Yes Sister, No Sister

by Jennifer Craig

  ‘Where’s Nurse Blinker?’ I ask. I have a sick feeling of foreboding.

  ‘I’m afraid she’s left,’ the Sister says. She continues to pack Blinks’s trunk and doesn’t look at me.

  ‘Why? She had every intention of coming back four days ago.’

  ‘She was ill when she got home and her parents took her to the doctor.’ The Sister looks embarrassed.

  ‘What’s wrong with her? Is it something serious?’

  ‘I’m afraid she has schizophrenia and is in her local mental hospital. She won’t be coming back.’

  Chapter 13

  I AM ON A surgical ward at last but I cannot raise any enthusiasm for learning to change dressings, prepare patients for theatre, give injections or do any of the things I have longed to do. I am fairly senior too, as there are three student nurses who are junior to me. But somehow the ward routine seems humdrum and I wonder how I could ever have thought it exciting.

  I receive a parcel and a letter from Blinks, which depresses me even more.

  Dear Jen,

  I am feeling a bit better. This place isn’t too bad and the nurses are very kind. The psychiatrist doesn’t think I will ever return to training so I want you to have my paediatric textbook, as I know you wanted one. Give my love to everyone.

  Love Blinks

  I cry in my anger over what has happened to such a sweet girl. Was there something we could have done? Why didn’t the sisters, who are supposed to know about disease, recognise that Blinks was ill? Instead, a monster like the Sod bullied her. We are simply robots, and as long as we do the tasks quickly and say, ‘Yes Sister, no Sister, three bags full Sister,’ we pass.

  On my first day on this new ward I am down to do dressings with a perm. Sister Pearce gives us a list and on it she has marked the patients whose wounds she wants to inspect. We put white gowns over our uniforms and wear white cloth masks. I catch a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror but the sight does not fill me with joy. It is a reflection of just another nurse.

  In the sterilising room, the perm sets up a dressing trolley for the first patient. She wipes it down with carbolic, then places on the top shelf two large stainless-steel bowls with lids that she takes out of the large steriliser with sterile tongs. She opens up a drum and removes two sterile green cloths, cotton wool swabs and gauze dressings with the tongs and puts them into one of the bowls. Into the second bowl she puts three pairs of forceps, a pair of scissors and a small container – all sterile. She pours alcohol into the small container and covers both the sterile bowls with their lids. Finally she places an unsterile bowl with a lid onto the bottom shelf of the trolley together with a chest blanket and a tray of rolls of tape, bandages and safety pins.

  ‘Right, I think that’s all,’ she says, ‘I will do the first dressing and then you can do the rest. But first we need to put another set of bowls and instruments in to boil so they’ll be sterile when we come back.’

  Sterilisers are large, metal boxes on legs with knobs to regulate water entry and exit, and knobs to regulate heat. One steriliser is big enough to boil the stainless steel basins and lids while the smaller is for instruments and syringes.

  The perm looks at the list. ‘Let’s start with young Jean. She had an appendicectomy five days ago and we might be able to take some of her stitches out.’ She wheels the trolley to Jean’s bed and says, ‘Time to do your dressing, Jean. Can you lie flat please?’

  I pull the curtains around the bed and we both go to wash our hands. I watch while the perm folds down the bedclothes to expose the dressing. Then she places the chest blanket over Jean’s top half. She gently eases the plaster strips off the skin around the dressing and leaves it there while she takes the lids off the three bowls on the trolley. She lifts off the dressing with one pair of forceps and deposits it and the forceps into the unsterile bowl. Using two pairs of sterile forceps, one in each hand, she surrounds the wound with the green cloths, being careful not to touch them. A neatly stitched incision is exposed but the skin is red and swollen around each stitch entry and the edges are not quite healed.

  The perm points to the edges with her forceps and says, ‘The stitches are not quite ready to come out yet, Jean. I think we should give them another day or two.’

  Jean squints down to see. ‘It’s really itchy,’ she says, ‘I’d love to give it a good scratch.’

  ‘That’s a good sign – means that it’s healing,’ the perm assures her as she moistens a swab with alcohol and with one motion, wipes the wound from top to bottom down the centre.

