OK, I might not be in the best frame of mind as I type this, but I seriously need to vent - you may want to brace yourselves for some choice language. It's either rant here, or tell a few people exactly what I think of them.
Been a nice quiet morning on my ward.
Sure some of the kidides are suffering side effects from the chemo, but they were all in good spirits and at least they all managed to keep breakfast down.
For a change, we have full nursing support on the ward - first time
As many know I love to cook, and I love watching Masterchef.
I enjoy Masterchef Australia, and am looking forward to Masterchef South Africa starting next week.
One thing I've always wanted to do is create one of the amazing desserts seen on Masterchef Australia. So God help me, I'm going to be attempting one of the most intricate desserts I've ever seen - Peter Gilmore's Snow Egg (see pic below).
I’ve eaten the Snow Egg at Peter Gilmore’s Quay restaurant in Sydney before, so at lea
Finished ward round this morning with the on call registrar, about ten o'clock.
Acute oncology ward, 18 kids in total, with 7 of those being new admissions this morning. I had lots of scans and blood tests to request, a few referrals to be made, and my own notes to update.
I finally finished just before noon, when the duty nurse informed me that one of the kids (a 13 year old boy called Jason, who has late stage cancer) had gone to the toilet about half an hour prior and hadn't come bac
Well a friend of mine, James, phoned me earlier today saying he needed to see me.
His 15 year old son Michael, (who is gay and out) has been suspended from school for bringing "smut" onto school premises, even though the school year ends on Friday - "smut" was his teacher's words not mine.
Needless to say I was shocked. Not quite so much by the fact that he is into porn at 15, it was the surprise that he would be stupid enough to take a porn magazine to school (at least that was what I
Well shock and horror the sheep is still around!
Yeah, I've been kinda absent of late, lots of stuff going on. Nothing noteworthy, just so many different little things taking up so much time.
Anyway, this blog entry is about my experiment today with freewriting. It's not something I do very often, but I enjoy it when I do.
For those who have never done any freewriting, it's actually quite easy. You simply write, without regard to spelling, grammar, subject matter, plot, or any of
So last night we were watching the old film Bugsy Malone with some friends and their kids.
About half way through the film, one of our friends sons, Matthew, who is 14, made the following comment. "I'd love to coat that in honey and lick it off".
Assumed he was referring to Tallulah (played by Jodie Foster)
or maybe Blousey (played by Florrie Dugger).
Nope, I was wrong on both counts.
Turned out he was actually perving on Bugsy (played by Scott Baio).
Now there is an understatement if I ever heard one.
Brett and I were at a gathering of friends today. Nothing special, just a get together and an excuse to drink alcohol. Most of our friends brought their kids along, and two of them - Michael and Bobby, who is Brett's nephew - who are both ten years old in a few weeks time got talking.
I've no idea how they got onto the subject, but Brett and I overheard Michael asking Bobby "So just how do two guys do it?" Brett and I have never hidden
So tonight on Challenge TV, two of the greatest children's shows ever are being shown from the beginning.
Both were shows that every 80's child in the UK wanted to be on.
Funhouse http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fun_House_(UK_game_show) and Knightmare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knightmare
These two shows were on when satellite TV was practically unheard of in the UK. In fact, we only had four TV channels when these two shows were first broadcast.
Knightmare was probably the most
Well apparently I've managed to get my Brett's ten year old nephew, Michael, suspended from school for three days.
Brett and I were talking to him recently about the games that we played in school during breaktime (recess). One of the most common games I played when I was in junior school (age 7-10) was a version of tag called British Bulldogs (when I was 5 or 6 I used to play Fishy-Fishy instead, but that really is for the littler kids to play).
The link explains the basics of the rule
I thought it was time to let peeps knowing just what on earth I'm playing at.
I know I have posted stories for the anthologies, and a few short stories, but I have two in process stories that have kinda languished with no new chapters since last summer, for which I apologise.
Work, life, work, work etc etc got in the way.
The Ddraig-Cyfrinachau has encountered more problems than I thought possible when I started writing it - the best laid plans of mice and men and all that
Th
I thought it was time to let peeps knowing just what on earth I'm playing at.
I know I have posted stories for the anthologies, and a few short stories, but I have two in process stories that have kinda languished with no new chapters since last summer, for which I apologise.
Work, life, work, work etc etc got in the way.
The Ddraig-Cyfrinachau has encountered more problems than I thought possible when I started writing it - the best laid plans of mice and men and all that
Th
Well, it's almost that time of year again.
