...nursing home days...

I started work at a nursing home in Worthing, not really knowing what I was letting myself in for. I never realised quite how much poo, wee and dribble there was involved in such a job, but against all odds I actually quite enjoyed it to start with. I say ‘enjoyed ’… it was a challenge and I kinda liked that, but I did actually only manage a month and there were a fair few almost-vomit-moments!

I continued to see Kath while I was working at the home, and I was getting hungrier and hungrier to know more about this ‘God’. I decided to become a Christian while I was working with old people, cleaning willies, wiping up poo and draining wee bags amongst other stuff that makes you cringe thinking about! I talked to my mentor at work about the conversations I’d been having with Kath and I remember a fair few times praying in the toilet for God to give me strength. He did - big time!

One day though I just couldn’t hack it any more… it was one of those days where poo volume was just too much for me to handle! First thingin the morning, one of the men had had diarrhoea in the nighht and it had oozed out of his nappy and covered the bed. We had to hoist him up to change the sheets after we’d cleaned him up and as we moved him to the side, the poo was still a flowing and resulted in the need for a floor cleaning session. The smell was hideous and I almost vomited many times!

Job 2 of the day was to take this very overweight guy to the loo, and because he was so big, he had to use a special commode which stupidly didn’t fit over the toilet. This meant that you had to put a bucket underneath him with a bag in it… the bell rang to indicate that he’d finished, so I went in to wipe his bum, but to my horror this poo was horse-sized (no joke!) and a bit had missed the bucket. Anyway, I gloved myself up, wrapped massive amounts of loo roll round my hand and went in for the wipe… to my relief the guy asked me to come back in a bit as he hadn’t actually finished after all (God only knows how there was more to come!)… so I immediately went to get my mentor as I could not bring myself to go back in there, and she was in a room with this guy that had no legs and was asking her to kill him!!! That was the last straw, I burst into tears and an hour later I’d handed in my notice! It did the trick though… the challenge brought me to God and I now have such huge respect for all those people who wipe bums and change grown-up nappies day in day out! RESPECT!

I didn’t get another job right away after that, instead I took some time to look into the God I’d just submitted my life to. I started to read the bible and pray and walk in the beauty of his creation. I talked to lots of people, asked lots of questions and got severe conflict from my family, (with some really harsh comments to do with my past and my sanity!)

Although I got really upset that my family couldn’t understand the excitement I had, the excitement didn’t go away and I just wanted to know more about God. I started going to church and a house group in the week, and the love and passion and purpose I felt inside me was better than anything I’d ever experienced in drugs or travelling - it was out of this world!