Five Things You Learn as a Vet Nurse.

This week marks the final time I will be a Vet Nurse. Eight years of discussing the ups and downs of discussing euthanasia's, castrations and what the difference between a dog scooting on the ground is versus a dog having worms - all coming to an end. It's sad, but also a time for new beginnings. Here's five things I've learned over the years:

Emergency! Emergency?

One of the first things I found being a Vet Nurse is that peoples idea of an emergency wildly differs. I've had people call up in tears because their dog was chewing their left foot when usually on a Tuesday morning at 1030am they chew their right foot. 'You don't understand, he's never done this before!' 

I've also had people call up days after their bird was attacked by a dog or a cat and not the slightest bit concerned. 'Yeah, the dog gave him a fair shake, but I just put him back in his cage and he was fine. I didn't want to stress him out further by putting him in a car and bringing him in.' 

Part of being a Vet Nurse though is understanding that people have varying levels of idiocy and it's your role to treat them as normally as possible. What the person on the other end of the line might be saying could sound as if it's the most insane thing you've ever heard, however, to that person on the other end of the line they are providing the most coherent, logical explanation of their dilemma that they can. There are times where in my head I would be screaming, but the voice coming out was nice and calm. 

However, when there is a real emergency, you can't run off screaming. I've seen nurses who haven't properly experienced an emergency run into a bathroom in tears because there's too much chaos going on. There are people who can calmly deal with an emergency, and then there's others who crumble into a ball and burst into tears. 

One such day, a caesarian had arrived and was being prepped, the owner stood watching. At the same time, a dog who had stopped breathing came in so was put straight onto oxygen to bring it back to life and a decision could be made. So that was two nurses down and two vets down with a waiting room full of people and only three nurses and two vets available. Understanding basic triage and how to organise people is a necessity of being a Vet Nurse. It's basic customer service. Which leads me to...

Customer Service.

The majority of the role of being a Vet Nurse is understanding customer service. Yes, you are in the animal care industry, and you do need to have a higher level of compassion than other career choices would demand of you - but it always boils down to being a nice person and providing high quality customer service. I've seen some Vet's - fortunately none the I have worked with - who have excellent customer service skills, yet, their medical skills aren't great. Their client base is huge simply because they talk nicely to their clients and provide them a service that they want. 

This is most evident when you are putting animals to sleep. The term used in an animal care facility is never euthanasia or 'going to kill this dog' but 'put to sleep'. It makes things sound a lot nicer for owners and if someone happens to over hear a conversation on the phone or in a consult, then they're not going to be entirely alarmed by it as well.

Yet, for all of that, there's still some people who do get confused with the term. I had a few conversations with people who wanted clarification that after their animal was 'put to sleep' that they would be killed after that. So, to them, the term 'put to sleep' meant literally that, they were just going to have a nap. I remember one lady having to be calmed down after she had thought that once we put her animal to sleep they would be put in a freezer where the cold would freeze them to death. 

The other aspect of customer service that I had to deflect was the constant questions - mostly from older people mind you - about why I hadn't become a Vet. 'So, you're a Vet Nurse, but when will you start your studies to become a Vet?' And when I'd explain to them why I wasn't interested in becoming a Vet, they simply didn't understand it. 'But, why would you want to be a nurse for all this time?' It would be like going up to a human nurse and saying, 'well, when are you going to get your act together and become a doctor? You should be doing heart surgeries already dammit!'

I would also get the forgetfulness that yes, being a man, and being a nurse, does not mean that I can castrate your dog. I remember having a heated discussion with a client one day when she was convinced that I had sterilised her dog. After a long explanation of how much trouble I would get in if I did that, she said, 'well, it had to be you'. Tony Bennett would have been proud. When the Vet did take her into the consult, she saw him and said, 'ah, you're the guy who did the surgery'. Keep in mind that most of the year I look like Tom Hanks in Cast Away and the Vet who I worked with was exceptionally hair deficient. 

Throw in another spanner to confuse things - having a female Vet would confuse clients greatly. Not because the female Vet was not competent, far from it in fact, it's just that the public's perception of who can become a Vet still hasn't gotten on board with the idea that there can be male Vet Nurses and female Vet's. What is this insanity? Who do we call? Ghostbusters? The amount of times I'd hear a client walk into a room with a female Vet and say, 'so you're the nurse?' At which point the Vet would have to explain that 'no, in fact, I am the Vet.' Elderly men took this idea very hard. I wonder how they'd feel if they knew that women can vote now too. 

Death is Not the End.

Death is everywhere and is a major part of being a Vet Nurse. You'll deal with all sorts of death - sudden death, unnecessary death, death to teach a kid a lesson. Oh yeah, you'll get idiot owners who buy an animal for their child as a thing for them to learn from. One father that I met wanted to teach his six year old son a lesson. The child wasn't picking up his dogs turds from the yard - because that's a task a six year old should be doing on a daily basis - so he had brought in the dog and the six year old to the vet. The reason was to get the dog put to sleep - or 'kill this dog' as he put it - to teach the kid a lesson. After a fair amount of verbal jousting we didn't 'kill the dog' but instead gave him a few things to implement to ensure that the dog, his kid and himself would have a happy existence together. 

