Christmas Stories

[Cindy]

Christmas is also the time when people sat around and told stories.
Maybe as it was a time of leisure and people want to be entertained? Hey we still do it on Netflix, etc.

Ghost stories or frightening people was always a feature. The Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens is still a favourite, I particularly like the very recent version.

But what is your favourite true story?

I'll start.

Another Christmas party and another excuse to drink and another hangover. At least I didn't have to hide the drinking or the hangover - it was Christmas! Everyone was a drunk.

But I had to work at the hospital. I'm not sure if I actually left or somehow found my way there but I was at work and my headache was fierce.  I need sleep and coolness.

I walked past the mortuary to get some samples from the Path lab and thought  "I feel like death"  I wonder if ..

I went in and sure enough it was empty and I just lied down on a slab, oh so cool.

I think I slept a little.

The door opened and Rosie the mortuary technician came in for her morning shift.

She was a friend and fellow drinker.

I didn't want to frighten her .. so I sat up and ..
She's never talked to me again. It has been 30 years.

[LizK]

Ok Here is one from my days training as a Psychiatric Nurse

I was on my first month of Night shift working in a part of the hospital where men aged from 25 through to 70 and of well below average intelligence lived. Many of these clients had never lived anywhere else but in a hospital setting. I guess they were considered the "forgotten".

As the night duty nurse I set myself up at the end of a long corridor that ran between two 30 bed open dormitories on either side. The two at the very end held our more mobile guests. This is early 1980's I am about 18 years and a second year student nurse. I would start at 10 at night and finish at 7am the next morning.

In the first three weeks two things happened that taught me a valuable lesson.

Night duty consisted of sitting in my chair covered with a blanket, had my reading light, large stack of books for studying and every hour I would get up and do a walk around tro check everyone. After my first nursing round at 2 am where you change and treat those that need it, I settled down to work on an assignment...every now and then the building would give a groan and creek and after awhile you would get used to it. This particular night i had found one of the men out of bed and in another dormitory so I escorted him back to his bed and told him to stay put, about 30 minutes later during my walk around, I find him yet again and this time I was far stearner than I should have been and he got upset. Anyway he went back to bed ok and I went back to my study...about 30 minutes or so later out of the corner of my eye I notice my friend creeping slowly up the corridor towards me...

I jump up out of my seat to grab him and he runs ( last thing I need is 120 screaming clients in the middle of the night so I chase) but not for his dormitory and this is when I should have realised something was wrong be ran for the opposite dormitory and all I can think is I am going to have to try and settle over 30 people back into bed unless I can catch this guy first. Running was made more difficult because the floor was polished and slippery.

As I came rushing through the door into the dormitory my sense that I had made a monumental mistake hit me as for some reason it seemd unusually light but the overhead lights were not on, I didn't really have time to think about that as my right foot hit the wet linoleum a thought went through my head "How come there is water on the floor" next thing I know I am on my back sliding to a stop 15 feet into the dormitory and soaking wet....it is only then that I realised the reason it was so light, is that the curtains have been pulled back and the other thing that struck me was the loud clapping and laughing coming from 30 "below average itelligence" clients.

Standing a few feet in front of me laughing so hard he began to wet himself was the guy I had scolded earlier...the real kicker was the realisation that it wasn't water I had slid on....this guy had coerced most of the dormitory to piddle on the floor and then got me to chase him knowing exactly what was going to happen. I sheepishly went and found a shower and uniform...I never ventured down that end again that night and in the next 6 months I was very cautious  when entering the dormitories along with a new found respect for my charges.