We've got jungle fever

I thought it couldn't happen and it was all an exaggeration but it is true. In the final year of nursing, you change. But not in a good way. We are like animals, without a voice yet always at the ready if we are threatened.

We don't laugh anymore. We don't smile anymore, except for the fake ones we wear in front of our patients. Our fuses are shorter than ever, we fight and make up at the drop of a hat. Our health is suffering, back-pain, reflux and stomach acid, weight gain, weight loss. We feel guilt and a lack of freedom and we grumble at anyone who wants to listen and we all make a huge effort not to grumble in front of loved ones. We have become boring and ungrateful. We can't laugh at bedsores and demented patients...and since it is humour and dehumanisation which keeps us sane, it is no wonder that we are all slowly but surely losing what is left of the fragments of our sanity.

I realise the great seriousness that is illness. It isn't funny and it isn't a laugh. It is sorrowful and horrible and tragic. This is exactly why the course is so demanding. To permanently stamp into our heads that nursing is very serious- we deal one to one with disease.

Today one of our lecturers decided to ask us basically what is causing our high stress levels. Ofcourse, it couldn't be a civilised task. We were like animals in the jungle, fighting for survival, attacking each other at one point, at the next forming allies. We were pouncing like pumas, trumpeting like elephants , screaming like banshees and threatening like gorillas beating their chests. Some of us were taken aback by the battle and sat still but attentive like meer cats. All of us were looking out for the weakness of others, whether a fellow student or quadruped or bi-ped hunter known as the lecturers and examiners.

Yet over and above is the fierce and ever present lion, the king of the jungle, leading all the other animals. This beast is none other than disease. It is what leads us and drives us to go on. We try to manipulate it and understand it and as paradoxical as it sounds, it will be the means of our living.

We have five months to outsmart our hunters and until we perform our final practical. Until then, its survival of the fittest.