Post by Dave on Feb 6, 2011 13:35:23 GMT
It’s so easy to form opinions about people we don’t really know, it can be even easier to decide we don’t like someone based on what we read about them, or what they may say themselves.
We only look at what we see on the surface and base all our judgments on that alone and never ever stop to look any further, or ever stop to think that this person we have taken a dislike to, has a family, people who love them and people who would miss them so much when they are no longer on this earth.
In most cases I think these people we decide we do not like, are people who are in power in some form or other, it may be we don’t agree with what changes they are making that might affect us, or changes that we don’t want or think are not for the best.
But as I said we only see that and don’t really know the person, the son they are, the father, husband, brother, grandfather or just the very good friend.
One such man I took a dislike to was Councilor Kevin Carroll, Nick Byes side kick who in my view has been guilty of saying things in public about the very people who put him in power, he really should never have said.
For many people in Torbay it’s been about the lack of any consultation and more about one or two in power trying to push through just what they wanted for Torbay while putting their two fingers up to everyone else.
Yes its far to easy to forget these people underneath those robes, uniforms etc, are just ordinary human beings just like the rest of us and may have many personal problems they have to deal and face we never know about.
I have seen Kevin Carroll’s picture in the paper, I have seen him on the TV, I have read what he has had to say in the Herald Express and often got very angry as a result of what I as reading, but I have never seem the man in real life until I did last Thursday late in the afternoon.
You would think my blood might have boiled seeing this man for the first time right before my eyes, but you would be wrong, my heart went out for him and I found myself saying a prayer for him and all the other people who were around me at that time.
So where did I see him? In the Ricky Grant Unit at Torbay Hospital, the unit was named after a 17 year old Torbay young man who died of cancer, a charity was set up in his name and the money raised went towards the opening of this unit at the hospital.
Today’s Ricky Grant Unit is now next to the Turner Ward in the hospital) cancer ward) it simply outgrew the original unit and it has to be one of the most humbling places anyone could ever visit.
Many of the staff there today are the same ones Carol and I first got to know over eight years ago in the old Ricky Grant Unit, they all seem like friends to us now. They are all over worked and often show signs of this, but you won’t find a more caring and dedicated bunch of people anywhere else. These are the people who do get the blunt end and are the very backbone of the NHS and in my view far more important that all the over paid managers and others that money gets wasted on.
When you walk through the doors of the Ricky Grant Unit, all down the middle the whole length of the unit are chairs where those waiting for treatment sit. Behind that row of chairs on the right hand side are a number of chairs and a few hospital beds where those who have already been hooked up to the machine that pumps those toxic drugs into them are put.
I certainly found it very hard the first few times I went into the Ricky Grant Unit, it hit me so hard to see so many lovely people hooked up and having chemo pumped into them in the hope it might do some good and prolong their lives a bit longer.
It was far too easy to just look on the surface and end up feeling the unit was a very depressing place full of desperation and doom and gloom. That’s how I saw it in the beginning but after sitting down and talking to so many of the cancer patients, I soon changed my mind.
These people are not angry and full of hate, are never going to bite your head off or say anything to cause you upset or offense. They are just people who somehow can still manage to smile, still try and laugh (well I do my best to make them when I’m there) and process the ability to not throw in the towel, not give up the fight and more importantly, are not prepared to give up hope.
They have all given their consent to have drugs pumped into the bodies, drugs that are very toxic and not discriminate in anyway. They hope the drugs will damage those bad cells that might just win and end their lives, but they know the drug is also going to damage the good cells as well. It’s a trade off they know they have to accept and they know there are never any guarantees it’s going to work.
The Ricky Grant Unit has become my home every late Thursday afternoon again for the last eight weeks and will be for the foreseeable future. On the road at 5.30am and then driving some 380 miles, I can just about make Carols 3.45pm appointment. Not that anything is going to happen for a good hour or so as due to the very nature of the unit and the problems and issues that happen due to the nature of the treatments that go on there.
Carols dad takes her to the hospital and now has to help her to get to the unit, just over six stone in weight now she nether has very much strength or energy to do very much or go very far. I find it strange that I kiss her goodbye at 5.10am in the morning and then get shocked when I walk into the Ricky Grant Unit eleven hours later and see the skeleton just covered in skin she has become.
