Michael Alexander - Confessions of a Male Nurse

With these added complications, Mr Groom was in a very serious condition. The doctors contemplated transferring him to the intensive care unit, but due to a shortage of beds he stayed with us. He was so weak that he was unable to stand, or even sit himself up in bed; the most he could do was roll from side to side.

‘It’s pretty bad, isn’t it?’ Mr Groom asked me.

It was. He could potentially die, but all he did was smile at me. It seemed I was more worried than he was.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘I know you’ll be able to fix me up.’

Was he trying to put me at ease, by putting on a brave front? If I were in his position I would be terrified. But his cool calm didn’t seem to be an act. Did he, by some chance, have that much faith in us, a complete belief that the doctors and nurses will be able to do just that? I wish I had that much faith in myself.

Let the battle commence.

Part 2: Mission impossible

To give his medicines, Mr Groom had a tube stuck into the side of his neck and threaded towards the heart, because all the veins in his arms kept on collapsing.

He also had a tube put up his penis to accurately measure the fluids passing through his kidneys – especially important since his blood tests had shown that his kidneys were struggling. It was quite the balancing act, because too much fluid and his heart would struggle even more, while too little and his kidneys might deteriorate further.

Mr Groom had the girls from the physiotherapy department visiting twice a day, pounding on his chest, trying to help move the build-up of mucus in his lungs.

He had multiple blood tests alongside multiple antibiotics.

But for all the poking, prodding and discomfort that Mr Groom endured, he only had one small wish.

‘I tell ya something, doc’ – he’d developed the habit of calling me doc because I was male – ‘get me in the shower and I will feel a new man. I can’t take another bed sponge, mate.’

Imagine spending 24 hours in bed; I guarantee by the end of it you will be desperate for a shower. Mr Groom spent a total of 170 hours in bed.

The job of washing Mr Groom was a team event, with nearly all the staff involved. It took five people in total: three to roll him, one person to hold the bed still, because the brakes were not strong enough, and a fifth nurse to actually do the washing. But for all the sponge baths and changing of bed linen, I could never clean him as well as I wanted, or he wanted. It was understandable that Mr Groom’s greatest wish was to have a shower, but he wasn’t ready for a shower yet, he just wasn’t well enough.

Thankfully, life slowly crept back into Mr Groom and it looked like we were going to win the fight. As his breathing settled down, his legs began to shrink, and he started asking when he would be able to get out of bed and joking about feeling like a beached whale. I laughed along with him, though it didn’t feel quite right, because it was the response he was hoping for.

‘Not long now, maybe tomorrow,’ I always replied – never giving him an exact answer, but we were certainly beginning to make progress. I watched as Mr Groom went from bed to bedside, from there to reclining chair, from that to standing with a frame, then unassisted. It was at this stage that I decided he was well enough to have a shower.

‘Um, I think it’s a bit small,’ said Mr Groom, looking down at the chair.

He was right, too. Even if we could have fitted him in the shower chair, I doubt it would have held his weight. I should have thought of this, and felt a touch stupid. I tried a normal wheelchair, but this was too small as well. I eventually managed to get hold of a chair used by the porters, which was half-again the size of an average wheelchair. These chairs are so big because they’re used to take patients between various departments around the hospital, and the extra space is often used for things like oxygen bottles, notes and IV poles.

‘Oh, that’s pure fucking heaven,’ were Mr Groom’s first words as I turned the shower head on to him.

The water streaming off him was a dirty looking grey colour from the build-up of the sweat and dirt that I had never been able to completely get rid of.

‘Harder. It won’t hurt,’ he told me as I scrubbed his back. ‘I want it red and raw… Oh fuck that’s good. I don’t want another fucking bed sponge again, no offence intended, doc.’

I wasn’t offended, just pleased to see him happy. Mr Groom seemed to like having me around and I was discovering that I also enjoyed working with him, even though he was heavy work. I didn’t see before me an intimidating ex-gang member, but a man in need of our help, a man who tried not to be a burden, a man now fighting for his life.

Any preconceptions I had had about Mr Groom had by now been turned on their head.

‘Here, let me stand up and you can give my bum a good rub.’

He grabbed hold of the rail while I prepared to pull the chair away.

‘On the count of three,’ I said. ‘Ready? One, two, three, heave.’

Something unexpected happened.

‘Let’s try again… and heave.’

I couldn’t remove the chair.

He turned his head towards me; his face had an almost apologetic look.

‘Guess I need to lose a few pounds.’

‘What do you think?’ I asked the nurses assembled in Mr Groom’s room. ‘All suggestions are welcome.’

I was greeted with silence and shrugged shoulders. Obviously, no one else had had this problem before, and as no one was coming up with a clever solution, I took the lead and tried the direct approach.

I positioned two nurses so they were holding Mr Groom’s arms; another nurse and I held the chair steady, and the last nurse grabbed hold of the bed.

On the count of three everyone began heaving – biceps flexed; thighs braced.

‘It’s not going to work,’ Carol grunted, as she pulled.

‘It has to work,’ I said through gritted teeth. ‘Pull harder.’

Suddenly the chair released its victim and Mr Groom was catapulted on to his bed. The poor nurse whose job it had been to brace the bed was squashed as the bed crashed against the wall. The towels that were being used to cover Mr Groom’s nakedness landed on the floor, and there was a moment of shocked silence as everyone stared at the bare, quivering backside of Mr Groom as he lay straddled across the bed. I grabbed a towel off the floor and tried to cover him.

He began making a strange sound, his whole body convulsing. What had we done?

But I soon recognised the noise, and realised the convulsing wasn’t a seizure, it was laughter. And not just a polite laugh to try to hide embarrassment, but a true, full-bodied, incapacitating, belly laugh; the contagious type.

Part 3: Missing parts

Mr Groom’s sense of humour saved us all from feeling like absolute crap. In my short time as a nurse, I felt that nothing could top it.

Enter Dr Grey.

Dr Grey decided that as Mr Groom was getting better, it was time to have his urinary catheter removed.

‘Surely not yet, doc, he’s only just managed to stand on his own. Shouldn’t we leave it at least another couple of days?’ I asked.

‘Absolutely not, it’s been in there far longer than necessary, he’s at risk of infection.’

The catheter is the plastic tube I mentioned earlier; it goes up the penis and straight into the bladder. It is an infection risk, as bugs can creep up it, but sometimes you have to weigh up the benefits against the risks. In Mr Groom’s case, the risk was of him being incontinent in bed as he might not get a urine bottle in place in time. Urine is very good at breaking down skin, and Mr Groom did not need sores around his inner thighs, buttocks or scrotum. I tried to make this case.