"Oodles of empathy"

3 weeks in hospital and multiple antibiotic courses finally got cellulitis under control and retreating. However, it left a legacy. Large blisters were now healing slowly. I had to regain mobility and swollen legs persisted.

August 2024 was mostly spent in hospital. Post-hospital revealed a newly discovered infrastructure I never anticipated, the GP Surgery Nursing Team.

It took a few weeks for my surgery's crammed diary to make much room for my repeated pursuit of leg dressings and management advice. However, once assessed, the Parkbury House Surgery referral to the nursing team opened up a new vista.

It is now the end of November 2024. I have seen the various members of the nursing team twice a week for about 3 months. They have tried multiple dressing types. My leg is again leg-shaped and working almost as before, but one small area refuses to heal.

Each visit to the nurse has been like hearing the next verse in a song. One follows the other in step and in tune. Occasionally, the nurse has conjured up a GP for a descant. I thought I saw genuine respect on show here, the GPs respecting the nurses experience and knowledge about how to get healing done. The whole team were determined on my behalf, with empathy bringing me onto their side to do the things that supported their efforts; exercise, leg compressions and other stuff.

Now the little leg lesion has a new name - an ulcer. This still refuses to heal so the nurse team has called in their specialist colleagues; the Area Ulcer Team. I suspect I am moving from a smaller choir to a much larger one but I also feel I am still going to be watched over by my surgery's nursing team like a manager conducting their project's progress with external help but still with ownership.

Lets hear it for the nurses and find ways to spread empathy and sensitivity more widely into the technology / specialist fog that makes it difficult to see the whole person, irrespective of whether they are patient or staff member.