When did we become so impatient and so unconcerned with the plight of our fellow man? Or is this an attitude that we have always had, waiting inside, ready to spring out?
Having spent a couple of weeks in hospital I have seen some amazing behaviours, some good, look at what our surgeons and nurses do, and some bad as shown by Joe Public. I was tempted to make this blog a funny one, lets face it, the last couple were nothing to laugh about, but I thought about what I  had seen and decided that human behaviour is nothing to laugh about. Humans are selfish, out for what we can get for ourselves.
I was amazed, while being pushed around in wheelchairs and beds while in hospital, the number of people who won't give way or will barge through, almost forcing the porter to run them over with said bed or wheelchair. The worst was when I was recovering from the operation. It was only a couple of days after having my chest cracked open, but the medics like to get you on your feet quick, it helps your recovery, and a physiotherapist came to see me. She got me up and off we went. Now at this point, I am not very steady and the physio is supporting me as we stroll through the corridors. At one point we came across a group of people coming towards us. At the narrowest point in the corridor they forced their way past me, pushing me into the wall. If I had been fully fit they would have bounced off of me, or I would have punched someone. But no, they carried on without an apology.

And one night I actually told a healthcare worker to fuck off. I know, bad language from me, who'd have thought it?
I am not sure that she was a nurse, wrong colour uniform. But she was doing work that I would have thought a nurse would do. She looked like an ageing European drag queen, a cross between Sticky Vicky and Danny La Rue, bandy-legged with blond nylon hair and a better moustache than mine. Apart from not being able to stop a pig in a passageway, she was a bit impatient. Having just fallen asleep one night, she decided that she would update everyone's patient notes. The notes were in folders wedged in at the bottom of the bed. Me, being a bit of a big fellow, filled the bed and my feet were across the notes. I had also just fallen asleep, and if you have ever been in hospital you will know how hard it is t get to sleep. Along comes Helga and shoves my feet out of the way to get the notes out. Now I am awake.
About 5am I decide I have to go to the loo, the pressure on my bladder has got too bad to ignore anymore. So off I go. This is not an easy trip as getting in and out of bed when you have had open-heart surgery is not an easy process. To start with, you can not use your arms to push yourself up, you have a sternum that held together with a bit of stainless steel wire and you don't want the bomb bay doors to burst open. Anyway, off I go to the loo. I do the business and head back to the ward. Helga is now following me down the corridor, pushing the weighing chair, and is anxious to get past. "Excuse me, I need to get past!" My, my, she is impatient, "Sorry love, you are going to the same place as me so you can wait" I totter back to the ward and start the process of getting back into bed, almost as hard as getting out. She decides that as I am awake she may as well take my weight. Why she didn't ask before I started getting back into bed, I have no idea. I refused to sit in the chair until she put the brakes on, she tutted at me then. Now the process of getting up, whether it is from bed or a chair, is to start rocking back and forth to build up a bit of momentum, then using legs only push up while hugging a rolled-up towel to your chest. This stops you from using your hands to push up and keeps the rib cage reasonably stable. When I did this to get up she decided to help by putting her hands under my arms and lifting. Painful. That's when I used some inappropriate language, for which I do not apologise. I feel that anybody working in a cardiac care ward should understand what has happened to the patients in it.
It was odd that I never seemed to see the same nurse twice. It was as if there was no consistency in the care given. When I was given the all-clear to go home it took twice as long to get out as different nurses were trying to find things out and not coming back to me. 'Why are you not wearing a Post Thorax vest?' I was asked several times. To which I responded with 'I don't know. No one has told me to wear one or, indeed, given me one to wear.' The nurse would then go to find out why I wasn't wearing one and not come back. Eventually, 2 days later, a nurse did come back, with a vest, and I escaped.
Don't get me wrong, these bad experiences are only a small part of the whole. The majority of the people who work in the NHS are dedicated professionals who give far more than their fair share to look after the patients in their care. The surgeons who cut me open and restored my failing body are phenomenal. The nurses who followed them are heroes. I couldn't do what they do. I refuse to get drawn into the politics of their pay and health service funding, but they deserve far more than they get. All they can have from me is my undying gratitude.

