Real life is pretty shit sometimes
September why have you brought so much angst to my life? August was pretty great, welcomed my new godson in to the world, little Thomas who is the image of his big sister as a new born. Big sister started school this time and is loving it.
In no particular order the main highlights of this month so far has been;
- A man collapsed and died at work *
- A colleague at work has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and his going in for his op on Saturday
- Another colleague has admitted that she’s being checking out suicide website as she’s feeling overwhelmed with all the anxiety in her life, both real and imaginary.
* the chap was a member of the public who’d just returned his library books and keeled over, literally just a grunt and straight to the ground. Heart attack, but it’s the first time I’ve ever been at a first aid incident that severe, and I’ve been with the Red Cross as a first aider for about years. Thankfully there were three of us who came to help, and one of us knew that he needed CPR, I did compressions while she did the breaths. The whole checking if he’s breathing is a whole lot more complicated than I thought, sounds simple; not breathing = CPR, but what I underestimated was the freakiness of ‘agonal’ breathing. Basically the body tries to carry on breathing regardless of the heart attack, but its not proper lungs filling with oxygen breathing. But being knowledgeable and confident enough to crack on with CPR while the casualty seems to be alive and making noises is something else.
In summary, he got to hospital alive but sadly passed away a week later, he was about 65. Weird thing is he lived in my building, the flat next to mine. We were on nodding terms only, I think I said hello a few times when we passed coming or going. He lived alone, quiet, but I’ve only now realised was that he was the person who used to put my mail under my door every day. Such a simple gesture and I never got to tell him thank you.
Looking at the positive, my building at work will be getting a defibulator and everyone who wants to can get trained. We’ve been wanting one for ages given the number of people who come in the building and our prime city location.
To cheer myself up I’ve finally got myself a TV Freeview box. I need some escapism, and there’s new shows starting; Downton Abbey is back (its soo bad I love it), plus Agents of SHIELD, and Atlantis which seems to have a stellar cast including the lovely Alexander Siddig.