A Country Nurse

by Thea Hayes

  The big day came, on the Hawkesbury River north of Sydney. The starting time of the race was 4 p.m. at Windsor. Off they went, quite innocent of what was ahead: 111 kilometres of river, with twenty-one safety checks along the course. They would be kayaking all night! I hadn’t realised it was so long, and to do it through the night—hail, rain or shine, hot or freezing—was a challenge these girls had never experienced. They say that you find out all sorts of things about yourself when you take on a physical challenge. I’m not sure that I want to at this stage in my life.

  I travelled with the ground crew and went from checkpoint to checkpoint. The boats had numbers and the kayakers had to call out their number at every checkpoint. One of the girls—the single kayaker—capsized and suffered hypothermia and had to be treated in the emergency tent. We felt terrible that this had happened, but we didn’t know that she hadn’t passed the checkpoint as the guy in charge at that point told us she had gone through. Thank goodness she was okay. The other girls reluctantly gave up the race at about 2 a.m., after ten hours on the water.

  What an amazing effort. We were so proud of them. The whole episode had been such fun, a great challenge and some even thought they might do it again. I had met Annie Lloyd Green back in the Gordon Downs days, when she was visiting with a friend who was the cousin of Lord Sam Vestey. Annie had won three world kayaking championships in the 70+ category in the United States, Hungary and Germany. She had also raced the Hawkesbury Canoe Classic many times and I remember her telling me, ‘The first one is the best as you don’t know what you are in for.’

  After a quick nap we all went down to the finishing line, and people were still coming in up until lunch time. What an experience!

  20

  Mt Olivet

  My first job in Brisbane was in 2001 at the Wesley Hospital in an oncology unit, there being no palliative care unit at the Wesley at that stage. I had tried to get on to Mt Olivet but after two attempts to speak to the palliative care unit manager failed, I gave up, and rang the Wesley Hospital for a job. I started a week later.

  Before I started, I decided to get contact lenses, as I hated wearing glasses all the time. It was the worst time I could have picked, just as I was starting a new job. I had trouble putting them in and taking them out. I didn’t have time for all this humbug. What if I had trouble reading patients’ medications, I thought, heaven forbid. I solved the problem by returning them to the optometrist.

  We had a week of orientation before going into our allotted ward. My ward was A2, an oncology ward, nursing cancer patients having chemotherapy, stem cell therapy and radiation. A very heavy ward after my experience at St Vincent’s, which had been a mixture of medical, oncology and palliative care. I felt some of my patients, who were having treatment to cure their cancers, would have preferred to end the treatment and go into palliative care. I wanted to help these people, by working in palliative care.

  I worked in oncology for six months until finally, in November 2001, I was able to contact Mt Olivet. An appointment was arranged for me with the palliative care unit clinical manager, and who should it be but a girl I had completed the first palliative care unit with at ACU, Debbie Menzies. A week later, I was back working as a palliative care nurse.

  Mt Olivet is at Kangaroo Point, on the Brisbane River just across from the Brisbane CBD, and is now called St Vincent’s Hospital. The land originally belonged to Mary Josephine Bedford, a lifelong friend of Dr Lilian Violet Cooper, Queensland’s first female doctor and it was her bequest that the land be donated to the Sisters of Charity to establish a hospice for the sick and dying, particularly for the poor in Brisbane. The foundation stone was laid in 1954.

  The Sisters of Charity ran the hospital, employing registered nurses and assistant nurses. My friend Genia Miszkowyez started work there in 1973, stopped in 1974 to have a baby, and returned in 1975. She is still employed there today. Genia calls them the ‘glorious days at Mt Olivet’, enjoying lots of laughter and fun not only with one another but also with our patients. ‘The nuns stood by us,’ Genia said. ‘And during tough times they were always available when you needed a shoulder to cry on. In those early days the nuns would look after the ward while the nurses all went to lunch, so that after lunch, it was “all hands-on deck”, patient time.’ People thought that nurses in Mt Olivet never laughed, but fun was all around us.

