Month: October 2021

• 

Like everyone else who has ever worked in the emergency services, I came across many difficult situations during my 36 years as a police officer. Tragic scenes were never too far away and had to be dealt with before moving on to the next. It thickens the skin and as a result, I consider myself to be fairly resilient; it’s not easy to shock me. Having said that, I’m not completely heartless either and dealing with children who are suffering is one thing I still struggle with.

One of the worst experiences I had during my time in An Garda Siochana concerned the death of a four-year-old child. A little girl who had suffered a serious head injury in a freak accident while playing in her garden at home. We arrived as the ambulance crew were doing their best for her, but it wasn’t looking good.

We got her to the hospital as quickly as possible to give her every chance. A medical team was on standby, and she was rushed to the Accident and Emergency Department. They tried everything to revive her but unfortunately, it was too late so then it was time to meet the parents to give them the sad news. That wasn’t easy.

She was removed to the City Morgue and later that evening I had to go there for the post-mortem examination. It was hard seeing her little body lying there. I stroked her cheek and half expected her to open her eyes and smile up at me. It wasn’t easy for the Pathologist either. Even though she examines bodies all the time, she told me that dealing with children was always difficult.

That child was the same age as my own daughter was at that time and I couldn’t help but think of her. We’re supposed to protect them at that age and keep them safe but it’s not always possible. Accidents will happen but there are circumstances too where children are suffering unnecessarily and that’s just not good enough.

Many years ago, during my trips to Belarus, I regularly visited orphanages and other institutions where conditions were less than favourable. I was uncomfortable meeting the children living there. They had nothing to smile about and very little hope of ever finding a better life for themselves.

Some of them lived in these institutions until they reached eighteen years of age and then moved into adult facilities where they remained for the rest of their lives. Knowing they had little prospect of ever improving their situation was hard to take so I took the easy way out and remained outside where possible to avoid looking into their eyes.

President Alexander Lukashenko is responsible for their welfare, and I don’t have much confidence in his leadership. During the Covid 19 Pandemic, he advised his citizens to get on their tractors, drink vodka and take saunas to get rid of the virus. I’m not impressed with how he looks after the children either but then again, who are we to criticise?

Listening to the Claire Byrne show on RTE recently I couldn’t help but wonder about our own failings. Adam Terry is a ten-year old boy from Co Cork who has scoliosis. He has faced multiple delays to his required surgery and will have to wait another six to nine months before he’s treated. It was difficult listening to him while he told his story.

He is in constant pain which he described as ‘almost paralysing.’ ‘It’s really sore and sometimes I have to lie down and roll around for it to actually stop. Sometimes I have to crack my back to relieve the pain.’ He said he feels as though he is “at the bottom of the barrel.” “Nobody is coming out to find me in the lost and found. To be honest, sometimes I feel like I’m crying myself to sleep because it’s so unfair. It just makes me angry and frustrated and sad.”

His mother Christine broke down in tears and I suspect many of the listeners did too as she told of the effect the long wait has had on Adam and his family. She said that every day he’s been left, it gets worse, and the initial surgery is now deemed too dangerous as his spine has moved even more in the last two years. ‘They’re now going to have to do a different surgery, they’re not going to get the same results that they hoped for.’

A few weeks earlier I heard another interview on Today with Claire Byrne, where a consultant paediatric radiologist told of the case of a pre-teen who had been referred to her with a neurological condition but was told they could not get an appointment until 2035. That’s 14 years’ away.

Dr Gabrielle Colleran told the radio’s show that such a delay was farcical and was a huge source of frustration for the profession as well as the families involved. Every child and adult should be able to access care “in a timely fashion” in less than six weeks, she said.

The day following the budget, Michael McGrath, Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform and Paschal Donohoe, Minister for Finance were both asked about the case of young Adam Terry. Claire Byrne played a bit of his interview for them, and they agreed it shouldn’t be happening. Of course it shouldn’t, but it is.

Taoiseach Michael Martin said the situation is unacceptable. Leo Varadkar Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment said he believes most people will be better off as a result of Budget 2022.

