Rural Muster
A day in a life of that rural health Nurse started much earlier than usual.
I was leaving our farm early morning slightly jaded from a busy weekend as the on-call nurse. After spending four hours bouncing around in an ambulance till ‘horrible’ o’clock with acute cases and micromanaging three paediatric calls. The long valley drive to see this new baby, would undoubtedly give me the opportunity to reflect on the events of the weekend.
I had already brought home the ‘baby box’ full of tricks, I kissed my husband and kids’ goodbye, grabbed my coffee to go and got in the car. It was a particularly foggy morning, and my head was still in the clouds, when I suddenly met a temporary electric fence across the road to see a herd of dairy cows leaving the milking shed on the opposite side of the road.
I stopped, got my ‘red bands’ out of the car and went over to give ‘this farming dad’ a hand to get them across. It gave me a chance to have a quick catch up with him. I’d stitched his hand up the week before, after an ‘incident’ in the ‘man cave’, but it had healed beautifully. I gave him a ‘Matronly’ chat about the fact he wasn’t wearing any gloves but commended him for his cast iron immunity.
Life was a bit crazy for them at the moment, they had an awesome 14-month-old ‘Houdini’ and an four-week-old baby. We talked for a few minutes, reading the world to rights, before the last dawdling cow finally made it across, and off I went to his house.
When I arrived, I found Mum in the middle of a melt-down, she’d had a hell of a night with a very hungry baby and a troublesome teething toddler. She’d just been cutting up some meat for the working dogs and tried to slice the top of her finger off. When I arrived, she was not very silently crying on the couch with a pressure tea-towel in place with a very confused toddler staring at her.
And a beautifully peaceful baby finally sleeping in the Moses basket.
I went over and gave her a good hug, and when she finally sighed, she let go and told me where the first aid box was, and I patched her up. It was simply a case of right place, right time. I briefly looked over this thriving baby, doing the bare essential measurements and ensured she had the ‘tools’ to deal with a teething child.
I then asked her what she was planning for tea that night, which of course she hadn’t even thought about. I went over to the freezer, got out some meat out for tea and proceeded to peel the potatoes and organize what was left of the vegetables in the pantry. She stood next to me at the sink and poured it all out emotionally.
It was much harder than she had thought it was going to be. She had an awesome husband and father, but they were struggling. I listened, and then we looked at something we could do to organize the rest of the day. She promised me she was going to try and have a sleep when they both went down for their naps.
At the end of the conversation, she had decided to call her mum and ask her to come down for the week to give them a hand. She’d previously stoically turned down the offer of help, but today she realized she really did need some help and some more groceries!
I drove back to the health centre just in time to meet the mother of a young baby, there for the baby check and vaccinations. She was breastfeeding her after the vaccines and whilst I was updating the computer records, we chatted.
It was predictably uneventful until she told me that she hadn’t been feeling very well for a few days but couldn’t really put her finger on what was wrong. There were not really many obvious symptoms apart from just a bit of a ‘squirmy’ tummy. I asked her if she’d had her first period yet to which she shook her head. I then asked her if there was any chance, she could be pregnant and she said “No, of course not”.
Her pupils then dilated, and she said, “Oh my god”. The urine test confirmed her very early first trimester pregnancy. I gave her a pregnancy info pack and I told her about the essential ‘antenatal’ things she needed to think about today. She was obviously very shocked and had to take some time to take it all in, I made her an appointment for the GP later in the week.
After the 20 minutes post vaccination period had well and truly passed, I helped her and the baby now sleeping back into the car, and smiled as I heard her say to her partner as she sat down.
“Please, don’t freak out, you’re not going to believe this”.
Time for a well-deserved belated coffee and a muffin in the staff room before I tried to get my head around my day and attempt to write it all up. Then one more baby check before lunch, but thankfully much less eventful this time, plus some problem solving with the duty nurse regarding a complex case that had just arrived in the clinic.
Then after lunch a scheduled visit to a very elderly resident living at home. I’ve been visiting her for quite some time, checking in regularly to see how she’d been. She’d had significant anxiety during periods in her life, something she’d managed to hide very well. She put it down to her post-natal experiences with a difficult birth, and sick baby. We’d talk, reminisce and I tell her about my world, and she’d tell me about hers. Today there was nothing major to plan or sort out, so I wrote in her diary when I would call next time, took her cat off my lap, got her post from her letterbox and got back on with my day.
On the way back to the health centre I nipped into the kindergarten to pick up a completed parental questionnaire. The children all ran over to say hello and show me their latest creative artwork. I then popped into the school to talk to a student found with some of the ‘dried green stuff’. I spent an hour, unpacking where he was at, and helped him make a pretty robust plan!
I then headed back to the health centre to vaccinate and do a pre-school assessment for a really robust up and coming farm boy. He told me about the treat he was getting on the way home.
He high fived me and left with his ‘graduation certificate’, balloon, sticker, and awesome toy.
I ended my day documenting, completing all of the necessary data for my service. Planned my next day, informing people of their upcoming appointments. I spent a little time organizing digital resources for our Facebook parenting group. Uploaded a hilarious video of an amusing toddler, and an important health info post.
On my way home, I stopped at our rural post depot and chatted to passing locals, including some school children who waved energetically on their home.