I will try and write a funny one next time.

Regards
Giant68

PS: considering I had a quintuple bypass after 3 heart attacks, I am hoping to go back to work at the end of this month. So I am doing ok, just in case you cared.
 

           

Deaths near Giant68 experience

So, now we come down to some real changes in perspective. Not the imagined changes in the last blog, I assume you've read it? The reality was something quite different from what I thought it would be.
You read how I was having these funny turns, and that it was probably angina, good job I am not a doctor. I phoned the surgery on Monday morning and asked for an appointment to discuss chest pains with my GP. I was told to go to A&E. 'No, I haven't got them now, I've had them over the weekend. I just need to talk to a doctor about it'
'You MUST go to A&E. Now.' That was it, final. As I was at work I told my boss how the conversation had gone. I was told to go to A&E.
So off I toddled, picked up the car, picked up Mrs Giant68 and off we went to A&E. The Accident & Emergency depts at hospitals are not places where I want to spend my morning but once booked in they whisked me through quite quickly. They insisted that Mrs Giant68 stay behind in the waiting room.
Next, I am connected up to various machines and blood is taken and I wait for the results. A cardiac care nurse turns up and gives me some aspirin. I wait a little longer. Meanwhile, I have texted Mrs Giant68 and suggested that she go and find a coffee and as soon as I know what is going on I will let her know.
Several people turn up at my bedside and one says 'It appears that you have had, at least, one heart attack. Probably more, and another is imminent.'
All of a sudden shit has got real.
I was given more aspirin, along with many other pills to fend off any more heart attacks. Looks like I am not going home today. I texted Mrs Giant68 with trembling fingers.
I thought that I knew the symptoms of a heart attack. Crushing chest pain, pain down the arm, possibly pain in the neck and jaw...  But I had been told that I had suffered a heart attack. No crushing pain, no pain in the arm, bit of an ache in the jaw. Obviously, there was some mistake here. They would do more tests and they would be proved wrong and I could go home.
It wasn't to be. I stayed in overnight, with the promise of an angioplasty the next day. They would insert stents into the cardiac arteries and I would be home by the end of the week.
Bad news seemed to haunt me this week. I had the angioplasty, fascinating procedure to watch, all under local anesthetic. More bad news. The cardiac arteries are too badly blocked for stents to help. I would have to have bypass surgery.
Have you ever been scared? Properly scared, I may die type scared? I have, and it is not a feeling I want again. I was now paying for all the fun I had during my late teens and twenties. The drinking smoking and general good living. The dirty burgers and bacon sandwiches, all those things you eat and do when you are young and immortal. Then comes a point when you are no longer immortal and that thread of life becomes very thin and frayed.
Surgery is booked for a couple of days hence and I am taken back to a ward.
All this time I am being looked after, poked, prodded, drained of bodily fluids, flirting with nurses etc, but what of those nearest and dearest? I am in hospital being looked after, how does Mrs Giant68 feel when visiting time is over and she has to go home to an empty house? And there is the possibility that 'Deaths near Giant68 experience' may become the real thing? I hope I never find out, it must have been a nightmare.
Surgeon visits my bedside and confidently tells me that they are going to do a quadruple bypass, not a triple, more bad news.
Eventually I am taken away to be given the milk of amnesia and carved open. I was taken just after lunch, about 12:30. I was woken at 5:30 the next morning, having had a quintuple bypass, or cabbages x 5 as they referred to it. Took me a while to find out what cabbages referred to, CABG or Cardiac Artery Bypass Graft.
I am now recovering nicely. Every day a little better. I feel good. Death did not come for me this time but he was close, watching from the corner of the room with my lifetimer in his hand. I was very lucky that he decided to turn it over rather than let the sands of life dribble away to nothing. But it gives you a different perspective. The sun seems a little brighter now, the cuddles from my grandsprogs are worth more, those moments with Mrs Giant68 much sweeter. It may sound very cliched but it is true, it is just a shame that you have to go through something like this to make you realise it. I don't mind admitting that when I got home and I was on my own, all the visitors had gone, I cried like a baby for 5 minutes when it all came crashing down into thoughts, just what had happened and what could've happened.
I am not going to turn into someone who bangs on about good living. Once I am recovered I will enjoy a glass of wine, or a beer. It's all about moderation. The Heart Failure team I have to see regularly, have explained this to me. Anything in moderation is fine, apart from life, grab that with both hands and wring everything you can get out of it. I intend to live to a ripe old age and, together with Mrs Giant68, see and do things that we should have done years ago.
Right, that's the serious stuff done. The next blog will be about being in hospital, laxatives, aging European Drag Queens and a police raid on the Eye Hospital. And maybe a few comments on hospital food.

