Blog: The mental crash mat

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'The human brain frequently compensates for and adapts to disability and illness in ways that can seem remarkable to ill-informed dolts like me'

I've been off work for the past two weeks with an acute case of iritis. The ocular experts among you will be nodding your collective heads, repeating phrases like 'hmm, nasty condition' or 'a relatively common, but debilitating infection'. The rest of you probably couldn't care less.

It's not really a big deal. It just means I'm forced into dictating this blog to my lovely wife Nadine (a proper secretary who types with more than two fingers). Apparently it's linked to stress – another one for my burgeoning portfolio.

In a previous blog I touched on the subject of the residents' ability to remain in reasonably good physical health despite their brains suffering daily meltdowns. People a lot wiser than I would say that the human brain frequently compensates for and adapts to disability and illness in ways that can seem remarkable to ill-informed dolts like me.

Blind people develop acute hearing abilities while autistic savants become mathematical geniuses or find they can draw complete cityscapes from memory after only one viewing. All I know is that some of the clients under my care have suffered serious illnesses that would under normal circumstances result in the surprise arrival of erstwhile relatives to mutter a choice 'few words' at the graveside.

They seem to bounce back like veritable power-balls. Annie, a lady with a heart the size of a cow, smoke-addled lungs, and 'suit yourself' diabetes has fallen more times than a circus clown on overtime.

All she ever suffers is the odd small cut or bruise. It's as though the mental illness has become her crash mat, so that when she topples over like a toddler she's devoid of any adult stiffness or bone-breaking rigidity. Each time we scoop her up she sighs and says 'I've been a silly moo haven't I?'

Joyce is another walking miracle. She's been suffering from end-stage breast carcinoma for the past two years. Her tumour shrivelled up and died ages ago. The widespread bone metastases hasn't caused repeated fractures or made her moribund. Each morning she goes through her protracted rituals of hand shaking and vest sniffing before she Zimmer's down to her armchair in the lounge.

I have a theory that long-term mental illness somehow mitigates the need to worry. Stress doesn't appear to figure in their lightening recovery rates. Maybe years of ECT confounded the stress cells, along with countless other faculties.

This isn't to say everyone is immune to the ravages of stress or anxiety. Pete is the 20-stone embodiment of all things stressful. He hardly ever sleeps. He bursts into floods of tears each time someone hugs him or if he hears a certain song on the radio. His rippling, contorted facial muscles look as though they're trying to rip the identity from his skull. He does this menacing whisper any horror film maker would give their eye teeth for. For him, mental illness hasn't reduced his stress levels, it's magnified them. His mind is so taken up with trying to fend of the assorted demons shredding his brain that there really is no room for anything or anyone else.
 
Back to the others, I have two other (un-tested) theories about why they are so 'unbreakable':

1. They all signed up as participants in a long-term 'crocodile blood' trial several years ago but someone lost their records just as things started getting interesting.

2. They are in fact 'stress giver's' while we (the nurses) are 'stress takers', soaking up all the killer stress; stress that would stiff Superman. Stress the military keep hidden deep underground in hermetically sealed vaults. (You get the idea.)