My Land of Counterpane or My Resume

J.C Hamilton-Romney

Description

The author is a retired registered nurse who has published three previous works: I'm Not Allowed to Say is about her experience as an active duty army captain; At the Foot of Rawlins Mountain is a series of vignettes of life growing up on an island paradise; and Casualties of Life details her early childhood, nursing training and the vagaries of life. Although not part of a series, two of these books dealt with her early nursing training and experience. All three were published under the name J'nette C. Bryant. This current work is a comprehensive detail of her nursing career as viewed through the eyes of, and experienced by, an emigrant. It covers a wide variety of health care settings to include: nursing homes, private and public sectors, and military and veterans' administration institutions.The author has one daughter and lives in New York.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Memoir

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
• Date de parution: 06 janvier 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781398469006
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

M y L and o f C ounterpane o r M y R ésumé
J.C. H amilton- R omney
A ustin M acauley P ublishers
2023-01-06
My Land of Counterpane or My Résumé About the Author Dedication Copyright Information © Acknowledgement The Land of Counterpane Introduction Prologue Putting Things Back Together The Nursing Home Experience 1973–1977 The Hilton Experience 1977–1982 The Military Experience 1982−1985 HHC and Hilton Stopover 1985−1986 Reflections The VA Experience 1986–1989 The Military: Re-Experience 1989−1992 Transitioning 1992 VA: The Last Frontier 1992−2009 The Land of Counterpane Epilogue
About the Author
The author is a retired registered nurse who was born on the island of Nevis. She completed her training in St Kitts, West Indies, and emigrated to the United States shortly after. There she continued her career and worked in a variety of health care settings: nursing home, private and public hospitals, military and veterans administration facilities. She is a graduate of Long Island University, Brooklyn, and Herbert H. Lehman College, Bronx, New York. Her previous works include: I’m Not Allowed to Say , 2000; At the Foot of Rawlins Mountain , 2006; and Casualties of Life , 2007. Although not part of a series, two of these works dealt with aspects of her early training and experience and all three were published under the name J’nette C. Bryant. She has one daughter and lives in New York.
Dedication
To my daughter, Janell, who travelled with me along the way.
Copyright Information ©
J.C. Hamilton-Romney 2023
The right of J.C. Hamilton-Romney to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
All of the events in this memoir are true to the best of author’s memory. The views expressed in this memoir are solely those of the author.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528978729 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781398468993 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781398469006 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published 2023
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd ®
1 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5AA
Acknowledgement
This book is dedicated to my daughter, Janell, whom I’ve considered a fellow traveller along my career path. But I would be remiss if I did not include those persons who have in some way influenced my growth and development and encouraged me in my endeavour as a professional nurse.
First, I wish to thank my godmother, Theodocia Arthurton, who first took me to church and fostered my religious upbringing; my Sunday school teacher Jimmy Brown, who taught me to believe in myself and to never forget who I was, and whose I was; my Aunt Elizabeth Pemberton, whose encouragement and support were a constant through all the changing scenes of my life and kept me afloat.
I also wish to thank those persons who influenced me during my early training as a student nurse. Matron Louise Walwyn; ward sisters B. Bell and Winnifred McMahon; staff nurses Lorraine Liburd, Melvina Christmas, and Rosemary Lawrence; and Doctor Cuthbert Sebastian.
In addition, I wish to thank those persons whose positive influence and belief in me kept me sane during some trying periods as I negotiated my way through the diverse paths I chose to maintain in my professional status as a registered nurse. My first supervisor, Susan Dietz; director of nursing Janet Freeman; head nurses Mary O’Donnell, Jennifer DeStacio and Ramona Fiorey; Helen Wilson and Etta White; and Doctors Courtney Wood and Kevin Kelley. In gratitude.
The Land of Counterpane
When I was sick and lay a-bed,
I had two pillows at my head,
And all my toys beside me lay
To keep me happy all the day.
And sometimes for an hour or so,
I watched my leaden soldiers go,
With different uniforms and drills,
Among the bed-clothes, through the hills.
And sometimes sent my ships in fleet,
All up and down among the sheets;
Or brought my trees and houses out,
And planted cities all about.
I was the giant great and still
That sat upon the pillow-hill,
And sees before him dale and plain,
The pleasant land of counterpane .
Robert Louis Stevenson
Introduction