Regards
Giant68

Changes in perspective.

This is a piece I wrote last weekend, in the early hours of the morning not realising how my life would change over the next few days.

I haven’t written for a while. I guess that the original premise of this blog has changed. I started it as a grumpy bloke, writing about the things that, generally, peed me off. Children being taken to stately homes, bad drivers, selfish people, you know the sort of thing, all those things that annoy a lot of people but because we are British we keep to ourselves. With the dawning of the new job that changed.

All of a sudden I was a different person. No longer so grumpy but realising many things about myself. One thing is that I am a mediocre person. I know a lot of things about a lot of things. I can talk about Shakespeare or quantum physics, interested in everything but never really picking one subject to be good at. If you talk, and act, with confidence people will believe you know what you are doing.

I work in a primary school. 400 + kids who, mostly, seem to believe that I am indestructible. This enormous, giant of a man who strides around as if he owns the place. I can fix anything, and if I can’t I know someone who can. Strong as an ox and knowing more than their teachers (but only because I am older than them). For example; there was a block of flats being built opposite the school. The fencing around it was supported by sleepers, 9ft long chunks of solid timber. When they started to take it down I figured that some of those sleepers would be useful to make things for the school. I wandered over and asked the team taking them down if I could have some. ‘Sure. Help yourself.’ I picked one up and shouldered it. Now this was school kicking out time and the kids were streaming out of the school. And there was me, with this massive lump of wood on my shoulder, crossing the road back to the school. ‘Wow! you are really strong!’ I heard one shout at me. Another one who saw me in the false light. I made some comment and carried on into the school. What the kids didn’t see was me dropping it just round the corner and wondering if I needed to call the office to bring the defibrillator. All of a sudden I realised that I am no longer 24 but 54. Past middle aged, a grandfather heading to old age .I  made a joke about it and people laughed. So did I.

Now I am sitting here, at my keyboard, at 00:30 feeling my mortality again. I have had a few funny turns just lately, walking down to the shops, it’s woken me up for the last two nights. Now that is probably why I am awake at this time of the night. That tiny piece of the mind that is scared of the dark, of the monsters that could be hiding in dark corners has taken control because there IS something in that dark corner. Took me a little while to work it out, but these are the symptoms of angina. A symptom of the fact that I am getting old. I am definitely not 24 anymore. All of a sudden I feel 94.

But I am invincible and indestructible. Intellectually, I know that the doctor will do his tests and if it tells him that I have angina he will put me on tablets, maybe statins and a spray. I am immortal, with a little help from medical technology.