If we had said we would put his dog to sleep, that would have been an easy task of taking his money, taking the dog and then rehoming the perfectly healthy dog. 

But some days death is not so easy to deal with. Take the case of the girl who had hopped in the car for her very first driving lesson with her dad and managed to run over the sixteen year old family dog within the first thirty seconds. It wasn't a nice case at all and I'm fairly certain that girl will never drive a car in her life. 

Or the case of the trio of elderly people who lived together and had an elderly chihuahua that they loved and cared for. They also had a pool. This blind and deaf chihuahua who was stuck with a trio of (slowly going) blind and deaf people managed to stumble into the pool. His swimming skills weren't like they used to be and he was dead pretty quickly. This trio of mishaps brought in their deceased hound and asked if there was anything that could be done. After a good half hour of discussing that no, in fact he was dead, they asked if they could take a section of hair from the dog. Not a problem! That's a fairly common thing people request. Before I could do it for them, one of the ladies snatched the scissors off me, pulled up his skin and snip! cut off a huge chunk of skin and hair. Nasty. 

But the worst case of animals dying is the elderly lady with a budgie who comes in and says that this ancient little creature is her only friend in the world, but he needs to be put to sleep. I can deal with peoples animals dying as it's not my pain to deal with, and my role is to be there to provide compassion for their loss. However, elderly people who are on their last animal kills me. Knowing that one day I'll reach that point devastates me and it's a part of work that I won't miss at all. 

Nut Your Nuts.

One of the main conversations you'll have as a Vet Nurse is discussing the pro's and con's of getting an animal sterilised. There's the obvious benefits - no puppies! no kittens! - and the not so obvious benefits - no cancer! - that people will always find a way of arguing against getting their animal sterilised. 

The first reason that people will want to not sterilise their female dog is that they want them to have a litter of puppies. Mostly the reason for wanting to have a litter of puppies has nothing to do with liking puppies, wanting to sell puppies or heck, just breeding enough puppies that you can make yourself a puppy pit, walk in and roll around in a box of puppies. It's mostly because people want a) their kids to have the experience of puppies, or b) they feel that their dog will miss out on something in life if they don't have a litter of puppies. 

Why that's the case, I'm not sure. When I grew up, I didn't get a field of puppies to grow up with and 'learn from' so I'm not sure where this idea has sprung from. Regardless of the high amounts of homeless dogs out there, throwing another set of puppies into the mix just so kids can learn from them isn't exactly the wisest parenting decision. But what about little Lily's feelings? Won't she live life wondering what she could have been if she had had at least one litter of puppies? 

Well, the thing is that once dogs have a litter of puppies, most of the time they help raise them and then once they're old enough, they're on their own. The mum couldn't really give two hoots about it. Little Lily isn't going to care if she has a litter or not. Fortunately, most of the time people are able to be brought around to this understanding. 

What about the males though? They don't really care about having a litter of puppies do they? No, of course not, but you'd be surprised to know that if you are a man, and you own an unsterilised male dog, there is a cosmic connection between your testicles and your dogs testicles. It's true. 

Well, at least it's partially true. That's what male owners tell me all the time. My testicles might be out of touch with my dogs testicles because when I got Henry - my male Mini. Schnauzer - sterilised, I felt nothing within my testicles that said that his testicles had been removed from his body. Am I less of a man because of it? 

Of course not. Your testicles are your testicles and your dogs testicles mean fuck all in relation to your testicles. He's not any less of a man because he has no testicles. In fact, he's more of a man because he can now go and pretend hump anything he wants with almost no consequences! Boys night out! Lock up your bitches because we're going out humpin'. 

(The other benefit of course is that your little dog will have less of a chance of getting prostate or testicular cancer, because, y'know, no nuts please! But, hey, being a 'man' trumps cancer any day doesn't it?)

I Don't Get Paid Enough To Deal With This Shit.

Finally we come to the main reason I've left the life of being a Vet Nurse behind. Money. It always comes down to money. I loved being a Vet Nurse, it's a career that I'm thankful I was able to have had for eight years. There's a few reasons why Vets and Vet Nurses don't get paid the amount that they should do - especially when you compare the wages to the same careers in the US or UK. 

For me it mostly boils down to public perception - already people complain about how expensive it can be to take their animal the Vet. Sure, that's not an unfair complaint, it's not cheap. However, owning an animal is still a luxury experience. We're in a first world country and animals get a lot better treatment than many other people (or animals) would elsewhere in the world. Does that excuse the high prices? No, not at all. But, if you're someone who complains about high prices for Vet bills, consider this - the average wage of a Vet Nurse is about $48,000. That's your basic Vet Nurse. For a Vet it's a little bit more than that, but odds are if you're a new graduate you'll be hitting somewhere around about $50-55,000 for the first year. 

To put that in perspective, if you are a full time Store Manager at McDonald's, you will probably get over $50,000 a year in wages. So, the money that you're paying for medication, surgeries, vaccinations, consultations, etc. is only partially going towards wages. Unlike human care, animal care is not subsidised by anything. There's no Medicare. There's no free emergency treatment. There's no $7 co-payment. What you pay is what you get... 