My first remembered experience in the Land of Counterpane was at the age of four when I became sick with a bout of chest infection, perhaps pneumonia or other malady. In those days, doctors made home visits and my mother, fearful that I might pass it on to my baby sister, quickly sent for the doctor and I was pampered back to health on our living room sofa. This I vaguely remember but was reinforced by my older brother who through the years occasionally referred to my ‘pampered state’ and of my need to be ‘carried about’ by himself and my elder brother (deceased).
However, I recall my next spell in the Land of Counterpane at the age of seven when I was in the second grade. It was the Saturday before Easter Sunday when I accidentally stepped on a piece of broken bottle and lacerated my right heel. Not wanting to miss out on Sunday nor the festivities on the following Monday which was a holiday celebrated with outings such as dances, garden parties and horse racing, I kept quiet about my injury.
The following Tuesday when I returned to school, I had an inguinal lymph node the size of a bird’s egg that was so painful, I limped all the way to school and did not get in line to perform exercises with my classmates. This prompted Teacher Lucille to investigate and I showed her the cause of my ailment. She sent me straight away to the health centre and told me not to return to school until Nurse said it was alright to do so.
At the health centre, I was given injections, my wound dressed and I was sent home with instructions to stay off my feet and return to the clinic in two days. Upon arrival home, my mother, who perhaps felt chastened for not noticing my predicament before sending me off to school, was now solicitous since both teacher and nurse had ordered me home. I was made comfortable on the living room sofa beneath the window overlooking the veranda; from this perch I could look out on the village and passers-by; the thought that I would not have to perform chores for the duration was more than gratifying.
That afternoon, Gracie, my classmate and neighbour, brought me my homework and the second-grade reader on loan so that I could keep up with my lessons. The next day I waved the children from my village off to school, pleased that I was excused. By mid-morning, however, when I could no longer hear the singing from morning devotions and with my mother off to work in the fields, I felt lonely so started reading from my reader and had devoured the entire book by the time I returned to school two weeks later. That spell away from school ushered in my appetite for reading and it has not yet been sated.
When I was twelve years old, I fell and broke my left wrist. (I use the word broke loosely since this was not confirmed until years later when, as an adult, I had an x-ray taken of my wrist and the old fracture was revealed.) It was on the Saturday following the last day of school and the beginning of the summer holidays. Between my mother and our next-door neighbour, they ‘fixed’ my swollen wrist bandaging it with rotten banana leaves and vinegar, and I was out of commission for the next six weeks.
A whole summer without chores was a blessing in disguise and I enjoyed my reprieve. No chores, no punishment; and although not a bed, it was ‘my land of counterpane’ and in time I came to view illness itself as a reprieve from life’s toils, though few seem to see it as the great privilege it really is. To be succoured by nurses and each other this quote by Elizabeth Barrett-Browning comes to mind:
I think it frets the saints in heaven to see
How many desolate creatures on earth
Have learnt the simple dues of fellowship and social comfort, in a hospital .
Pushkin, of course, had a slightly different take on this in Eugene Onegin :
My uncle, man of firm convictions
By falling gravely ill, he’s won
A due respect for his afflictions—
The only clever thing he’s done.
May his example profit others;
But God, what deadly boredom, brothers,
To tend a sick man night and day,
Not daring once to slip away!
And, oh, how base to pamper grossly
And entertain the nearly dead,
To fluff the pillows for his head,
And pass him medicines morosely—
While thinking under every sigh:
The devil take you, Uncle Die!
Prologue
In speaking to my daughter who delights in listening to my anecdotes about my experiences as a nurse, she said she can remember almost everything I said, but to my dismay, her tendency is to extrapolate a different meaning altogether. Over time I would listen as she retold my stories, and I would say, “I haven’t even left the room and you have managed to change the story altogether; just imagine if you had to write it for me!” Therefore, I’m writing it myself.
During my lifetime, many things have been said about me both positive and negative, but we remember most especially the negative, and even the positive were often said more as backhanded compliments. Here are a few:
From a next-door neighbour, “H is too farad (she must have meant forward), but she is the best looking of her mother’s children.”
From one of the nursing ward sisters (the equivalent of a nursing supervisor/head-nurse) early in my career: “You are neither good nor bad,” to which my nurse cousin had said in alarm when I told her of sister’s comment, “That means you are lukewarm and