Flying socks and an impossible bridge

Nearly 2 years in the job and, while I am still learning all the ins & outs, I feel that my feet are under the table, so to speak.
I don't miss the stress of the old job, the chest pains, lack of sleep, you know the sort of thing, but I still want a little more. I have tried to throw myself into this job, extra time there without putting in overtime claims etc. One thing I have done is to start running an after school club. 'Why, on Gods Earth, would you want to do that?' I hear you say. Or maybe you don't say, but I am going to tell you anyway.
Over the last couple of years the small people that populate the school have appeared to get used to me hanging around. On gate duty in the morning they expect a high five, in the hall at lunch they expect a high five, if I am doing a roof inspection they want to know how I got up there ( I flew. Like Superman, not like a bird.) The teachers here impart knowledge to these kids every day of the week, apart from Saturday &  Sunday obviously, they influence young people in many ways. It may be that these youngsters never realise how they were influenced, or they may, like me, only realise after many years.
We are all the sum of our learning, our experiences and the people we interact with over the course of our lives, be that our parents, teachers, friends etc. I look back over my life and think of the work ethic my parents instilled, the knowledge that teachers instilled etc. I wish I had paid more attention to some, especially my old latin teacher who turned out to be a highly decorated communications expert during World War 2. In my arrogance, maybe, I would like someone, somewhere, sometime in the future, to look back and remember that a certain site manager once told them something that changed their lives. It probably won't happen as I am trying to teach them that engineering can be fun, that Leonardo Da Vinci didn't just paint the Mona Lisa.

We have built a bridge that uses no fixings, bar gravity and friction, to hold it together. We have built catapults that flung a rolled up pair of socks across the classroom. And we have made paper airplanes. We also watched what happens when engineers get it wrong, search for the Tacoma Narrows Bridge on Youtube...
Maybe one day one of these small humans will have a part to play in the human race expanding from this small blue & green planet. And, maybe, they will think back to the time that I tried to explain the difference between kinetic & potential energy, saying ' One day, when you  are sitting in class in your next school, your teacher talking about kinetic & potential energy you will think back to being bored to tears by Mr Giant68'
In the meantime, I repair things, clean things, assist teachers with weird projects, set out chairs for nativity plays and get frustrated by some peoples stupidity.
So, is it arrogance? Probably, but it is all I can offer.

Back to my G&T...

Regards

Giant68 :-)

What is the point...

What is the point of a burger that is too big to take a bite from? Why is there a penchant for restaurants to serve a meal on a roof slate or a spanky paddle?

When I order a super, half-pound burger with extra cheese, bacon, mushrooms, pineapple etc, I want to be able to eat it without having to dislocate my jaw like an egg-eating snake. All that happens is that I get a splat of burger sauce down the front of my shirt and a mixture of grease and cheese in my beard. Now I imagine that somewhere in this world there is someone might have a particular fancy for that but I just get a bit fed up with it.
Many years ago, when I started working for my previous employer, remember them? the ones that cast me on the scrap heap? there was a small Greek kebab shop that used to sell the most marvelous burgers. The bun contained 2 burgers, bacon, cheese, fried egg, chips. Massive. But it was served in a wider bun so that it wasn't a stack the size of the Empire State Building.  Some miles from where I live there is a burger van on the top of a hill that serves similar burgers, although you will get dive bombed by seagulls due to the twats that feed them. The Gutbuster burger is a particular favourite...

Just give me a burger that I can get my laughing tackle round, for Gods sake! I am not Scooby Doo! I can't swallow something the size of  a truck tyre, although i knew a woman once who...no, that is another story.

And what the hell is this trend for serving meals on whatever is flat and can be found in the average workshop or building site? Before long we will be served our dinner from a bricklayers hod!  Call me old fashioned but I would like my meal served on a plate, or in a bowl.

Regards

Giant68 :-)

Faceless health

Just lately I have been ill. And it is this illness that has highlighted how little we care for human interaction in this modern world. The phrase 'my door is always open' has been supplanted by 'my door is closed, if you want to see me then ring the bell and I will eventually respond'

This is how my doctors' surgery has changed, and probably others as well. It used to be that there would be a receptionist sat at the counter. You would come in and make an appointment with her, or book yourself in for an appointment with her. I don't go to the quacks very often so the change came upon me by surprise. No receptionist. An empty counter and a shut door. A sign tells you to use the touchscreen to book yourself in and if you want some human interaction you must ring the bell. When I first started using this surgery there were two receptionists, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Now there is a whole team of them, all with the purpose of keeping you away from the doctor and from themselves. I doubt that it is their fault, or their intention, they have work to do and don't want to be disturbed from that task by members of the public distracting them.
But i feel that a doctors surgery is one of those places where you want to see a friendly face. People who are ill may be scared, certainly nervous, over what may be wrong with them. This is where the receptionist was a friendly face with a little compassion and a smile for you, they knew your name and knew whether your appointment was a vital one or just a check-up. Obviously, this was before the time that they were told to keep the great unwashed from the door.

