PIT MUCK -‐ A COLLECTION OF POETRY AND PROSE BY HEMSWORTH WRITERS
THE MINER’S WIFE by Jan Holliday I was on an acute medic ward during my final year of training to become an S.R.N when I shed tears on duty. I haven’t use the real names of the people in this anecdote because not to name patients anywhere outside is a rule that I always keep. The weather was at its worst that November. Dark icy wet days with the kind of fog that lingers about, getting into clothes and hair so that, when you entered a warm place, you could smell the soot on yourself. The ward was so full that extra beds had been brought into the ward by porters. There were so many patients with chest conditions, congestive cardiac failure, bronchitis, asthma, as well as liver, kidney, stomach and other conditions. We had a couple of miners on the ward with “the dust” or “a touch of dust” as they called it. Of course it was pneumoconiosis. Young Joe, a man in his early fifties or late forties was admitted with exacerbation of chronic bronchitis. He’d caught a cold. Hewer or shearer was down in his case notes as his occupation, both jobs done in extreme dust conditions, I believe. Joe Y was put on antibiotics, 4 hourly ventolin, nebuliser and oxygen as necessary. Observations were 4 hourly, day and night. He was still full of quips and daft sayings. “Do you know, nurse, this hotel is total crap compared to the Ritz. I’ve a mind to demand another room, or at least a bed not like a plank and a pillow not full of rocks.” Young Joe always asked about “me old mate, he were down the same shift as our lad.” Old Joe was an old old man of sixty two, scarred with the blue tattoos of coal. He was brought straight to the ward with the oxygen mask on his face, breaths rattling and wheezing wetly with every rise and fall of his chest. The old man was barely conscious. His lips, ear lobes and tip of his nose were the slate-‐blue/grey of progressive heart failure. Joe’s wife of many years was with him, carrying her knitting bag, a baby blue cardi on her needles, sitting by him, talking over her knitting. It is strange how the memory holds tiny incidental memories when faced with mortality. The ward became a crazy place – a collapse in bed 12, the phone shrilling, announcing more admissions. Matron arrived to do a spot check round. It was bedlam, then the bed pan washer in the sluice, the door not being adequately locked sprayed two first year nurses with hot water. It was then that Mrs Old Joe touched my arm and said, “He’s gone now Nurse, I’m going home. I can see how busy you are but I thought I’d better tell you.” She walked away, back straight, head bowed with a dignity I can’t describe and I cried. I should have been there, someone should have. I should have. That memory still haunts me. Miners have the bravest wives. As for Young Joe, he went home, condition eased, probably to become an Old Joe. 43