I was sat beside her on Thursday getting concerned for her for all the time she was sat there waiting to have her name called out. Having to have patience and understanding of what’s going on around you and the reason you end up sitting there for so long, is something you soon learn very quickly at the unit.
The waiting chairs are sat opposite the rooms where all the patients are first taken to get hooked up etc, its here all the checks are made to ensure the right person gets the right drugs. Carol herself may end up spending a good amount of time in this room as they try and tease a vein to the surface to put in the needles required to put the drugs in. It’s normal for her to have to have her arm in hot water for some time.
Anyway we are sat there waiting and then heard Kevin Carroll’s name called out and he went into one of these rooms with some family members. They don’t always shut the door, or sometimes leave it open while they go and fetch something that is required.
When his name was called out it did not register with me who he was and it was Carol who pointed out to me who he was. My very first thought was Oh not him, but when I saw him in the room with the needle in his arm, it ht home he was just a man there fighting for his life.
A man with family with him who knew the real man and loved him, while I had only decided I disliked him based on what? It brought home to me how easy it is to decide we don’t like people without ever knowing the real person.
That said I can never have anytime in my life for those sorts of people who take pleasure in causing pain and upset to others, those that like to throw insults around about people they don’t know but just like to think they know based only on what they may read or opinions they have wrongly formed themselves.
There is far to much suffering that goes on in our world, why some want to cause even more is beyond me, why some can’t just try and live in peace with everyone else and not look to harm then by thought word or deed, I’m still trying to work out and fear I may never come up with an answer.
Still I know I can never change the world or rid it of these sorts of people, all I can do is carry on trying to make others happy and treat everyone as my friend, that is once I have looked below the surface and not been to quick to make judgments on others without ever knowing just who they really are.
Councillor Kevin Carroll has just announced he is giving up politics, he has been battling cancer for 11 years and now has it back and it’s very aggressive. I have never agreed with hardly anything he has wanted for Torbay, but that is no longer very important. I wish him well and hope the treatment can have a positive effect and prolong his life. My thoughts are with you Mr Carroll and all the other people who are battling illnesses and fighting to stay alive. We who enjoy relatively good health don’t know just how lucky we are.
We only look at what we see on the surface and base all our judgments on that alone and never ever stop to look any further, or ever stop to think that this person we have taken a dislike to, has a family, people who love them and people who would miss them so much when they are no longer on this earth.
In most cases I think these people we decide we do not like, are people who are in power in some form or other, it may be we don’t agree with what changes they are making that might affect us, or changes that we don’t want or think are not for the best.
But as I said we only see that and don’t really know the person, the son they are, the father, husband, brother, grandfather or just the very good friend.
One such man I took a dislike to was Councilor Kevin Carroll, Nick Byes side kick who in my view has been guilty of saying things in public about the very people who put him in power, he really should never have said.
For many people in Torbay it’s been about the lack of any consultation and more about one or two in power trying to push through just what they wanted for Torbay while putting their two fingers up to everyone else.
Yes its far to easy to forget these people underneath those robes, uniforms etc, are just ordinary human beings just like the rest of us and may have many personal problems they have to deal and face we never know about.
I have seen Kevin Carroll’s picture in the paper, I have seen him on the TV, I have read what he has had to say in the Herald Express and often got very angry as a result of what I as reading, but I have never seem the man in real life until I did last Thursday late in the afternoon.
You would think my blood might have boiled seeing this man for the first time right before my eyes, but you would be wrong, my heart went out for him and I found myself saying a prayer for him and all the other people who were around me at that time.
So where did I see him? In the Ricky Grant Unit at Torbay Hospital, the unit was named after a 17 year old Torbay young man who died of cancer, a charity was set up in his name and the money raised went towards the opening of this unit at the hospital.
Today’s Ricky Grant Unit is now next to the Turner Ward in the hospital) cancer ward) it simply outgrew the original unit and it has to be one of the most humbling places anyone could ever visit.
Many of the staff there today are the same ones Carol and I first got to know over eight years ago in the old Ricky Grant Unit, they all seem like friends to us now. They are all over worked and often show signs of this, but you won’t find a more caring and dedicated bunch of people anywhere else. These are the people who do get the blunt end and are the very backbone of the NHS and in my view far more important that all the over paid managers and others that money gets wasted on.
