Autumn 2021 | Page 7

Rural Muster
Nicky Cooper , Rural Nurse Specialist RN MSN , Murchison Health Centre
The ear plugs and St John Having a husband that snores , I have been wearing earplugs for years , I now use ' beeswax ' ones , so they don ' t hurt my ears , and they are a little like putting blue tac in your ears . One weekend I was the on call PRIME nurse ,
being the typical ' magnet ' I am , I had multiple calls on one Saturday night , and was woken by either the telephone call or the pager beeping . During the Sunday in my sleep deprived state , I had noticed my hearing in my right ear wasn ' t quite right , which is obviously quite necessary as you examine a patient with a stethoscope at the scene of a serious medical event . The following morning at the start of work , I asked the Nurse Practitioner to have a look inside my ear before her first patient came in , but after she identified the tiny piece of ear plug , she couldn ' t extract it , clearly as she ' s not an octopus , with that her first patient arrived who just happened to be one of our towns St John volunteers , so between the two of them , with the extra pair of hands and some cunning instrument manoeuvres they managed to remove said foreign body and reinstate my hearing just in time for my first patient walking though reception .
Renal patient - sorry not sorry I ' ve lived in this area for 15 years now , we have had some real characters living here , both past and present , and each of them imprints on your memory . One memorable rogue was a renal diabetic , a Maori man not unlike ' Del Boy ' out of ' Only fools and horses ', if ever you needed something , he was your man , but probably best not to ask as most things were off the back of a lorry . He had lost his life partner to cancer a while back and had relied on her heavily , as she was his rock and without her his will to live and attempt any version of diabetes compliant care was deteriorating ( the latter was never great if I ' m completely honest ). His renal failure had reached the point where only Dialysis was the answer , and after much ..... much discussion and coercion with him , he reluctantly agreed to go to the nearest unit 125km away . I used to do some casual shifts in their ICU , and the renal unit was alongside the ICU . I saw him arrive and acknowledged him , I also observed the staff , medical and nursing and couldn ' t help noticing their interactions with him . I approached one of them and decided to tell them who this belligerent uncompliant man really was , his ups and downs , this ' rough diamond ' personality . I also explained what life had been like for him growing up and how as a preschooler he was adopted by a pakeha family in our wee little ' white ' farming village , where he stood out like a sore thumb .
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