An Inch

I can feel a lengthy(ish) post coming on. That's what happens when I don't post for days.

• The state of the word - Don't you ever just despair? The world seems to have gone mad around me. The news is so thoroughly depressing and infuriating. I was feeling quite down about it the other night as I walked home. I was thinking maybe I should emigrate somewhere nice and work there, but I expect every country has its problems. Also, it's not just England and it's news, but the whole world's! I think I need t find an ice little island somewhere remote!
  
  
• Our young people - How have we failed them so badly? We had a 14 year old in resus the other day having been stabbed, because he'd looked at someone the wrong way and refused to give over his phone. Why do our young people think it is acceptable to do that? I was reading the news about Peckham. I just cannot understand it. We have failed these people so terribly when they feel it necessary to carry knives/guns for protection, or when they think it is acceptable to shoot someone in their bed when they're sleeping.
  
  One of the boys at my mother's centre today had brought in a machete and an axe (she is the headteacher of a Pupil Referral Unit for excluded secondary aged pupils). What these kids don't' seem to understand is that there are only two outcomes to that situation. They end in up prison for possession or killing someone, or their own weapon is used on them and they end up dead. Knives aren't any form of protection, they present more threat than these boys know.
  
  
• Fight or flight - You don't know what you would do if someone demanded your phone/iPod/money form you in the street and threatened violence, you don't know until that situation. I don't know how I would respond. I hope that I wouldn't just hand things over. I wonder if this is a wise course of action, it could see me wounded or at worst killed, but I can't help the feeling that it's the right thing to do. A mobile phone isn't worth dying for, but what about the principles? Freedom? Integrity? We work hard for what we have, why should someone be able to come along and just take it from us? Why should we be subject to violence and have to be afraid to walk the streets at night, to use our mobile phones or listen to our iPods? It's through fear that these people win, and it's a form of terrorism. I don't blame someone for not standing up to them, what use is freedom if you're not alive to enjoy it? On the other hand, if we always take that attitude we will never see change, it's like many of the other fights for out rights and our freedoms that we have seen through history.
  
  
• I looked after a girl with a brain tumour this week. She was lovely. She felt absolutely rotten but she was still polite and courteous. After gave her some IV hydrocortisone she picked up tremendously. Her brain tumour was non malignant and ha been operated on 5 years previously, it's now increasing in size again and being observed. The length they had to go to get diagnosed is scary, understandable to an extent, but still scary. I mentioned how lovely she was, I often find with the chronically ill patients that they can be very rude and demanding, particularly the sickle cell patients, but she was so polite it made her a pleasure to look after.
  
  
• Yesterday I helped distract a Sickler, not sure how old he was, maybe 8? He was writhing around in pain and crying out whilst his mother sat there and ignored him. It took very little to distract him, we played Where's Wally and he forget about his pain (apart from when the doctor came back in) and then we played with bubbles and he was quite chirpy. I know this is a situation his mother will have been in before and I try not to be judgemental but it is so frustrating to see a distressed child in pain being completely ignored by his mother. No words of comfort, no hugs, nothing. As I said he was easily distracted and it really wouldn't have taken a lot from her to comfort him, he just wanted some attention, he was feeling rotten. Maybe it's a cultural thing (Most Sickle Cell patients m Britain are of African or Caribbean descent) but it's still difficult to understand/accept. For information on Sickle Cell visit The Sickle Cell Society
  
  
• In other news... I slaved over my Portfolio yesterday and have made it look pretty impressive to my own surprise, so that is ready to take to interview. I feel like I'm getting on top of things, which is good as I'd been feeling completely out of control and I'm a little bit of a control freak.
  

Finally, I'd like to recommend the film V for Vendetta, it was originally a comic book series (I've not read it). It is superb. I don't think the plot summary does it justice and I find myself unable to adequately explain the storyline, but I would highly recommend it. This excerpt is taken from Valerie's autobiography in the film.

"But I'd only told them the truth. Was that so selfish? Our integrity sells for so little, but it is all we really have. It is the very last inch of us. But within that inch we are free....I shall die here. Every inch of me shall perish. Every inch, but one. An inch. It is small and it is fragile and it is the only thing in the world worth having. We must never lose it or give it away. We must never let them take it from us."