  When palliative care came in, we all had to learn to give very special care to our patients. The medical registrar Dr John Cavenagh and the sister in charge went over to England to look at all the hospices, bringing back great information. The nuns and John Cavenagh also quietly fostered an attitude of compassionate care, not just to patients and families but towards each other. There was an expectation of excellence in the delivery of end of life care. I consider it a real privilege to have been there during that time. The nurses and doctors, physiotherapists and councillors who worked on the palliative care ward at Mt Olivet were all dedicated and worked so well together, that the care that patients received was unbelievable.

  Going on duty we would first have hand over, passing on the details of the patients’ conditions and treatment from the nurse on the previous shift. We would then do a round, observing and checking on our patients. Then followed bathing or showering, general observations, checking temperature, pulse, respiration and blood pressure, organising medications, treatments and dressings as well as refilling syringe drivers. If any patients complained of pain, we would give them a ‘break through’, an injection of shorter acting pain relief medication—morphia or similar.

  In the dying process, the body starts to shut down and prepare for death. It may be sudden or very gradual. As patients deteriorate, they sometimes find it difficult to swallow food and liquid, and there is potential for it to go into the patient’s lungs and cause aspiration pneumonia. Thickened fluids are often used instead. Families can become distressed seeing their loved ones dying and not drinking, and often ask for a drip (subcutaneous fluid which means with a needle under the skin), but they need to be reassured that this is part of the dying process and the patient is better off without overloading the body with subcutaneous fluids, as this can cause pooling in the lungs.

  I still remember some of my patients. A young, thirty-year-old rugby player, a smoker. He had cancer of the lung; the secondaries had gone to his spine. He could move only his right hand and arm, which he used to hold a cigarette. He and two other young cancer patients would spend hours together on the smokers’ veranda in the hospital. This is forbidden in hospitals today. It was so sad as they were so young, but at least they had one another to enjoy their last days doing something they enjoyed.

  Another patient I admitted to the ward was an older lady by the name of Mary who had terminal cancer. On her locker she had a photo of herself in a nurses’ uniform—it was the uniform of Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, where I had trained in Sydney. Mary had completed her nursing training during the Second World War. In 1942 when the Japanese came into Port Jackson in submarines, Mary was on night duty, trying to comfort her patients in total blackout, with explosions and heavy gun fire going off all over Sydney Harbour. They must have all been terrified.

  Mary, a country girl, told me how she fell in love with the son of a great friend of the family. He had enlisted in the army and was about to be sent overseas. Mary and her fiancé were desperate to get married before he left. Nurses were not allowed to work if they were married. However, fortunately Mary’s father had connections with someone on the RPAH board. On Mary’s weekend off, they were married and had one wonderful night together before he was shipped overseas the very next day. Mary never saw him again. We became very close and shared many nursing stories during her time in palliative care.

  Helen, one of the unit managers I worked with, had met her partner Ellen on the internet and travelled to America to meet her before they both settled in Brisbane. They both had very short shaved hair, but one was large and one was small. Ellen was a handywoman. They would buy
a house, renovate and sell it, and then do the same again with a new house. They also put a notice up at the hospital advertising handywoman work. Nurses are very versatile people.

  My property between Toowoomba and Oakey, Murrawah, was still being rented, but I hated the thought of owing money. I decided to sell it and pay off my unit in St Lucia. I employed Helen and Ellen to help me do a quick paint job on the lounge, dining room and kitchen before the auction sale. Their help made such a difference.

  I held an auction for the sale of Murrawah. There was an open day every weekend, so I asked a lady in Oakey to give it that extra appeal, bringing flowers and freshly baked bread into the house. Then at last it was the big day. I made the reserve bid, but then there was silence. The auctioneer asked me what I wanted to do but I was so frustrated not to have gotten a better price that I won’t tell you what I said.

  I then put Murrawah on the market with a real estate agent instead, and eventually it sold at a reasonable price. The day before handover I went out to Murrawah to check that all was okay. I went to turn the tap on, but there was no water. I went to check the water pump beside the garage, and it was gone. Someone had stolen my water pump. I was furious as I drove into town to buy a new one.

