Dorothy’s Stories

Dorothy Dyall decided the double celebration of her five decades in nursing and the 200th anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birth deserved a book on this tough but highly rewarding profession. Her anthology of 50 short stories describes exploits such as creating makeshift teddy bears for anxious patients and warding off a knife-wielding assailant.

Dorothy Dyall’s mum and dad clearly weren’t thrilled when their daughter told them she wanted to be a nurse.

“To them, nursing was one of the worst jobs, as I would have to take care of sick people,” she writes in the introduction to her amusing and sometimes touching tale of her half century in the profession.

“They wanted me to take up a career as a teacher or office worker. (But) at age 16, while I was an inpatient in a hospital, I sneaked out for my nursing application interview.” She turned 17 on January 2, 1970, and started nursing training at Singapore General Hospital a month later.

After working in Singapore, Papua New Guinea, the Northern Territory and Victoria, she arrived in Perth in 2005. Dorothy still works 32 hours a fortnight at Fremantle Hospital where she has been since 2007, because, as she says in her book: “As I venture into a season of semi-retirement, I am still a nurse and will always be one”.

We at western nurse wanted to share a couple of Dorothy’s real life stories during these strange times when providing real care is now in focus more than it has ever been in our lifetimes.

Bill lived alone at home. He had a cat and a dog that slept at the foot of his bed every night. He was admitted for an overnight stay in the Short Stay Surgical Unit, post-surgery.

At midnight, Bill stated that he could not sleep because he did not have his pets looking at him and sleeping at the foot of the bed.

I drew a picture of a dog and a cat. I stuck them separately at the foot of his bed and asked him to pretend that they were his pets. Bill was so happy. He had a good laugh, went to sleep, and did not stir until 0600 hrs.

Harry was being admitted for major abdominal surgery. Harry lived at home. Every night he slept with his soft toy teddy bear for company. He forgot to bring it to hospital with him. He told me that he missed his teddy bear very much. As it was already time for him to be collected by a pre-operation room nurse, I could not get his relatives to bring the bear in time. So, I improvised, and used a pair of disposable underpants and a towel to make a teddy bear.

I presented it to Harry and said “Sorry! Harry this is a hairless teddy bear, made in China.”

Dorothy at her midwifery graduation, at the Royal Women's Hospital, Melbourne, in December 1978 with her father Kit Leng Wee and mother Kim Suan Huan (both front left)

Harry burst out laughing, then hugged the hairless teddy bear all the way to the operating theatre. The bear stayed with Harry throughout his hospital journey until he was discharged.

A couple of years later, Harry’s daughter-in-law, who worked in the same hospital as me, told me that Harry slept with the hairless teddy bear every night until he passed away. His relatives even put the bear in the coffin with him. 