  ‘You clean the wound from the top down and from within out, so that you’re moving from the cleaner area to the less clean area,’ she says to me. ‘You use a swab only once. Don’t wipe it up and down.’

  After cleaning the wound, she puts clean gauze squares on it and fastens them on with white tape. Then we go to the sterilising room, empty the dirty dressing and swabs into a bin, and put all the bowls and instruments in the sink where I wash them in soapy water. The perm wipes the trolley with carbolic again and re-sets it as I turn on the steriliser for the washed bowls.

  ‘Right,’ she says, ‘Your turn. I don’t want to give you someone with stitches to come out until I’ve shown you how to do that, so let’s go to – let me see,’ she studies the list. ‘Oh, yes. Mrs Ward. She had a pyelolithotomy two days ago.’

  The morning flies by as I am absorbed in learning to do dressings. The hardest part is manipulating things, like the sterile cloths, with forceps in both hands. I feel very clumsy, as I am not used to using my left hand. When we come to a patient who needs stitches taking out, the perm takes over to show me how.

  ‘Hold the knot with the forceps in your left hand and snip the stitch with the scissors, like this. Then press the flat part of the scissors on the wound as you pull out the stitch. It doesn’t hurt as much if you press down with the scissors.’ She snips the black stitch, presses down and pulls it out.

  ‘Take every alternate stitch out first and then re-assess whether to take them all out or not. But before you take any stitches out, check with Sister or me, until we are sure you know how to judge properly.’

  I am a two-five that day. After dinner, I go to my room, start to read and fall asleep. It’s all I do in my off duty – sleep. I hear about young people joining clubs, going dancing, playing tennis, meeting in pubs, and wonder what it is like to have a social life. Or what it is like not to be continually tired. On my days off, I sleep until noon, sometimes go shopping or visit Amma, and go to bed early. When I first arrived in Leeds, I joined the swimming club but I didn’t last long as I was never off duty when they practised.

  I go back to the ward at five o’clock to find I am to do treatments and ‘preps’. Patients for surgery the next day have an enema, which a junior nurse gives, and then I shave the pubic area. If it is to be abdominal surgery, I shave the abdomen also and paint the area with iodine. Treatments means giving injections, irrigating tubes, suctioning tubes and preparing inhalants to help patients cough. I also have to check the drainage systems used for various reasons. To apply suction to a tube, I rig up a bottle of water in the same fashion as an intravenous infusion, and allow it to drip into a bottle on the floor. The patient’s tube is connected to a Y-connection. As the water flows down from one bottle to another, suction is created. I am kept very busy but it is nice not to be doing the menial jobs.

  A few days later, Mrs Tubbs is admitted. She is a large, jovial woman who comes in to have her gall bladder out. I prep her for theatre and she bears it all with good humour. ‘Serves me right for eating all them cream buns,’ she says. ‘Me doctor kept telling me to go on a diet but what’s life without Yorkshire puds to go wi’ tha’ beef, and what’s tea without a cream cake or two?’

  That evening her entire family of husband and six children comes to visit, cheerfully ignoring the rule about only two visitors at a time. She tells me that all the children are adopted.

  ‘I took one in coz he’d lost both parents i
n t’war, poor little mite, and then another came and another and they sort of grewed on me. Fred was exempt from service coz of his age but he was in t’ome Guard and kept finding lost little ’uns.’

  In the morning, I give Mrs Tubbs her pre-op injection of omnopon and scopolamine and get her ready for theatre. I give her a white cap to wear, a ‘mob’ cap that covers all her hair, and make sure she has no hairpins or jewellery on and that her dentures are out.

  ‘I look a right nana,’ she says.

  ‘Well, you’re not going in for a beauty competition, Mrs Tubbs,’ I say, ‘and the surgeon is too young for you.’

  ‘Call me Ma,’ she says, ‘Everyone does.’

  ‘Right you are, Ma. Good luck. You’ll be back here before you know it and ready to take us all on.’

  That evening Ma Tubbs retches and vomits miserably. She is obviously one of the people who react badly to anaesthetic. The anaesthetist comes to see her and prescribes a drug but it does not help. I sponge her face and hold her as she heaves and strains, her empty stomach convulsing but unable to expel anything.