...Unless you have insurance. Now, pet insurance in Australia is still a fairly new concept. Unlike the UK where a fair amount of pet owners have pet insurance, Australia has a bit further to go. It also needs better pet insurance. The hurdles that people have to go through to get a claim finalised is astounding. There shouldn't be this much pain for such a simple thing. When I have had my car damaged and had to go through insurance, it was a simple phone call and that was essentially it. Car fixed. Money sorted. No problem.

Pet insurance on the other hand is underwritten - in Australia at least - by two separate insurers. You have Hollard Insurance and Allianz Insurance. My memory fails me, but I believe it's Allianz Insurance that underwrites 95% of the insurance companies out there. The other 5% are underwritten by Hollard Insurance. (It could be the other way round, but the figures still match up.) So for that 95% of insurance companies out there - your Woolworths Pet Insurance, RSPCA Pet Insurance, Bow Wow Pet Insurance, etc. - you're simply getting repackaged deals of the same stuff. And the returns aren't all that great. 

I once had a long heated discussion with an insurance company on behalf of a client because they wouldn't process a claim for their dog that had had an eye injury. The reason behind them not processing the claim was that we had seen the dog as a puppy for an eye related problem. What was that eye related problem? Well, as a puppy it had some of that gunk that builds up in dogs eyes when they sleep and the owner didn't know what it was. It was nothing and had no effect on the health of the animal, yet because we had seen it for that they wouldn't cover for an actual injury later on in the animals life. I'm sure this is the same for human insurance, but regardless, it should not have gone that long for the claim to be processed. This was not an isolated issue. 

What I'm getting at is this - if pet insurance companies gave greater returns and had clearer policies, then more owners would be able to take up pet insurance. More owners take up pet insurance means that they'll spring for that $2500+ cataract surgery that their dog requires, because they have pet insurance to back them up. The more owners getting more procedures done because they're covered by insurance means more people going to the Vet. The more people going to the Vet with insurance means that Vet's can invoice out correctly and effectively for clients - knowing full well that the client is going to get a great return from their insurance company. Once they do that and are able to charge more without people complaining every two seconds, then they'll have the ability to have higher pay scales for Vet's and Vet Nurses. 

It's a difficult job, and a job which a lot of people - Vet's and Vet Nurses alike - maintain as a career because they have the passion for the job. The passion to work with animals, care for animals and provide quality health treatment for animals is - in a way - payment enough at times. 

I will miss being a Vet Nurse, but now feels like the right time to move forward in a new direction - a new career path where I can forge a new direction for myself. I'm thankful for the time I had as a Nurse, it has taught me so much more than I could have imagined, and I'm thankful for the people I worked with as well. 

All photo's represented in this blog are property of Andrew Peirce and were taken during his role as a Vet Nurse.

Stay Gold - First Aid Kit

Mekong Delta Sunrise - Astronomy Class

Indie Cindy - Pixies

Blackbird - Dan Sultan

1000 Forms of Fear - Sia 

Echoes in the Aviary - Jane Tyrrell

Broken Bones - Guy Pearce

Today We're Believers - Royal Canoe

To Be Kind - Swans

10. Royal Blood - Royal Blood

Royal Blood explode like some kind of forgotten late 90's band in a cacophony of drums and guitars. Screaming chords and explosive drums make this an infinite ear worm album.

9. To Be Kind - Swans

I've not listened to any of Swans early music, but if Royal Blood is to go by, that's a mistake. Long songs reveal themselves slowly. This album reminds me of when I first listened to dEUS fifteen years ago. 

8. Today We're Believers - Royal Canoe

Button Fumbla is one of the catchiest songs I've heard in a while. It's White Lines by way of some weird funk sex room. A great album that deserves to be more widely recognised.

7. Broken Bones - Guy Pearce

If at the beginning of the year you had said that Guy Pearce - the actor - was releasing an album and that it was going to be one of the years most interesting albums, well, I'd have said you were lying. But, here it is, a worthwhile listen that harkens back to the easy listening albums your mum used to (and probably still does) listen to. 

6. Echoes in the Aviary - Jane Tyrrell

The great addition to The Herd, Jane Tyrrell finally releases a solo album and doesn't disappoint. The vocal backing she provides to The Herd's songs is given the room to shine by itself. In fact, this makes a wonderful accompaniment to Guy Pearce's solo album.

5. 1000 Forms of Fear - Sia

Reports that Sia was never going to produce another solo album were finally proven with the release of 1000 Forms of Fear. A glorious album that allows Sia to sing about all her anxieties and issues in ways that only Sia can. Yes, Chandelier is a great song, but there are other gems that make this a keeper.

4. Blackbird - Dan Sultan

Dan Sultan is as close to a new Paul Kelly as you're going to get. And that's a great thing. Lyrically this is strong, but it's in the rip roaring quick fire guitar licks that you'll find yourself coming back again and again. Under Your Skin should be be on non-stop repeat on commercial radio.

3. Indie Cindy - Pixies

I was pretty skeptical that a new Pixies album would be any good. But then the EP's came out last year and they weren't half bad. Indie Cindy throws together those EP's and altogether makes up a kick ass album that harks back to the glory era of the Pixies. Roll on more albums.