There are lots of parents and children, like the Terry’s, who won’t agree with him. They feel abandoned. They don’t need sympathy or promises, they need immediate action. Their kids are in pain.

• 

According to the Bible, the amount of time allocated to us here on Earth is threescore years and ten. That’s seventy to you and me. It does go on to say though that if by reason of strength they be fourscore years yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly. I think that means if you should happen to live to eighty, you can expect a world of pain.

Sounds like getting older isn’t going to be much fun and that makes sense when you look at the Mayo Clinic website. They have listed some of the consequences of ageing, most of which we probably knew already but when you see them written down, they present a stark picture of what awaits us.  

We can expect wrinkles and grey hair, stiffening of the blood vessels and arteries, high blood pressure and other cardiovascular problems. Our bones will shrink in size and density making them more susceptible to fracture. You might even become a bit shorter. Muscles generally lose strength, endurance and flexibility affecting your coordination, stability, and balance.

So basically, we can expect to shrivel up, shrink and fall over a lot but that’s not all.

We could also experience constipation and as the bladder becomes less elastic, we may even lose control of it. The brain undergoes changes too and we might forget familiar names or words, or we may find it more difficult to multitask. Us men are always told we can’t do that anyway so that’ll be no loss.

We can expect our eyesight to deteriorate too, and we might develop cataracts. If that’s not bad enough, our hearing might diminish, and our teeth could become more vulnerable to decay and infection. As our skin thins and becomes less elastic, more fragile, and drier, so wrinkles, age spots and small growths are more common.

There’s not a lot there to be looking forward to but that’s the bad news. The good news is that there is a lot we can do to keep those nasty things at bay for a while and we’ve already started. Older people are fitter, healthier, more energetic and living longer which is great. Times are changing and while seventy may have been considered the cut-off point in Biblical times, that’s certainly not the case now.

We’re taking better care of ourselves, we’re more health conscious, and we have improved health care, better living conditions and better diets. We also have a more positive attitude to life so we’re lasting longer. Seventy is seen as the new fifty and I know plenty of people in their seventies who could easily pass for fifty somethings which wasn’t the case with pensioners in my grandfather’s time.

He was a small man who looked old to me, but he worked at sea all his life and I’m sure he didn’t have it easy. After his retirement, he spent his remaining years sitting in the kitchen listening to the wireless and as far as I can recall, he didn’t do much else. I think that was probably typical of many older people in those days. When they reached the age of sixty-five, they more or less threw in the towel. They were reaching the end of their lives, so they gave up and just waited to die. Not anymore.

In two-years’ time, I’ll be the same age as my grandfather was when he retired but there is no comparison between the two of us. In my mind, I’m still in my thirties and physically, I’m in good health. I exercise regularly, play a bit of tennis, and generally enjoy life and I hope I’m not finished yet because I have a lot more to do.

By the same token, I don’t want to be a supercentenarian either. That’s a person who lives beyond the age of 110 and according to an article in the Royal Society Open Science, a new journal, reaching the age of 130 might be a possibility in the future, beating the age of 122 years and 164 days reached by Jeanne Louise Calment when she died in France in 1997.

Most of the article went over my head but apparently after conducting years of research, scientists came to the conclusion that it might be possible for someone to reach the age of 130 before the turn of the century. If you like that idea and you’re male, be prepared for some disappointing news; it seems fewer men than women reach high ages.

In the meantime, old age for the rest of us currently begins at sixty-five. That seems to be the magic number and those who reach that age are referred to as old age pensioners. I don’t think it’s meant to be a disparaging or an insulting term, it’s merely pointing out that those people are older and are in fact collecting a pension. Nothing wrong with that as far as I’m concerned.

Some people are offended by it though and prefer to be referred to as ‘seniors.’ Others are objecting to that and prefer ‘elders’ so it’s getting complicated. Now that I’m getting closer to that stage in life myself, I’m taking more of an interest. In a couple of years, I will officially become a senior citizen, a pensioner, an older, an elder or a wrinklie, take your pick but I’m hoping to be as positive about my age as Ronald Reagan was.

