Natural Selection

A school night, midnight. Two boys, 16yrs old, in a super enhanced car. The car flew, it literally jumped over a 40cm conrete fence and smashed into the wall ten feet behind it. Booze and blood splattered all over the place.

Two boys dead and one in intensive care.

"Don't label our children as 'boy' racers" read the headlines in the local newspaper.

The survivor, the one in intensive care, told the nurses to 'fuck off' and the doctors to 'get fucked'. His attitude hasn't improved in the following days.

The nurses have begun to lose sympathy, although some never had much in the first place. Some are saying 'natural selection'. Some have become inured to the tragic condition that is part of being human. It happens.

It is horribly tragic.

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No Chance

"I'm always scratching my head. Do you think it could be dandruff?" asked Louise. At twelve years old Louise was the youngest girl in the school. The high school sometimes took students a year early, they were called pre-nine's, referring of course to the ninth grade. Until I met Louise, I had never figured out why the high school sometimes took children one year earlier than normal.

"Well, I'd better have a closer look, it could be something else" I said as I put on some latex gloves. "Why are you putting gloves on? What could it be?" Louise asked nervously. "It's nothing to worry about, but you might have nits?" I explained. "Yuk, that's disgusting. That's so gross" Louise then pretended to vomit. I then began to search through her hair. I didn't have to search very hard as the nits were so big and there were so many, I could see them without having to sift through her hair.

"Yep, you've got nits" I said, "I'll get some treatment from the pharmacy today. Who's you're room mate? I'll have to get her checked as well" Louise again pretended to vomit, a big smile one her face the whole time. "How did I get them? Can I share them with my friends?" She really didn't seem too upset about the whole deal. She almost seemed to be enjoying the attention. "You could have caught them by direct contact from someone who already has them. You can even get them from using someone else's brush, or from their clothing" I explained "So it's really important I see you room mate." Louise went to her dorm and returned with her room mate, Nicole.

Nicole did have nits, although not as bad as Louise. Nicole acted the same as Louise, by expressing her disgust at having "creatures" in her hair, but she had a smile on her face and seeming to enjoy the attention. "Come back at lunch time and I'll have some medicine for you both. Oh, and I"ll call you parents, just so they know what's going on." Nicole nodded her head while Louise reacted differently. "They don't need to know" she said "Don't bother calling them" she said. "Why not? They need to know what's going on. It's part of my job" I explained. "There's no need, they won't care anyway. They'll say it was my fault" Louise pleaded. "Well, let's get the treatment started and we'll talk about this later" I suggested. As for the parents, I sent an email to both sets. Nicole's parents wrote back thanking the health center for helping their child, while I heard nothing from Louise's.

Nicole and Louise both received the treatment and after ten days were nit free, or in Nicole's words "creature free." Each day both girls came in laughing and joking about the "creatures" in their hair. They didn't need to come every day, but they enjoyed being in the health center. Between myself and the other two nurses who worked here, the girls probably received more positive attention than they were used to. At least in Louise's case, it was most likely the most positive attention she had received.

Over the next month Louise was involved in some rather serious incidents, all involving alcohol and boys. In fact she was even hospitalized because she had drunk so much and her 'friends' couldn't wake her. I had to pick her up from the hospital and had to call the mother. "She couldn't have drunk much, she's such a small thing. One tequila would be enough to make her very ill" said Louise's mum over the phone. "Well, she drunk enough to be unconscious. Her friends said she had a lot more than one shot of tequila" I said. "That can't be right. She's so small, she'd only need a few shots to be in such a state. Someone must have spiked her drunk. Can you do some blood test to check for that? I insist you do some blood tests."

During the drive back to the school campus I informed Louise that I had spoken to her parents. "She doesn't care. Mum's an alcoholic anyway. I'm just following in her footsteps." It's hard to know what to believe when kids talk about their parents, plus this wasn't the time to have a serious talk with her about her problems. I'd leave that up to the counselors. "What about your dad? He must be pretty upset" Louise kept silent.

Louise eventually left the school and was sent home. As I stated earlier, it was for an ongoing serious of problems. But I found out something so shocking that it made me worry just what sort of home she was returning to. It goes like this:

Two weeks before school was to begin for the school year, Louise's father had phoned the school and asked if he could drop his daughter off early, one whole week early. It was then explained to him that this was not possible as there were no staff at the school. The father then asked exactly what date school started, and he was told September twelve.

On the night of September 11th, at 2355hrs, Louise's father dropped his daughter off outside a dorm, unloaded her bags and drove off. No one knew she was here, she was left alone in a foreign speaking country, in the middle of the night.

By pure chance two staff members were walking home from a night out and found Louise and took care of her.

I got to say goodbye to Louise. "I don't want to go" she said to me. "I'm sorry, but it's not up to me. But you can't go on breaking the rules and doing so many dangerous things?" She nodded her head. "But you guys in the health center are the only people who've ever been nice to me, who've ever cared"

Five minutes later the driver arrived and took Louise to the airport.

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An Unexpected Hurt

I never thought I'd be a nurse. I had no great yearning to heal the sick and comfort the dying. I went into nursing because I thought "Why not?"

After twelve years I don't know what else I could be. I can't imagine not knowing what I do about looking after others. I've even forgotten what it must be like to not know about health and not have an understanding of illness.

What I have found is that I can deal with many sad and traumatic events, and even though it makes me unhappy, I often can keep myself separate from it. But there are times that really do get to me, and it's often the unexpected things. Let me explain...
I remember quite a number of years ago an elderly Scotsman called Mr Donaldson. All the time he was in hospital he never had a visitor. His wife had died several years earlier and his two children lived abroad. He hadn't seen a family member in three years. It wasn't that they weren't close, it was just that neither sons or father could afford to visit each other.
Mr Donaldson had a bowel resection and the formation of a colostomy. He went home two weeks after his surgery. When he went home he looked reasonably well, although understandably weary.

It was near christmas time, and in my part of the world Christmas means summer. This Christmas the whole town was on the street watching as the national pipe band competitions take place. For a whole two hours pipe band after pipe band filed by dressed in full Scottish regalia, kilt, dagger and all.

I was enjoying the parade, and then I saw Mr Donaldson, standing in a shadowed doorway at the back of the crowd. He looked even more pale than when he left. He looked even more thin and stooped. I was close enough to see what looked like moisture in his eyes. His eyes never left those of the pipers. He was wearing a kilt.

I found myself near tears. It felt like this parade was just for Mr Donaldson, as if it was some final farewell.

Another week later and Mr Donaldson was back in hospital. He was anemic, his colostomy wasn't working, and he was coughing up a lung. They took him to the operating room where he died.

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