  She remains cheerful. ‘I felt like this when I went out on a boat trip round Filey Brig, but there’s no smell o’ sea air in ’ere.’

  During one of the heaves, she yanks on her intravenous infusion and dislodges the needle, and the skin around the end of the needle balloons up. I inform Sister who calls the houseman to come and re-start the drip. I am late off duty as I stay to assist him.

  ‘Goodnight Ma,’ I say before I leave. ‘I hope you’ll feel better in the morning.’

  As soon as I come on duty the next day, I go to see how Ma is doing. I am relieved to find her sleeping. When she wakes up, I help her sit up in the bed and encourage her to cough.

  ‘I know it hurts to cough, Ma, but you must take deep breaths to expand your lungs. Here, press this pillow against your belly, like this, so it won’t hurt as much.’

  She gives me a wan smile and says, ‘Bully!’

  That evening she spikes a temperature and it is still up when I come on duty the next day. I sponge her down, change her bed and give her a fresh gown.

  ‘Well, this is one way to get extra attention,’ I say.

  In the afternoon, she cannot urinate. I palpate her bladder. It is full. I try sitting her on a bedpan and dribbling warm water over her vulva with no result. The perm and I help her onto a commode beside the bed. No result. The perm tells me to catheterise her. I was shown this procedure by Sister Pearce a few days ago but I have only done one on my own, and then under supervision.

  I remember Sister Pearce saying, ‘There are few women who look like the anatomical drawings where the urethra is an obvious hole. You can’t prod about with a catheter or you’ll infect the bladder. So insert one catheter and if urine doesn’t come out, leave it there and try with another. If you leave the first one in, you won’t be trying for the same hole – which will be the vagina.’

  I wheel the trolley up to Ma’s bed and explain what I am going to do. ‘Seeing that your waterworks won’t, Ma, I’m going to put a tube into your bladder to drain off the urine. It won’t hurt but it’s a bit uncomfortable, but it will make you feel better.’

  ‘Right you are, luv. Anything you say.’

  I swab Mrs Tubbs’ vulva and then gently separate the labia to swab inside. I take a catheter, hold it a few inches from the insertion end, put the other end in a kidney basin and bend down to look for the urethra. Large though she is, Ma has not had children of her own and the urethra is plainly visible. I insert the catheter and urine pours out into the kidney basin.

  ‘There you go, Ma, that’s opened up the flood gates. Let’s hope this does the trick and you can wee on your own now.’

  ‘Didn’t feel a thing, Nurse Ross. Thank you.’

  Ma’s temperature is still up the next day and she is told she has pneumonia. She is worn out with coughing and her indomitable spirit is beginning to flag. No more repartee or jokes from either of us.

  I am wheeling a dressing trolley down the ward when she calls to me. ‘Nurse Ross, I feel as if summat’s given way. Will you ‘ave a look?’

  I close her curtains, lie her down and undo her many-tailed bandage. With the release of this pressure, her dressing is pushed off by a grey mass, which pokes out of her wound and steadily increases in bulk. I stare in horror. A burst abdomen. A surgical emergency. It is when the stitches give way and the intestines fall out. If something is not done immediately the patient goes into severe shock and dies.

  I quickly pull my dressing trolley into the cubicle, take out the sterile cloths to cover the wound, place a pillow on top of it and say, as calmly as I can, ‘Hang tight onto this pillow, Ma. I need to get Sister to come and look.’

  Sister is doing a round with a surgeon. Ignoring protocol, I tug at her sleeve and say, ‘Sister, come quick. Mrs Tubbs has a burst abdomen.’

  She and the surgeon come to look at the wound. He says to Ma, ‘I am sorry, Mrs Tubbs, but you’ve come apart at the seams and we’ll have to take you to theatre and stitch you up again.’

  ‘Oh, no.’ Ma starts to cry. ‘I can’t go through all that again.’ I hold her hand.

  Sister says, ‘You’re certainly having a rotten time, Ma, and I’m really sorry. But you will get a different anaesthetic this time so you won’t be so sick.’