When you walk through the doors of the Ricky Grant Unit, all down the middle the whole length of the unit are chairs where those waiting for treatment sit. Behind that row of chairs on the right hand side are a number of chairs and a few hospital beds where those who have already been hooked up to the machine that pumps those toxic drugs into them are put.
I certainly found it very hard the first few times I went into the Ricky Grant Unit, it hit me so hard to see so many lovely people hooked up and having chemo pumped into them in the hope it might do some good and prolong their lives a bit longer.
It was far too easy to just look on the surface and end up feeling the unit was a very depressing place full of desperation and doom and gloom. That’s how I saw it in the beginning but after sitting down and talking to so many of the cancer patients, I soon changed my mind.
These people are not angry and full of hate, are never going to bite your head off or say anything to cause you upset or offense. They are just people who somehow can still manage to smile, still try and laugh (well I do my best to make them when I’m there) and process the ability to not throw in the towel, not give up the fight and more importantly, are not prepared to give up hope.
They have all given their consent to have drugs pumped into the bodies, drugs that are very toxic and not discriminate in anyway. They hope the drugs will damage those bad cells that might just win and end their lives, but they know the drug is also going to damage the good cells as well. It’s a trade off they know they have to accept and they know there are never any guarantees it’s going to work.
The Ricky Grant Unit has become my home every late Thursday afternoon again for the last eight weeks and will be for the foreseeable future. On the road at 5.30am and then driving some 380 miles, I can just about make Carols 3.45pm appointment. Not that anything is going to happen for a good hour or so as due to the very nature of the unit and the problems and issues that happen due to the nature of the treatments that go on there.
Carols dad takes her to the hospital and now has to help her to get to the unit, just over six stone in weight now she nether has very much strength or energy to do very much or go very far. I find it strange that I kiss her goodbye at 5.10am in the morning and then get shocked when I walk into the Ricky Grant Unit eleven hours later and see the skeleton just covered in skin she has become.
I was sat beside her on Thursday getting concerned for her for all the time she was sat there waiting to have her name called out. Having to have patience and understanding of what’s going on around you and the reason you end up sitting there for so long, is something you soon learn very quickly at the unit.
The waiting chairs are sat opposite the rooms where all the patients are first taken to get hooked up etc, its here all the checks are made to ensure the right person gets the right drugs. Carol herself may end up spending a good amount of time in this room as they try and tease a vein to the surface to put in the needles required to put the drugs in. It’s normal for her to have to have her arm in hot water for some time.
Anyway we are sat there waiting and then heard Kevin Carroll’s name called out and he went into one of these rooms with some family members. They don’t always shut the door, or sometimes leave it open while they go and fetch something that is required.
When his name was called out it did not register with me who he was and it was Carol who pointed out to me who he was. My very first thought was Oh not him, but when I saw him in the room with the needle in his arm, it ht home he was just a man there fighting for his life.
A man with family with him who knew the real man and loved him, while I had only decided I disliked him based on what? It brought home to me how easy it is to decide we don’t like people without ever knowing the real person.
That said I can never have anytime in my life for those sorts of people who take pleasure in causing pain and upset to others, those that like to throw insults around about people they don’t know but just like to think they know based only on what they may read or opinions they have wrongly formed themselves.
There is far to much suffering that goes on in our world, why some want to cause even more is beyond me, why some can’t just try and live in peace with everyone else and not look to harm then by thought word or deed, I’m still trying to work out and fear I may never come up with an answer.
Still I know I can never change the world or rid it of these sorts of people, all I can do is carry on trying to make others happy and treat everyone as my friend, that is once I have looked below the surface and not been to quick to make judgments on others without ever knowing just who they really are.
Councillor Kevin Carroll has just announced he is giving up politics, he has been battling cancer for 11 years and now has it back and it’s very aggressive. I have never agreed with hardly anything he has wanted for Torbay, but that is no longer very important. I wish him well and hope the treatment can have a positive effect and prolong his life. My thoughts are with you Mr Carroll and all the other people who are battling illnesses and fighting to stay alive. We who enjoy relatively good health don’t know just how lucky we are.