2. Mekong Delta Sunrise - Astronomy Class

More work coming out of Elefant Traks is always a good thing. Mekong Delta Sunrise is more brilliance from Astronomy Class, this time dealing with Cambodia and the problems that Cambodia has had. It sounds depressing, but it's far from it. Top class hip hop and great beats. 

1. Stay Gold - First Aid Kit

I was not a fan of First Aid Kit's first album. But Stay Gold changed everything. A perfect album with heart breaking tunes and lyrics. 

The End of More Than an Era.

Without The Movie Show (or, as it came to be known on ABC At the Movie's) I wouldn't know my wife. As simple as that. Back in the early 2000's, a random person under the username of Enid and a random person with the username of TheScientistMrJingles got to talking on The Movie Show forum. Long story short, we ended up meeting and watched our first film together - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. 

We've been married for six years now and throughout that time, we've had David and Margaret by our side. There's really no way of describing what the world of film criticism in Australia will be like without their presence. You can read anywhere about the impact of their role in the Australian film industry. 

For me though, it's like Roger Ebert passing away or Pauline Kael disappearing. This is a hole in Australia and sadly it won't be filled any time soon. 

David Stratton has written three books - I Peed on Fellini, The Avocado Plantation and The Last New Wave - and all are must read books about film. The Last New Wave is about the rise and almost fall of Australian cinema and it should really be considered a bible for Australian film lovers. These are books that shouldn't be out of print or hard to find, but they are. They're the equivalent of Scorsese by Roger Ebert or You're Only As Good As Your Next One by Mike Medavoy. They teach whilst they entertain. 

Margaret Pomeranz on the other hand has been a staunch supporter for the fight against censorship. There was the time that she tried to put on a screening of Ken Park in Sydney and had the screening shut down by police that made news headlines. Margaret is also a major advocate for Australian films and their reviews were sometimes a little more favourable to Australian films, but at least they got the word out about them (no matter what the box office results ended up being). 

Above all else though, their rapport and back and forth is why they'll be missed. Their unique reviews which helped inform their audience as to what movies to see. You were either a David or a Margaret - if you leaned towards Margaret, then you'd be more likely to anticipate the next Lars von Trier film, whereas if you were a David, well, any film from Britain set in the 50's and 60's would be on your must see list. 

David and Margaret's relationship has shaped Bernadette and myself's relationship with films. It's shaped how we talk about films, and even encouraged us to record a podcast about films. I hope that some day there'll be a replacement for David and Margaret - not that you actually replace such a figure, but at least having someone as an alternative at least - that one day someone else will say, 'man, listening to these people talk about films helped me find my wife or husband'. 

I'm sure there are many other stories about David Stratton and Margaret Pomeranz and the effect that they've had on peoples film viewing. It'll be a while before I'll be able to watch the final episode, and I may never be able to. It will be a hard thing to watch with lots of tears no doubt, but I know that I'll always be thankful for the time spent At the Movies.

Hit the Center of the Target - The GTAV Debacle.

Last week Target Australia removed Rockstar Games Grand Theft Auto V (GTAV) from its stores. An online petition about the sexual elements of GTAV forced Targets hand into removing the offending material. People took the internet and further petitioned Target to remove other offending material from its stores such as Fifty Shades of Grey, or even The Bible. So the question should be raised, are gamers missing the point? 

Gaming culture can be a bit precious at times. The culture as a whole doesn't like people messing with their games - they don't like censorship. I am not a fan of censorship either, however in some cases it's acceptable. With the removal of GTAV from Target, I feel that it's acceptable. I would even argue that it should go as far as being removed from other family friendly stores like K-Mart and Big W. Why? Well, before we get to that, lets discuss what the problem is to begin with.

The Grand Theft Auto series has been one of the major entertainment movements in the past twenty years. Ever since the top down shooter hit the Playstation, it's spawned imitators. At its core though, Grand Theft Auto has always been an open world game where essentially you can do anything. Want to race around a city at top speed with no consequence when you hit a building? Sure! Want to enter a cheat code and spawn a tank and go on a rampage? Of course, go for it. Want to hire a hooker, have sex with her and then shoot her to get your money back? Ah... ok? Do I have to?

Well, no, you don't have to. The benefit of Grand Theft Auto is that they have all these great elements to play with. It's a giant adult sandbox full of mayhem and fun. The downside to this is that Rockstar have created an adult sandbox full of adult elements. Yes, you can kill and slaughter people, but you can also do other adult things like have sex. 

Now, Grand Theft Auto isn't the first game to include sex in it. You'll have to go back to Leisure Suit Larry and other games to see that. Yet the inclusion of violence and sex makes Grand Theft Auto unique. I personally have nothing against having sex in games. Just like sex in films or literature, it needs to have a purpose. It can't be there 'just because'. Sexual violence however is even more of a sensitive subject and GTAV does not handle the subject sensitively.

Sexual violence is still a major problem in society. Articles about sexual violence need to have trigger warnings written on them. We have days where men pledge that they will never commit an act of violence against a woman. GTAV has no trigger warning on it. In fact, it doesn't even mention sexual violence in its rating. If you can imagine a 

So why are Target only just now removing GTAV from its stores? With the arrival of GTAV on the new round of consoles has also brought the arrival of a new mode in the game - first person perspective. This is a first for the Grand Theft Auto series and it changes up the style of play in an interesting way. I've personally played a few hours of GTAV and have found it handles a lot better in first person. What I haven't encountered though is the city of Los Santos' many prostitutes. 