  She and I wheel Ma to theatre in her bed. Moving her onto a trolley would be too risky as we might end up with yards of guts on our hands. I go off duty worrying about Ma and whether she will pull through. The anaesthetic does not make her as sick as before and over the next few days she slowly improves.

  I am doing beds and backs for a change and when I get to Ma, she says, ‘It’s time I put on me own nightie and feel human again.’

  I find a flowered nightie in her locker and a pink crocheted bed jacket. ‘This is a pretty bed jacket, Ma. Did you make it?’

  ‘Aye, I did that. I knit and crochet a lot. In fact, I’ll get hubby to bring in some wool so I’ll have summat to do with my hands.’

  Ma gets stronger as each day passes. She spends more time sitting up in a chair and gradually starts to walk. If she isn’t busy crocheting something in sky-blue wool, she’s going round the ward talking to patients, reading to them, giving them drinks or writing letters for them.

  I am becoming more competent at changing dressings, removing stitches, shortening drains and am now a dab hand at catheterising women. Yet, although the work is more interesting, I cannot feel the former enthusiasm. I hardly see Judith or Sandy or any of my friends; they seem to have hibernated. If we meet in the dining room our conversation is about our wards. There isn’t much laughter any more.

  I receive a letter from my father.

  Dear Jenny,

  Just a quick note to let you know that Sophie is leaving in three months. They are going to live in Beirut. I bumped into Tom yesterday and he asked me to write and see if you would be interested in running the swimming school at Breach Candy. They need a reply as soon as possible as they will have to advertise if you don’t want the job.

  You can, of course, live with us. Our rates for lodgers are very reasonable.

  Love Dad

  I feel a huge relief. I can get away from here and go back to India. I lie on my bed and think about my life there. After the war years in Leeds, Bombay was another world. I sailed out on a P&O liner with my mother and baby brother. Shipboard life was a taste of what was to come: sunshine, good food, constant leisure. I bought three long evening dresses with matching evening gloves and I rotated through these as everyone dressed formally for dinner every night.

  Port Said was my first encounter with a culture completely foreign to my own and I found it thrilling. The bustle of brown bodies, the noise of men calling out to entice us into their shops, constant honking of car horns, strange dried foods and herbs, pungent smells and gilliegillie men who performed magic tricks.

  As we sailed into Bombay harbour, I could see my father dressed in white slacks and
a white short-sleeved shirt, waiting to meet us. He drove us to our new home, a huge ground-floor flat with three en-suite bedrooms, a living room that comfortably held a piano and two three-piece suites, a dining room and an inner sanctum ruled by Fergie the cook. The servants were lined up to greet us: Sammy the bearer, dignified in his turban and cummerbund, Ruth the ayah, or nanny, for my brother, Ali the houseboy and Fergie. They placed garlands of flowers around our necks as they greeted us with ‘Namaste’.

  I quickly settled into a life of days spent at Breach Candy, the outdoor European swimming pool that was a short walk away, where I took lessons from Sophie and learned to swim and dive. After a while I helped Sophie teach children how to swim. When I wasn’t there, I was shopping with my mother, playing canasta or sitting around with three or four other teenaged European girls who lived in Bombay. We did not mix with Indian teenagers and I was too naive to wonder why. I resolve that when I go back, I will try to get to know Indian girls of my age.

  Evenings were spent attending parties, dinners and dances. There were a few young men, who worked mainly in banks, and as young girls were scarce, I was in great demand. I get up to find my photo album. There I am in my navy broderie anglaise long dress dancing with Neville in a white sharkskin dinner jacket. We have been caught mid-step and are both laughing as we stare at the camera. I am brown and robust and my hair is bleached almost white by the sun.

  I flick through the album. There’s a picture of me with a large party dining at the Taj Mahal hotel. The host, fascinated by an insatiable appetite produced by a mile-long swim every day, encouraged me to order more and more courses until I could eat no more. There we are at Juhu beach. I swam in the sea there until I saw a four-foot water snake swim by, striped like a football jersey, and decided the pool was safer.

  My time off flies by in a reverie as I recapture the mood of my former life and I return to work feeling buoyant and cheerful. After I come off duty, instead of having a bath and going to bed as usual, I go to Judith’s room. She is in bed, reading.