  21

  Wedding at Straddie

  Gradually my children all got married. Anthony married Elizabeth at a lovely wedding at St Theresa’s Catholic Church in Toowoomba. They have three children—Robert, Will and Isabelle, my first granddaughter. Jason married Trina at another great wedding in Toowoomba, conducted in the Anglican church but officiated by an Anglican padre and a Catholic priest, Jason having been brought up as a Catholic. Jason and Trina bought a house in Mort St, Toowoomba, and eventually sold it to David. Jason built his own home on five acres in Toowoomba and they live there still, with their three beautiful sons Baxter, Charlie and Hugh. As mentioned previously, David married Sharon at the Ravensbourne National Park on the way to Esk in 1998. They have one boy, Nathanial. And at last it was my daughter’s turn.

  After finishing her Bachelor of Science degree majoring in Zoology from the University of Queensland, Penny took a break from further study to travel overseas for twelve months. Her first stop was the United States where she stayed with her Aunt Faye and Uncle Tim in Los Angeles. Whilst there, she assisted a PhD doctorate studying Santa Cruz Island Foxes.

  She travelled around the US and Mexico with friends and then flew onto the United Kingdom to do more research work, this time on butterflies at Sheffield University.

  Penny was then fortunate to score an internship in coral reef ecology based in Florida Keys. There she worked as a research assistant studying coral for medical implants, and the rehabilitation of turtles infected with the fibropapillomatosis disease.

  On her return to Brisbane, Penny decided to undertake further studies at the University of Sydney, alongside a part-time job working in environmental consultancy. Her dreams of becoming an environmental scientist were on track.

  And then Penny met Patrick Joyce. First at a pub in Sydney on a Saturday night, and then much to their surprise, at a mutual friend’s house for lunch the following day. Penny said she saw Patrick every day for ten days before she flew to Canada to do work experience in environmental science. Patrick followed Penny overseas, where they went on an Alaskan cruise and travelled around America visiting Patrick’s relatives.

  On their return to Australia—Penny from England and Paris with me, and Patrick from America—they moved into a unit at North Sydney. They spent a year in Malaysia after Patrick was offered a job managing a radio station in Kuala Lumpur. I flew over and spent Christmas with them not long after they had arrived. Their apartment had a view of Petronas Twin Towers, 451 metres high, which dominated the skyline. Penny and I had a great time touring the city, and for Christmas, Patrick drove us to a resort in Penang.

  Months later, when I was on a ferry on Sydney Harbour coming back to Circular Quay with some of my nursing mates after our annual nursing reunion lunch at Parramatta—I think it was our fiftieth RPAH nursing reunion—I had a phone call from Patrick asking me for Penny’s hand in marriage. Wow! The girls and I thought it was wonderful.

  With Penny and Patrick so far away, it was up to me to organise the site of the wedding first of all, and then the wedding itself. No pressure! I thought the ideal place was Point Lookout on North Stradbroke Island, where we had our holiday house. After investigating various sites, I decided on Pandanus Palms, a holiday resort with beautiful views of the ocean, and enough units to accommodate 120 guests. We would have a marquee on the lawn looking straight over the ocean. I asked Penny Too, Patrick’s mother, to come with me to Straddie to help decide on the wedding arrangements, which she did. I’d decided to call Penny Joyce ‘Penny Too’, as my daughter was also about to become Penny Joyce. Penny Too didn’t mind her new nickname and we became very good friends.

  Penny and Patrick agreed with everything, much to my surprise, as I thought Penny might prefer Sydney for her wedding.

  The caterer was Andrew Mirosch, a famous international chef who ran the restaurant at Pandanus Palms. His restaurant at the resort alone was too small for 120 guests, so we decided to have a marquee as well.

  The wedding party arrived on the Tuesday. They immediately visited the wedding celebrant on the island, who informed Penny and Patrick that she couldn’t marry them on Saturday because the nuptial form was supposed to be in her hands one month and one day before the wedding. Somehow the form had been sent to Point Lookout in NSW, rather than Queensland. The tears flowed. However, there was a solution: a visit to Brisbane to see the Department of Births, Deaths and Marriages to obtain permission to hold the wedding on the Saturday—thank goodness.