I haven't sought them out at all, but they're there. They're available for a short fun time and that's it. After your time, you can shoot them down and collect the money they've dropped. The fact that any other person in the city of Los Santos can be killed and has money to be collected is negligible - it's the fact that your character has just had sex with a prostitute and you've then killed them to get your cash back. It's an element that takes the idea of 'you can do anything!' too far and should never have been included in the first place. Sure, games have elements that are there just because - you don't have to pick flowers and hunt wildlife in Skyrim to progress the story, but it's there if you like - but to have this element in there is pointless and offensive. 

You can quite easily play through Grand Theft Auto without ever having to encounter this, which furthers the argument that it shouldn't even be there to begin with. Lets get back to the core question though - should Target have removed GTAV from its stores? 

Yes! Without a doubt. Sure, it's slightly hypocritical when there are other games that are rated R out there, but this is a special case. GTAV is one of the major game releases of the year and it's a title which teens and kids younger than 18 will be asking for Christmas. Unfortunately, regardless of the rating system, we still have parents who will buy their kids these sorts of games without really assessing the content in them. 

Add the problem that a store like Target is predominantly staffed by under eighteen year olds. Legislation states that any game or film that is rated R18+ cannot be sold by anyone under eighteen years old. So realistically, it's counter productive for a store like Target to have to have someone who is over eighteen come and sell the game every single time. Target hasn't removed other R18+ games like Watch Dogs or Wolfenstein from their shelves. It's blacklisting a game for a certain reason, but realistically they should be taking any R18+ game off the shelf. 

Target are doing the right thing by addressing an issue that has been around for a while. Sure, it's taken them a year to address this problem, but they're addressing it and that helps create discussion about having sexual violence in video games.It also helps create a discussion about what sort of entertainment is available to people in family friendly stores. Unfortunately the backlash from gamers in Australia has been childish and missing the point of the removal. There is a long way to go for sexual violence to be taken seriously by gamers and game developers. 

Interestingly enough, one of the other controversial moments in the game hasn't been brought into question this time round - the torture sequence. Later on in the game there is a moment where one of the characters you play as tortures someone. I haven't reached this part in the game so I can't comment on my feelings of that moment, but as far as I understand it's an uncomfortable moment that's made even harder to watch by putting the character in first person. It brings back memories of another Rockstar game - Manhunt. 

There's greater issues at the moment within the gaming culture that relates to whether killing people in games is having a broader effect on players, and that's not even with going into the gender issues with gaming right now. 

Where this will go from here, who knows. As a gamer I've found myself straying towards games that question violence, or don't feature violence heavily in them. Whether they be platformers or strategy games, I'm drawn towards games that aren't shooting all the time. I just don't have the patience anymore for those sorts of nihilistic games that don't question what they're doing. I also believe that as a form of entertainment, video games should not go into certain areas - sexual violence being one of them. It is such a major issue that I simply do not think that gaming will be able to address it in its current form. 

I don't entirely believe that there is a link between video game violence and violence in the real world, however, I also don't believe that the far reaching consequences of this has been realised yet. We live in a world where children are exposed to violence earlier than previous generations. The accessibility of these things is greater and whilst we can sit around and say 'well, real world violence and video games aren't connected', I don't honestly believe that we can say that is the case right now without seeing how this current generation grows up. It could be like films and literature where people previously thought that minds would rot and it would encourage children to lead to a life of crime and violence - and yet time showed that this was not the case. 

The next year or so with gaming will be interesting to see progress. We live in a culture now where the quality of games is so high that we now simply can't accept slaughtering countless amounts of red shirted foes just because - I'm looking at you Far Cry 4. We need context as to why we're doing this. I look at a game like Dishonoured which came out a few years ago and provided the player with the option of completing the game without killing anyone. On the flipside of that - a player tried to play Grand Theft Auto Online (the online component of GTAV) as a pacifist. You can read here how that went.

I hope that the culture can move past this and reach a point where women are treated equally and with respect. It will be a long path to that - and one that I'm afraid we may never actually reach. If that is the case, then I'm not sure where I see myself as a gamer. I'm not sure I want to be part of that kind of culture. 

The A & B Film Podcast - Episode Fifteen - Check Your Hoses

Episode 15 - Check Your Hoses

http://theaandbfilmpodcast.com/aandbep15.mp3

Finally we get a look in at the Oscar hopeful and career defining epic film Boyhood. Andrew takes a look at The Boxtrolls. 22 Jump Street & Chef get a thorough assessment. The Captive gets a look in. The classic this week is Drugstore Cowboy.

I Don't Want to Die in a Hospital - Five Things I Learnt in a Hospital.

I was recently in hospital for a week with some vague problems - spine pain, abdominal pain, falling off a toilet pain. This is the second time in my life that I have spent an extended period of time in hospital. That was ten years ago, and now things have changed a bit. This is a rundown of five things I noticed in hospital. 

