doctor came to talk to her and the patient was taken up to ICU. I finished my night shift not knowing how long he would survive, but I knew he was in the best place and I went home to try and sleep.

I had my weekly video call with my mum and sister the next day. Mum updated me on the goings-on in their village. There had been three non-coronavirus-related deaths and people had stood outside their front doors to watch the hearses go by. It reminded me of when we said farewell to my father. Seeing his coffin and then driving behind it was difficult. Some idiot managed to get in between the hearse and my mum’s car at the exact wrong moment in a village which is completely out of the way and usually has very little traffic. I could see my sister’s arms waving frantically, motioning for him to get out of the way. I was surprised she didn’t reach across and beep the horn or get out and yell at him.

Apart from that, the day had been weirdly lovely and we were so overwhelmed by how many people turned up to the service of thanksgiving. My mum thought forty people would come and then about half that for drinks afterwards. There’d be enough room in our house for that. My sister wasn’t so sure, so she rang the funeral director to get more service sheets printed off, and we decided last minute to hold the wake in the village hall.

A fair few of my father’s friends couldn’t make it because they lived so far away and were elderly themselves, but even so the church was packed. We were so touched by all these people who came to mourn my dad’s passing, but also celebrate his life. Afterwards, the village hall was also busy. We had an open bar because Dad was always a great host and firmly believed that his guests shouldn’t pay for anything. Our neighbour ran the bar that afternoon and said things picked up after my sister went and ordered a bottle of Prosecco to share with friends.

Back on our video chat and Mum told me about the local church service that was being held over a telephone conference line.

‘Why isn’t it done online?’ I asked.

‘This is rural North Yorkshire. I’m one of the youngest people who regularly attends our church and I’m seventy. Some people don’t use the internet.’

‘Oh, right.’

‘It’s largely fine but you can hear people breathing. Also, we’ve only just learned to not sing along to the hymns and listen instead. When people sing, it breaks up the lovely music.’

She’s got this way of making the mundane and ordinary seem hilarious. I’ll never forget her relaying various incidents, like somebody in the village spraying ‘twat’ in weedkiller on another person’s lawn, or the time her and my dad had people round for drinks and a neighbour spilt red wine on the light beige carpet. She and my ex-military dad kept the house spotless. He was probably the bigger neat freak of the two and immediately went to get the carpet cleaner and got down on his knees and started scrubbing in front of everyone.

As the conversation was drawing to a close, my sister prompted my mum to talk about last night’s supper. My sister had prepared her first meal since living there for months. They had eaten salmon with a potato salad and asparagus. Mum said the potatoes and asparagus were undercooked but that it was otherwise very good. They were alive and not suffering with diarrhoea and vomiting so my sister was pretty chuffed. She has had a tumultuous relationship with cooking over the years. Aged fifteen, she managed to fill the house with green smoke while making popcorn and she’s been known to cook pizza with the polystyrene base still attached. Mostly, my mum tells her to keep away from the kitchen.

Not long after we finished talking, I went to work my second night shift in a row. There’s an unwritten rule that when you work nights, it’s compulsory to have a conversation around how many hours’ sleep you managed to get. It never comes up on a day shift. That evening, my colleague told me she had slept for ten hours. TEN HOURS! I couldn’t believe it because I had only managed to get a measly three and a half hours.

That night, I was in majors and it was another typical A&E sort of shift. Three overdoses, one heart attack, two suspected strokes, one renal stone and one deep vein thrombosis. To manage some of the horrors we go through in A&E, the team really pulls together and one coping mechanism is to make jokes about each other. People pick on me for the way I talk (they think I’m posh), they think I’m too nice, that I’m naive because I don’t know anything about drugs, and that I get ‘hangry’. If people don’t know who I am but need to find me, they’ll ask and my colleagues will point to me and label me ‘the tall, pretty posh girl’. It’s all good-humoured banter and I give as good as I get, or try to. I always think of witty comebacks too late.

I managed to do some teaching to some junior colleagues. I’m often struck by imposter syndrome and waiting to be told that I’m not good enough to do the job of an ACP. Sometimes, it’s difficult to take a step back and see how far I’ve come. In that moment when I managed to answer some of the questions thrown at me, I realized that I could do the job. It was a small confidence boost.

After that I went to see a woman who had taken a cocktail of drugs and washed them down with a bottle of vodka. As I was doing my assessment, I asked if there was any chance she could be pregnant.

‘Definitely not,’ came the answer.

‘OK, and when was your last period?’

‘Hmm, not sure. Maybe three weeks ago? I don’t really keep track.’

I went to check her medical records and, lo and behold, they showed that she had had an ultrasound two weeks previously and that she was expecting a baby. I went back to her.

‘Your medical records state that you had an ultrasound a couple of weeks ago and that you are definitely pregnant.’

She looked guilty. ‘Oh, er, it must have slipped my mind.’

‘Right, well, you know drinking this amount of alcohol and taking these substances puts you and your unborn baby’s health at serious risk?’

At that point, she broke down in tears.

‘I just want it to go! I don’t want to have it. I can’t look after myself let alone another human being and the father has left me. I don’t know what to do and I’ve had enough!’

I was annoyed that she’d lied to me but it wasn’t the first, and it wouldn’t be the last, time that had happened. I also felt desperately sad that she was in this situation and appeared to be alone. She had to stay the night in hospital under observation so I rang the ward and the safeguarding team, who would hopefully be able to help her more than I could.

My final patient of the night hadn’t left his house in many years. He was only in A&E because his medical problem was so bad that he couldn’t survive on his own at home. His skin was dry and had a brown tinge to it. His clothes were heavily soiled in urine and faeces. When I took off his socks, dry skin was blown up into the air creating what I can only describe as a snow storm. I held my breath and then inhaled as gently as I could, just in case some of the dead skin flakes had fallen behind my mask.