  But on their way back to Straddie on the ferry, Penny received a call from the marquee company telling her that there was a cyclone heading for Straddie on Friday, the day before the wedding. The marquee could not be put up on the Wednesday as planned. We would have no marquee at all for the wedding, and with a cyclone on the way, perhaps no wedding at all. Then it was Penny Too’s and my turn to cry.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ we asked one another.

  The only thing we could do was talk to the chef, Andrew Mirosch. His restaurant was not big enough to have a sit-down meal, but he was happy to change to finger food and have a more casual wedding breakfast. I thought of all those wasted hours Penny and I had spent deciding who was to sit next to whom at the formal sitting. But at least we had a plan: with this cyclone coming, anything could happen. More than half the guests had already arrived, so we just gave up worrying, partied every night and hoped for the best.

  The cyclone arrived on Friday. Two-thirds of our guests had arrived by that time; the other third were stuck at Cleveland, as the ferries had stopped running. There was no electricity that night. Penny and Patrick ran around distributing candles to all the guests. With the rain pelting down and the wind blowing a gale, and not knowing whether we were going to have a wedding or not, we partied on more.

  Saturday morning dawned so quiet, after the roar of the wind and the ocean the night before, and surprise, surprise, it was a beautiful clear sunny day. I walked up to Andrew’s restaurant to see how he was going to manage breakfast for the guests with no power. And what do you know, halfway up there, I suddenly heard air-conditioners, radios, and even some lights coming back on. The power had returned. Alleluia!

  The ferries started running again; the bridal flowers and the stranded guests at Cleveland arrived; everyone relaxed and prepared to celebrate this ‘against the odds’ wedding.

  Penny looked beautiful in her designer midriff gown, with ruffles of white material cascading across the bodice like the turbulent waves on Cylinder Beach below. She had four bridesmaids in blue and there were four handsome guys supporting Patrick. After the ceremony, everyone let their hair down. The food was magnificent, and the music from Luke Hanley’s DJ repertoire, the guy who had flown over especially for the wedding from Perth, and who had al
so played when Alan Bond won the America’s Cup sailing trophy in Fremantle, was the type of music that made you want to dance all night.

  It was not only a wonderful wedding, but a week of surprises, dramas, emotions and plenty of fun. As some of our guests who had been there with us for the dramatic week said, it was a truly unforgettable wedding.

  22

  Straddie

  Years earlier, after selling the ten acres at Murrawah, we finally had money to spend on Straddie. I removed the velvet curtains and revolting carpet and had the wooden floors polished. I contracted an interior decorator from Toowoomba to redesign the upstairs unit from photos I had taken. The result was fabulous—Art Deco style yellow walls, a laminated dining table, chrome chairs with pink padded seats, and brightly coloured artwork, some of which my children had done at the age of seven or eight. Ralph came with us to the renovated house the first time, even though he wasn’t well. His brother Lynn, who had flown down from Katherine, bought heaps of seafood and we celebrated being together in our newly renovated holiday flat.

  After Ralph died, when I was living in Brisbane, I would go over to Straddie nearly every month for a few days, staying upstairs to tidy up the yard, clean out the gutters that ran around the base of the house and check that all was clean and presentable for the holiday tenants upstairs. It was booked out through an agency.

  I moved to Straddie for Christmas in 2002, to do up my house with the intention of selling it and moving back to Brisbane. I moved in upstairs with plans to renovate downstairs. I employed a handyman, and the two of us knocked down walls, installed new windows and sliding doors, and put in an old pine timber kitchen. I painted the inside and outside with a bit of help. It took two years to renovate by which time I had made some really lovely friends on the island and had a great social life—I joined Ningi Yum Yum Oysters, an oyster group founded by my neighbour Stewart Patterson. The local rock oysters were grown on long lines and trays on the Ningi lease at Myora in Moreton Bay. The area was only accessible by boat at low tide so we’d go out there and cull or clean the ‘by catch’ off as well as chat away around an oyster encrusted table with international planes flying over us. It was amazing.