5. Swearing at Strangers

One of the blissful and joyful things about an emergency room is you get to see a group of people under pressure trying to be nice to a bunch of people in pain or discomfort or hit by a bus who inevitably will start swearing at them or asking them for a cup of tea. I'm a relatively easy patient - well, I think I am - so had dealt with my unattended pain level for quite a bit as someone had been hit by a bus and the lady next to me simply needed to have her cup of tea and talk about the time she was in a Rolls Royce in Birmingham in the 1940's. 

Eventually a nurse came along and gave me some oral pain relief. Keep in mind I hadn't eaten at all that day except for an iced coffee some fourteen hours earlier. I swallowed the tablets with some water and waited for the right effects. A minute or two later a junior doctor came along to collect some blood. My blood pressure was down so he had failed to get it from my right elbow and tried from my hand. The first time he tried it hurt like hell, and he couldn't get it in. The second time - so third try - he went for gold. It hurt like a motherfucker and I tried to not scream, but I did. At the same time that empty stomach started going 'nope, we don't want this pain relief in here, no thanks, get. it. out'. 

I yelled for a vomit bag, swore at someone trying to give me some more water, said a few fucks at the doctor for not getting the cannula in properly. Once the cannula was in and the vomiting had passed I apologised to the doctor, although he apologised as well.

Once I'd been moved to my first ward there was a blind man there who had fallen and hit his head and kept blanking out on where he was. Every half hour or so he'd start yelling 'WHERE THE FUCK AM I' as loud as possible. A nurse would come running, remind him where he was, what had happened, how he'd gotten there. At which point he'd shout 'WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU'. I thought it was a good tactic and he certainly got attended to in a timely manner.

4. Woken up a 2am

Part of the constant care that the nurses provide in a hospital is checking your temperature, your blood pressure and your pulse. Not always in that order. What's the point of checking temperature when the pulse isn't working? Every couple of hours a different nurse would come around, strap a blood pressure strap on your arm and stick a thermometer in your mouth and then talk to you. Without fail, the nurses would always start asking me how I was as soon as they stuck the thermometer in. 

One of the things that you don't realise when you finally get to sleep at nine at night in a sea of sweat is that they're going to wake you up again in a few hours to check your temperature, pressure, pulse. And if you're lucky, give you drugs. One night, on the other side of the room, an elderly man who was having troubles with his back and keeping medication down had gotten a suppository. There were a few other people in the room and because the old man was fairly deaf, the African nurse who was helping him spoke loudly about how's she's 'going to give you a suppository now Mr Harlock'. The man was audibly surprised when the suppository arrived. 

Just as surprised as I was when a minute or two later the curtain opened and the nurse came through. Now, I have nothing wrong with anybody being a nurse, however, dress appropriately for the job. This lovely lady had a huge purple head dress on with big dangling ear rings hanging down. She looked like she had struggled to get her scrub top over her bouffant-ish dress so it had only gotten half way up her sleeve. She slapped on some new gloves, stuck a thermometer in my mouth, strapped on the blood pressure cuff, held my wrist and asked me, how you doing?

3. All Sorts of Pain Relief

Part of my problem was some excruciating back pain. I have high iron levels in my liver and was advised originally that I couldn't take any pain relief, so I hadn't. On my arrival and subsequent stay in hospital, I was asked on a scale of one to ten what my pain level was. It was at about a seven or eight for most of the time. Fortunately enough, alongside the panadol I was given, I also had synthetic morphine. It was the first time - and hopefully not the last time - that I have had morphine in my life. Besides making my nose itch an awful lot, it was very very worthwhile. 

When I moved into a different ward later on, there was another man in there with possible tumour. He was given regular opioids to help with his pain level - something that (from the sound of his TV) made watching Pixar films very enjoyable.  

2. Pee, Pee Everywhere

Given I couldn't walk very well to start off with - what with the falling down from a toilet thing and all that - I was stuck in an uncomfortable hospital bed. After getting fluids and a bunch of cups of water, well, my bladder had filled up quite a bit. Now, being a man it was made pretty easy to pee into a bottle. Not a hard thing to do. I can't begin to imagine how it would be to pee into this weirdly awkward bottle as a woman.

One of the people in a room I was in asked for a new bottle every night. Now, he could get up and go to the toilet perfectly fine, and in fact his bed was closest to the toilet so it was easiest for him to get to the toilet. However, every night, he'd pee in the bottle and ask for the nurse to take it away. It's smart laziness. However, also slightly disturbing that this man was quite happy to empty his bladder in a room with three other people in it every night. Fortunately enough I think enough people had abstained from having the hospital food that they didn't need to worry about number two's. Unless... 

1. Open Your Bowels

Every morning a nurse would come around at about seven am and ask you how you're feeling, take your blood pressure, temperature, all that stuff. And then ask you, have you opened your bowels lately? It sounds like something that Joe Cocker could have sung once, 'have I told, you lately, that I, opened my bowels'. It took me a day or two to understand completely that the question meant, hey, have you had a shit recently? Now, I know that it's not easy to ask people, you had a dump today? But it caught me off guard when I was asked about opening my bowels. 