The 58th Eurovision Song Contest is rapidly approaching us (May 18th for the final). This year it is being hosted in the lovely city of Malmo, Sweden. If Brett and I do decide to go, I will forewarn our Swedish members so that you can all go and tremble with fear in your neighbouring Norway
Now as Eurovision followers will know, the United Kingdom last won it in 1997 with our highest score ever of 227 (Katrina and the Waves with 'Love Shine A
As those who read my blog entry back in early December will remember, I discovered a couple of cottagers in one of the admin buildings at work. My blog entry and a few of the comments from members took a fairly light-hearted view of the situation. Today, I only wish I had been a bit less light-hearted about it.
At the time, security didn't really do much about it and it was soon forgotten. This morning an e-mail was circulated by our head of security advising us that all admin buildings a
Apparently an old Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times"; well I now in very interesting times thank you very much.
My cousin (Nancy) and her boyfriend (David) split towards the end of November, and a few weeks back I found out that David is now going out with another cousin of mine (Sarah). A very bizarre quirk of fate, as neither of my cousins even knew each other until this happened; Nancy is a cousin on my Mum's side and Sarah is a cousin on my Dad's side.
My Mum's fam
So we made it through the end of world (big shock) and Christmas has come round again.
This year my in-laws (well, you know what I mean, Brett's parents) are coming to Christmas dinner, and they arrive tomorrow - God help us all.
Now don't get me wrong, I love his mum to bits, but she's just too much for me to handle when I'm cooking.
Our kitchen is a tiny little thing that is just about large enough for an oven, a sink, a fridge and one (count them ONE) cook. His mum is like those a
Since it's coming to the end of the year, it's time for us to start clearing out our old files. Anything that is over seven years old (so any records on children who finished their chemotherapy by the end of 2005), needs to be scanned into PDF files and then all of the paper records have to be shredded.
Now since this is always a huge undertaking (usually takes until the end of January), we try and get some of the staff to persuade their kids to come in and lend a hand (saves paying agency
Well today at work was a bit of a shock for me.
I had to go over to the medical records archives section today. Like many London hospitals, the hospital I work at has been around since the 1700s, so is now scattered over about 40 buildings, most of which are purely administrative areas (makes more space in the main hospital for patient stuff).
One of these admin areas houses the medical records archive, the phlebotomy clinic (where they do the blood tests) and the specimen drop off (for
So my manager returned to work early last week, and her welcome back was, shall we say, less than friendly.
She has received several size sevens up her backside (primarily from her manager and the manager who was covering for her), and the top information manager for the hospital (who I've only met once) apparently jumped on her with both feet.
We had our team meeting this morning, and we have been told that our manager has just tended her resignation - though we all think she was probab
So yesterday was my GA first anniversary.
When I first came to GA it was really just to read some brilliant stories, and hopefully find a few authors I'd never read before.
I really didn't plan or even expect to be where I am now - having posted 15 stories (and 30 some prompt stories) and 127k+ words, and recently having joined the blog team. I certainly didn't expect to get to know so many great people - I'm not gonna start naming names because there's just too many of you great people
So as anyone who read my last blog entry knows, I'm currently stuck working every hour God sends thanks to my manager sodding off on holiday.
Anyway, today in our team meeting one of the other statisticians (who I'll call Margaret), reminds us all she is away next week on Thursday and Friday. The dumb bitch actually had the nerve to ask if I (yes me, yes Andy, yes this poor dumb sod who is already working 63 hours a week) would cover her work while she is away (after she had actually declin
So I have just finished working my seventh straight day, and it's gonna carry on for another three weeks. That means I'll have worked twenty-eight straight days by the time this is done (or 252 hours, or 15120 minutes, damn this just sounds worse and worse)!
At work we are setting up a new database for our cancer treatments and diagnoses, which will form part of a much larger new national dataset. We knew this design project was going to be happening over these four weeks (have done since
I've had a busy week or so, but it's been great.
First (and most important): As some of you know, though I rarely talk about it, my mum has suffered from depression over the past ten years or so. On Wednesday, she had made it one whole year without a single hospitalisation, for the first time ever since her diagnosis. She is doing really well, and is even planning on joining one of the support groups on a weekend getaway to Bruges next month. So we had a big party, that went on into the w
Just back from a two day cancer conference in Manchester - woo hoo!!
Lots of the usual learning stuff - what we are doing to treat children's cancers, what the future holds, survival statistics, what we are doing better on etc etc etc.
More important - 2 nights out painting the town pink Lots of fun in the bars in probably the most well known street in England outside of London.
Had a few drinkies too many and committed the age old sacrilege of karaoke Stayed out each nigh
Not the happiest thing to have as my first blog entry, but who ever said blogs had to be happy.
I've been working on a children's oncology ward for the past year or so, doing the data collection for our national cancer register and managing the medical files of the patients. One of the children (who for this blog I'll call Max) passed away a few weeks ago from leukaemia. It really is true what they say, "Paediatrics is the best and the worst of medicine".
Usually, I don't have much to
