Thankful for the fingerprints

PaisleyMother - 27 Jan 18

I’m often left thankful after a shift at work, and not just because it’s the end of a shift and I can go home but thankful I CAN walkout, go home to MY bed and MY family and think MY own thoughts.
Working in a Mental Health facility makes you look at life in a very different light and today made me see a side that I’ve never seen before.
It’s not often I get to go on a home visit with a patient as the ward is normally too busy and it’s usually escort staff who take patients out but in a 12 bed ward for various reasons we had a few hours where we had more staff than patients in so a lady on the ward had been granted a few hours escorted leave as part of her recovery programme and I ask if I can go as me and this patient get on and it seemed a waste me sitting on the ward with no one to assist with.
So all the checks done and through the many gates and the airlock, handing security belts and keys back over.
We’re out in the big wide world, you can see the shoulders drop and this ladies lungs fill with the crisp air. Now she’s allowed in the garden and around the grounds of the hospital unescorted but It’s still not freedom. It still must feel very restricted and suffocating almost.
She’s enjoying the sounds and the smells of ‘the real world’ Something we take for granted.
We get to her mums and the family are there, teas being poured, cakes being passed about after a few minutes she disappears with her 22 month old, her partner heads up stairs and she’s laid in bed reading to her daughter.
This broke my heart.
All this woman wanted to do was have some time with her child she didn’t care practically the whole family had come to see her. It just got me thinking about the days when my kid is getting under my feet and I can’t wait for bed time or I’m having a fit because he’s just dirtied his clean top he’s had on 2 minutes.
I see my child every day, wash him, feed him, play with him, see him grow and develop. And through no fault of her own, through an illness she didn’t know she had, had no way of controlling, just crept up on her then boom.
She’s admitted to a mental health ward and sectioned and unable to see her child for more than 8 hours a week when she was first admitted. 8 hours a week! My child doesn’t leave my side for days at a time. I couldn’t imagine seeing him for 2 hours a day a few times a week!
When we’re all having an bad day and the kids are doing our heads in and we wish they’d bugger off just for 15 minutes so we can put the washing away. It could all turn on it’s head in an instance. Leave the washing until they’re in bed. Spend them 10 min reading one more book before bed. Don’t fret about the finger prints on the table after you’ve just cleaned it. The fact that you get to clean your kids snotty nose or kiss them good night is a absolute privilege.
I adore my job and I honestly think that keeping people sectioned under the mental health act is often absolutely necessary but today just made me feel sad but thankful. Thankful for my health, for my mental health and thankful that I got to see the unbreakable bond between a mother and her child. I got to see this lady as a mother and not just a patient.
My baby certainly got a extra big snog and a 5 minutes longer with me before bed tonight.

PaisleyMother

Mother to one Lover to one Friend of many

View profile for posts, events and more info