It's not something I'd ever really thought about before, and now I know it it's slightly changed my world in a way. 'Just need to go open my bowel's, be right back.' There's something about hearing a fellow patient who needs assistance to go to the toilet be asked 'do you need to pee, or do you need to open your bowels?' The 'do you need to pee' sounds very strine, whereas the 'or do you need to open your bowels' sound very regal, very English. Yet, at the same time, open your bowels sounds as filthy as someone saying, 'I gotta take a dump'.

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As for how I'm feeling now? Well, I'm better, but not. Still have back pain, still have abdominal pain, and still have night fevers (which is not as good as The Bee Gee's have suggested it would be). Still opening my bowels.

The A & B Film Podcast - Episode 14 - All This Raidhem & The News Rundown - Episode One.

In a bid to hopefully try allow people to listen to the podcast on as many different venues as possible, I'll start putting the latest episodes up to stream from the blog here until we have a website up and running. Feel free to share or leave your comments here if you like. 

Episode 14 - All This Raidhem

All This Raidhem - Episode fourteen starts off with the one two punch of The Raid and The Raid 2. It's followed up with brief looks at They Came Together and Disconnect. Joel Edgerton's film Felony gets a look under the microscope and the episode finishes up with the skateboarding documentary All This Mayhem. 

The News Rundown - Episode One

In our first news episode we discuss the end of At the Movies. Deadpool film news and True Detective casting get a look over too. We look at the films vying for nomination in the Best Film category at the AACTA's. And many other things as well. Tune in.

Film Releases 28/8/2014.

Felony

My personal pick of the week. Joel Edgerton writes and stars in this tight drama about an unfortunate circumstance. Tom Wilkinson is predictably great, but it's Jai Courtney that surprises in a - hopefully - star making role. Check this one out. Catch Felony at Event Cinemas for $12 this week.

Predestination

The Spierig Brothers are back with Ethan Hawke again in some kind of science fiction film. I'm not sure of the plot, but it's got great reviews and there's hints that this could become a cult classic. Hop on it before everyone else does. 

Magic in the Moonlight

Woody Allen follows up his insta-classic Blue Jasmine with this light hearted look at mysticism and psychics. This looks to be in line with Allen's late career revival after a dire early 2000's.

The Inbetweeners 2

This came out last week in some places but went wide this week elsewhere. I'm not sure if this is worth a look or not, but given that most UK comedy shows only get one shitty film, I'd say this might be worth a look if you don't mind crude humour. I have no desire to watch this. 

If I Stay

Chloe Grace Moretz chases an Oscar nomination by playing a violin. That's my guess. Heck, if Abigail Breslin and Hailee Steinfeld can do it, surely Moretz can too? Just one more girl for Dakota Fanning to hate.

Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return

What?

Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods

I wonder if Dragon Ball Z was meant to be called Dragon Ballz but a last minute decision that this may become something that's ridiculed on the internet made them separate the Z from the Ballz?

Event Cinemas Cinebuzz Discount Film of the Week

Hoyts Rewards Discount Film of the Week

The Fault in Our Ability to Accept an Open Ending.

Spoilers below for The Sopranos, The Fault in Our Stars, The Dark Knight Rises and Inception.

Earlier this week Martha Nochimson wore David Chase down enough to get some vague idea of how The Sopranos ended. The article can be read here in its entirety. Whether Chase finally gave in to the constant 'what happens at the fade to black' or merely wanted to honour his friend, James Gandolfini, by having his signature character 'live on' is debatable. Just as the ending itself is debatable. 

That's the nature of open endings, or vague endings. They're designed to be discussion starters; designed to have the viewer or reader come to their own decision as to what has occurred to the characters. It's one of the magical things about literature, television or films. The ability for the writer or director or show runner to decide at exactly what point the story should end and on what note. 

For every cut to black that occurs with The Sopranos, you have a majorly definitive finale like Dexter becoming a lumberjack. Sure, Dexter could have sailed off into that hurricane with Deb's body and the show could have faded to black and it wouldn't be as greatly ridiculed as it is today. The ending could possibly even have encouraged discussion rather than turning the show into a butt of jokes. 

The Sopranos on the other hand has a masterful ending. Part of what makes it a wonderful ending is that six years after the show finished, people have discussed the possibilities of what has occurred. Is Tony dead? Does the show just keep going? One of the theories which is worthwhile reading is the discussion of the symbolism of the number three. 

Does having a 'definitive ending' from Chase now ruin the theories? Not at all. If the viewer is to take what is presented on screen as gospel, then theories are allowed to still continue on. Sure, David Chase created The Sopranos, but at some point a show, a book or a film stops being the product of its creator and becomes the product of the reader, the fans of the film or show. Is David Chase's version of 'what happened' not just another fan theory then?

In one pivotal moment in The Fault in Our Stars, the characters traipse across to Amsterdam to track down a reclusive author of An Imperial Affliction, a book which has had a profound effect on Hazel. The book ends mid-sentence, something which Hazel can't accept as a finish for a book. The quality of the book is implied to be great, the importance of the lives of the characters reflecting the lives of Hazel's own family and friends. 

The reaction of the author, Van Houten, is understandable. He's locked himself away in a far off country where people don't have easy access to him. Piles of letters line his hallway, no doubt the majority of them filled with 'what happens after the end of the book'. It's a question that no doubt many authors, directors and show runners get asked - Christopher Nolan has probably avoided Comic Con as long as he has so he doesn't have to answer whether the top stops spinning or not in Inception. 

