It’s been a fraught week. Like so much in life, there was a laboured build up, satisfactory climax, dreary come-down, and now other difficulties present themselves. Thus the cycle is renewed.
As I said the other time, I do want to write a bit about my studies. This week was the OSCEs. That’s Objective Structured Clinical Examinations. Every profession has its common understandings, and for nursing, this is one. It has its purpose and in common with ugly shoes, brings anxieties. I’ve done a few practical tests over my lifetime. During my first Degree, I had to produce and serve food. I was a disaster, clumsy, incompetent in spite of my best efforts. I was a liability in the midst of the thirty or so others sharing the kitchen slopping stuff over, burning the rest, having forgotten the final egg wash. Promising starts turned into 45% passes. Looking back, I think the lecturers felt sorry for me, ‘There is no culin’ry term for liquid bouncing about in t’ pan.’ said one Yorkshire-woman as she rubbed at a small scald.
I passed the most common of all practicals, the driving test, at second attempt. That time, I fought off my nerves by taking off my coat. The single action, recommended by my fourth caviar-munching driving instructor was enough to put me in control. How he must have missed me. I got 100% in a first aid course the same week the Twin Towers came down. It seemed of similar magnitude to me, I had practised obsessively, unwilling to look a fool in front of my more dexterous junior colleagues. My sling was origami in perfection.
Coming to the OSCEs then, I had a little to draw upon in as much as I was aware that confidence is King. Therein lay the problem. If there’s one thing that the memory of a mental health problem does, it’s to strip away self confidence like a heavy duty steamer through woodchip wallpaper. The mess was daunting. I took my crib sheets to bed every night, reading them while imagining the steps from greeting the pretend patient to scooping the faeces. I imposed on people in labs, too anxious to do more than give everything one good go, trying not to listen to rumours of alternative techniques yet clinging to smarter friends. It was all coming together. The day before, I calculated that barring accident I could comfortably pass whatever came up, even the most difficult. Just so long as I kept my head. I was keeping it too. Someone asked me how and I said that I thought it wasn’t the most difficult thing I’d ever done, or the most final.
I felt too self conscious to tell my fellow students about the cheat that was going to put me up there with the best. It was more sure than notes on the wrist that would have washed off during the Ayliffe Eight Step anyway. It was also, crucially, within the rules. I was pretending to be the boss. In the time when I was the boss who knew nothing, I learned to do it. Act like you’re the expert in whatever it is you’re unsure of. Talk the person you’re trying to impress through what you’re doing step by step as though you’re giving them the benefits of your expertise. Take your time.
I’m not allowed to write about the exam. I signed a confidentiality agreement. Ah well. I'll leave you to enjoy the suspense.
After the OSCE, I wrote an essay. True to form from the first time at uni, and from my A’levels, O’levels, all the way back to spelling and cycling proficiency tests, I was finishing the work begun weeks ago well into the early hours of the due date. I had resolved that it would be different this time, but we don’t change, we just develop a little. My rubbish A’levels had taught me to read some books before boredom bites, and they were all stored up ready for when panic set in 22 hours ahead of the deadline.
In other news (the only news on the TV), it’s snowing. Nina struggled home from Swansea, H is marooned in Manchester. I’m ready for Christmas. When I was a fat, a-rhythmic five year old, I used to dress in a flesh coloured leotard and go for ballet lessons. I overheard my Mum say she ‘thought it would help’. Anyway, the teacher would count down the end of the dance ‘five six seven eight and........rest’. Brilliant advice.
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