It seems, these days, that it is almost impossible to make an appointment. My surgery will allow you to make an appointment up to 2 weeks in advance... But there are usually none left when you need one. I have been told that I need to phone for an appointment at 2pm on a Tuesday as that is when the next set of appointments become available. 'Become available??!' In the past, the receptionist had a diary for each doctor, she could make an appointment for you a year in advance if you wanted. Why, now in the age of the spreadsheet and online calendars, have we lost this ability? Surely. it should be easier now? We should be able to make an appointment 100 years in the future if we wanted to? The only way I seem to be able to get to see the Dr is if I start phoning at 8am and keep going until I get through. However, I haven't got the time to do this as I am at work and I think my boss wouldn't be happy to see me sitting with the phone in my hand for an hour. And even when I got through it would probably be an automated voice, remember, the door is closed...

Healthcare for the modern times is a faceless thing that will just become less and less human as time goes by.

Only 16 years till I can retire...

There have been a few changes in my life over the last few months. Please don’t worry, though, as I am still a grumpy old git, as this will prove. From being made redundant after 30 years with the same employer, having a great summer, the Malta wedding for Half Portion and his delightful young lady, working for a friend for a couple of weeks after falling foul of the Dept for Work & Pensions (Lord forbid that I should enjoy myself on the pittance that Her Majesty’s government saw fit to pay me!) and finally settling into a permanent job.

So, a permanent job. This was a bit of a shock after 30 years of working in a flour mill. I suddenly found myself working in a school. I had to have an interview, show my CV and all that rubbish. I have never really written a CV before, I had just been promoted, or shifted sideways, depending on what was needed and what I wanted to do. But now I had to go and sell myself to people I didn’t know. Scary stuff, or what? I must’ve done something right, or the other candidates were really crap, because I now find myself almost 5 months into a job. I am now the site manager of a school. A primary school as well. I will let you into a little secret here. I love it. Every day throws different challenges at me, and it is a great place, with some really great people.

Now, for years I have always wound up a friend of mine over teachers working time, all that time off in the summer, yada, yada, yada… But now I have first-hand experience of what these people do with their day, and the challenges that they face. I have the responsibility of keeping the staff and pupils safe and secure, the teachers have the responsibility of taking small people, with developing minds and filling those minds with information and the ability to use it. They do it, sometimes, in difficult circumstances.

There seem to be a number of parents who pass all responsibility for the upbringing of their children on to the school. They also set the worst examples to their children. They have no self discipline, they are quite happy to smoke around their children and others. They disregard the safety of others by parking their cars in dangerous places with no thought for anyone else, blocking driveways and, in one case, the entire road. There are times when I would dearly love to grab one of these parents and shout ‘What the f… do you think you are doing! Have you no common sense or care for anyone other than yourself?!’

I am, however, continually, amazed by the fact that most of these small people that inhabit the building I work in, for several hours every day, generally come in smiling and leave smiling. And I think that is great testament to the teachers and teaching assistants who spend their days, sometimes very long days, educating our future leaders of industry, government ministers, rocket scientists and even footballers.

I will still wind up my friend over the hours he works, as I will occasionally those I work with, just because I can. But considering I hated every minute of school when I was younger, I am now back at school and will happily work there until the day I retire, or drop down dead (whichever comes first… and with the current state of our government it will, probably be the latter)

In the meantime, I will continue being a grumpy old b@$£@rd, the kids will still wave at me as I walk round the school and teachers will continue to work long hours.

So, parents… teach your kids to use a knife and fork, talk to them, read to them, give them some of your undivided attention before you send them to school. One day your son or daughter may be in the government that sets your benefits…

Regards

Giant68 :-)