During a presidential debate back in 1984, he was asked if he thought he was too old to be President at 73 years of age. Regan replied, “I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” I love that.

• 

If I was to sit the Leaving Cert exam tomorrow, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t do too well. Apart from not knowing any of the answers, I wouldn’t be able to write for very long without getting cramps in my fingers. They’ve lost the ability to hold a pen.

The only time I use a biro these days is when I need to sign something. Everything else is done on a keyboard so when I need to write anything longer than a greeting on a birthday card, my fingers develop a mind of their own. They wrap themselves around each other and try to hurt me.

Concentration would be another issue. I struggled to stay awake as a teenager, so I have a healthy respect for all those who sat the exam this year after all they’ve been through. They did well to keep studying in the middle of a pandemic but unfortunately, the points for some third-level courses went up this year so many of them were left disappointed. Not everyone got what they wanted.

It’s difficult to see a clear path forward in the aftermath of such disappointment so there’s no point in us telling young people it’s not the end of the world but they will be ok in time. Things have a way of working themselves out. It isn’t easy though and choosing a career at eighteen years of age that will provide them with all they want from life is a big ask. Job satisfaction is important but if a survey in the States is anything to go by, not many find it.

According to a 2018 survey by Gallup, 66% of employees worldwide are either not engaged in or are actively disengaged in their job. But despite this disengagement, most employees don’t report that they hate their jobs. More often, they lack passion for their roles and don’t care enough to innovate, create, or put anything more into their jobs than the bare minimum.

It’s a long day at work if you’re just going through the motions yet, according to the survey, two thirds of employees are doing just that. Even those who are perfectly happy in their workplace can see their circumstances change overnight, causing them to become disillusioned. A change of boss, or a change in conditions can alter the dynamic so while achieving job satisfaction is important, it’s also a bit of a lottery.

With that in mind I wish my nephew the best of luck with his choice. Euan did very well for himself and got 589 points. He wants to study astrophysics and I have no doubt he will make a great fist of it but where that leads him is a mystery to me. So, to throw some light on it, I looked at the definition of astrophysics in the hope of some enlightenment.

Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles of physics in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena. As one of the founders of the discipline said, Astrophysics “seeks to ascertain the nature of the heavenly bodies, rather than their positions or motions in space–what they are, rather than where they are.” 

Among the subjects studied are the sun, other stars galaxies, extrasolar planets, the interstellar medium and the cosmic microwave background. Emissions from these objects are examined across all parts of the electromagnetic spectrum and the properties examined include luminosity, density, temperature, and chemical composition.

So, there you have it, couldn’t be clearer. It’s all about stuff but the fact that I haven’t a clue what it means doesn’t matter a whit as long as he’s happy. I hope he will enjoy going to work every day and be content with his lot, but you don’t have to be a high achiever to be satisfied at work.

There is a very contented man working as a cleaner in Cyprus. He cleans an apartment complex and maintains the cleanliness of the poolside area and the pathways and tiled areas around the complex. He does it very well. He has a trolly with various bit and bobs and you can hear him trundling around the place from 7.30am every morning as the wheels of the cart bounce over the tiles.

Every day without fail, he meticulously mops the tiles around the large pool area which isn’t easy when temperatures are tipping 40 degrees. His routine never varies. He closes all the umbrellas and arranges all the sun beds, making sure they are parallel with each other, and the legs of each sun bed are lined up along the edge of the tiles at exactly the same distance from the boundary walls.

He has a touch of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) so he likes things to be organised even though he knows as soon as the pool opens, his entire arrangement will be destroyed. Umbrellas and sun loungers will be scattered all over the place, but he doesn’t mind. He takes great pride in his work, and it shows. Everyone appreciates the effort he makes to keep the place clean.

Job satisfaction can be found in the strangest of places. Justine Hudson is an Arctic marine mammal biologist who studies whales and walruses in Canada, and she describes herself as a snot collector.

She goes out in a boat looking for whales and when she finds them, she turns off the engine and the whales approach her out of curiosity. She has a little petri dish attached to a long pole, and when the whales come up for air, they exhale through the blow hole, and she collects the sample on the petri dish. That mucus provides her with a lot of data.