His anger comes across as arrogant, but as the writer it's understandable; he's finished with the story, he doesn't have any more to say, and if he did, would he not have included it anyhow? The anger from his fans as well for not getting a clear answer is also understandable. Why, they've traveled all this way whilst they both have cancer, don't they deserve an answer? Don't they deserve what they came for? 

Whilst The Fault in Our Stars is a wonderful film that explores young cancer victims. It's devastating. It's also why getting the answer to the 'what happens after the end' is so important to the characters. To Hazel it's to get an answer that after she dies, her family will be ok. Her family will still have a life. It's a heartbreaking moment in the film and is realised later on when she confronts her mother about what she will do when Hazel is gone. 

The Fault in Our Stars inadvertently discusses the impact of open endings as well. Is it our right to demand closure or not? Closure is given for Hazel in the realisation that Van Houten's An Imperial Affliction is a personal story, one that has affected his life and he needed to tell it. It's so personal that the hounding from fans caused him to become a recluse because it also forced him to confront what the story meant to himself. The opening ending to him is not saying goodbye to his daughter who died. It's another impactful moment in a film full of them. 

So The Fault in Our Stars discussion of open endings give a clause of sorts to the discussion of open endings in literature. Yet, surely The Sopranos - a work of pure fiction - is not subject to this clause. In fact, surely many other open ended films are not subject to the clause. You don't see The Coen Brothers or Cormac McCarthy addressing the ending to No Country For Old Men - it is what it is and it is what it should be. 

Why is it difficult for audiences nowadays to accept this kind of ending in literature? Is it because modern audiences have become so used to having everything spoon fed to them? One of the benefits of an open ending is to challenge the audience, to make them think over what has occurred and the implications of it. 

It's interesting to see someone like Christopher Nolan go from a film like Inception - one of the finest open endings and discussion points in modern cinema - to a film like The Dark Knight Rises where the ending is so clear cut. The opportunity was there earlier in The Dark Knight Rises to suggest that Bruce Wayne has survived and to hint at that by having Alfred sitting in a cafe in Paris and look over to another table and smile. To have both Selina Kyle and Bruce Wayne sitting there creates a paradox within the film - one of the richest men in the world in one of the most populated places in the world, a man who is considered dead, right there, out in the open. A paradox that an slightly open ending might have cancelled out. 

The ending of The Sopranos is strong enough to continue to create debate that will carry on even with David Chase's flippant comment. People will hopefully continue to debate the ending and continue to discuss what has occurred. Yet, as a modern audience, we need to be more accepting of these elements of modern literature - whether it be books, films or television. We trust that the creative decisions made by those in charge are the right decisions for the story and we enjoy being able to discuss these decisions. 

What is your opinion of the 'confirmed finale' of The Sopranos? Should open endings be explained or left open for a reason? Leave your thoughts below.

Film Releases 21/8/2014.

After missing a couple of weeks of film releases, here's a round up of what's coming out this week. A fairly exciting week for independent films. 

20,000 Days on Earth

This is the Nick Cave 'documentary' that has me pretty excited. I'm not a huge Nick Cave fan, I appreciate his work, but as a person Cave interests me greatly. I'm curious to hear his discussions in the film and see about his process.

Boyhood

Richard Linklater is a cinematic master. He manages to have such a wide variety of films in his catalogue. To think that whilst he was making Boyhood, he also managed to create two Before films, Bernie, and a heck of a lot of other Linklater classics. A cinematic must see.

The 100-Year-Old-Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared

Nope, surprisingly this is not a sequel to the Hugh Grant smash hit 'The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill but Came Down a Mountain'. Fans of that film will just have to wait in hope that one day a sequel will come. This film is equally as title spoilerly as The Englishman Who Yada Yada Yada but I guess this is more about why he climbs out a window and why he disappears. People have said this is a good film. I, however, am not one of them.

Freedom

On the back of the 'success' of 12 Years a Slave comes the first of many 'I'm a slave, feel sorry for me films'. This one tries to remind audiences that a long long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, Cuba Gooding Jr. could act. I do wonder if this would be more successful if it was called Ikea though.

Locke

Locke comes out in select states this week with others to follow next week. This is Thomas Hardy in a car talking on a phone for ninety minutes. Apparently this is more riveting than the social experiment that was the failed Ryan Reynolds vehicle Buried. I am still curious whether Buried would have been more successful if Reynolds was actually buried under ground, you know, like his film career is.

Deepsea Challenge 3D

When James Cameron was talking about 3D films overtaking cinema, what he was really talking about was his ability to make 3D documentaries. This should actually be an interesting film to watch and is nice to see Cameron still able to continue his love of the deep sea. Sidenote: Given the next Avatar film may take place mostly under water, it's possible this was merely an exercise in getting an understanding of what deep sea environments look like.

Doctor Who Deep Breath

In select theaters is Doctor Who Deep Breath, the first episode of season eight with new Doctor Peter Capaldi. I am interested in watching this simply for Capaldi's presence and to see whether he slips a horse cock in there or not.