Lee Randall: Sometimes only specialists will do the job properly

Published on Friday 5 March 2010 18:03

THOUGH I'm late weighing in on the Royal College of Nursing's plea for funding to ensure the longevity of specialist nurses, I'd like to speak up anyway.

It's one of those topics I wish was a non-issue, along with the funding of arts programmes in schools, decent pay for teachers, and a 200 per cent reduction in the wages of footballers, telly presenters, reality show stalwarts and their ilk. Maybe if I ruled the world, or if, as some would prefer, Stephen Fry became Britain's next prime minister, that would change.

Meanwhile, the guy who is PM pledged 20 million for the provision of specialist nurses for those with cancer. Excellent! But there are myriad others who benefit from the expertise of these magnificent caregivers, so as far as I'm concerned, we're talking drops and buckets.

I love too many people with cancer to be cavalier about this devastating illness, but at least it is one we've become comfortable discussing, and which has a lot of firepower behind it – in terms of research, awareness campaigns, and so on.

While it's not quite a telly-worthy "embarrassing illness", Crohn's – my body's disease of choice – does offer sufferers a unique menu of humiliations, and never more so than when one has an ileostomy or a colostomy. (David Sedaris is still giggling because I told him it was the one bag you can't accessorise, and that priceless quip wasn't even original to yours truly.)

The reason I agreed to ileostomy surgery wasn't the doctor's promise that it would end my horrendous pain, but because the head of the stoma nursing team at Edinburgh's Western General talked to me and my ex for ages. She treated us like the intelligent adults we are, and ran through the different bags, explaining the mechanics of it. She answered our questions and vowed that a stoma nurse would be at my side every step of the way.

No liar, she was there for me then and she's there still. Whenever we meet in the hospital corridors she stops for a chat and to share any treatment updates she's learned about – even though my stoma is gone. (For now, I remind myself, not wishing to tempt the gods of digestion.)

A stoma nurse was there wearing a compassionate smile, ready to empty the bag of its vile brown fluid the day after my surgery, when I was too weak – emotionally and physically – to do more than flap my hands and sob. A specialist nurse visited the flat regularly after I was discharged, to ensure that I knew what I was doing. A specialist nurse has always been available for an empathetic phone call when I've needed advice.

Surely any nurse would do, you say? Well, I love and admire nurses but that's wrong, wrong, wrong!

I once went for a test and discovered it involved drinking litres of dyed liquid. I cautioned the nurse that this was probably not wise, since the liquid exceeded the bag's capacity, but she insisted, so I soldiered on.

Sure enough, all hell broke loose. As fast as I emptied the bag, it refilled with this potion whooshing through my small intestine. As I knew it would, the bag blew right off my body. Like a fire hose, my exposed stump of innard sprayed the area with colourful liquid. Simultaneously laughing and crying, unable to control the little guy, I soaked myself and the room, even after the nurse found me a bedpan.

Because I didn't have supplies with me – eventually I learned to carry spares at all times – I repeatedly asked her to provide a fresh bag. She couldn't. She didn't have the first clue what I required or where to find it. Mind you, we were in a hospital! Call the stoma team, I shouted, they'll know what to do.

You wouldn't ask a bowel surgeon to remove a brain tumour. There is no substitute for the expertise of a specialist nurse. Protect them at all costs.