She loves her job, but I bet it wasn’t on her radar when she left school.

• 

While I was in the depths of man-flu recently, I saw lots of advertisements on TV offering advice about end-of-life issues. They were warning me to be prepared for the rising cost of nursing home care and the expense of funerals, burials, cremations etc. They were also popping up on the laptop and on my phone telling me to be ready for the end. I was beginning to wonder if they knew something I didn’t.

It was all a bit grim but on the other hand, they do have a point. The only two certainties in life are death and taxes so none of us will escape and I became very conscious of this while lying on my death bed, waiting to meet my maker.

My wife said it was just a head cold and showed little interest in my condition, but I knew otherwise. It was a serious dose of man-flu. I had a cough, a stuffed head and a sore throat and my life was hanging by a thread. It was touch and go.

I didn’t get much sympathy from my family and in a way, that’s understandable. You see, women don’t appreciate the suffering us men go through from this horrendous illness because we keep it to ourselves. It’s our own fault. How can we expect them to know the extent of our suffering when we don’t tell them what man-flu is really like? We are blessed with a high pain threshold and prefer to suffer in silence. Rather than be a burden, we just battle on quietly without causing a fuss.

That’s how it was with me and, as usual, I got very little support. They seemed to think my deteriorating condition was a form of entertainment and I’m sure I even heard them laughing downstairs on several occasions. They never called a doctor or arranged palliative care and the only medication I was offered was a Lemsip. There was lots of eye rolling going on and they even suggested I should get out of bed.

In the height of my delirium, my wife was rushing around getting ready for work and never even thought to bring me some breakfast in bed. She never checked my temperature either which was obviously spiralling out of control, but I struggled on manfully.

When she left, I made a huge effort to get up and tidy the house. I made my way cautiously downstairs and struggled to make some breakfast for myself. I didn’t want to add starvation to my growing list of ailments. It’s amazing how resilient men can be when faced with adversity.

After the breakfast, I spotted some clothes in the washing machine and contemplated putting them out on the line. I weighed up the pros and cons and decided if I dressed appropriately to keep warm, I could just about manage it. Hypothermia was a genuine concern for a person in my weakened state, so I decided to bring my phone with me to summon assistance in case I collapsed from exhaustion.

So, I put the clothes in the basket, went outside and made it to the line. It was a bit cloudy, and I wondered if I had badly miscalculated. Getting caught in a shower of rain could finish me off, but I hung on bravely and finished the task. It was time for a well-earned rest after that, so I headed for the recliner.

Later that afternoon I ventured out again and brought the clothes back in. I gave them a short run in the dryer before folding them nicely and placing them on the counter. Surely this would earn me a pat on the back when herself came home from work. It wasn’t to be though.

As soon as she came in the door, she looked at the clothes and then looked at me and asked if I noticed anything? I knew by the look and the tone of voice that trouble wasn’t far away. Apparently, there was a smell off the clothes but because my nasal passages were almost completely ravaged due to my deteriorating condition, I hadn’t noticed.

It seems my wife had put the clothes into the machine before she left for work but never turned it on which meant I had put a load of dirty washing on the line, dried them and folded them neatly. After more eye rolling, she put the clothes back into the machine while mumbling something I couldn’t quite understand. It didn’t sound very complimentary though.

The efforts of the day had taken their toll and I could feel a relapse coming on, so I went for another lie down. While lying there with my life ebbing away, I had time to reflect. I realised that even if by some miracle I did manage to pull through, I could very well end up needing full time care at some point in the future, and so I discussed it with my family.

I told them that if it gets to a stage that I can no longer look after myself or I can’t tell night from day, or can’t take a shower by myself then, I want to go somewhere. I don’t want them dealing with the stress of having to look after me. Let the professionals take over and don’t waste a single miniute feeling guilty or sorry about it.

They nodded and looked as if they were trying hard not to smile which made me suspect they had already come to that decision themselves. I got the impression that guilt was not going to be an issue for them. In fact, I suspect they may already have a facility picked out for me so from now on I’m going to have to sleep with one eye open.