Still going to work

Adhisthana, July 2019

You may remember that one of my colleagues from work was stuck in India. She was there for two months all told, but finally managed to get a flight home. The plane was full - no social distancing, although everyone wore a face mask - and although health screening questions were asked at the Indian end, there were no checks or restrictions at all at Heathrow.

So we asked the Trust HR and Occupational Health Departments about self-isolation, given that travelling in a plane is notorious for spreading infections at the best of times. They advised that as long as she didn't have symptoms she could come straight back to work. This is surprising, to say the least, but all I could do was to stay as far away from her as possible - she came back on a Tuesday so we only had one day in the building together before I had the rest of the week at home. Her situation is slightly complicated by the fact that we were advised to record Covid-19 in the personnel system as the reason for her absence, which was taken to mean that she had been ill with the virus, and therefore would now be better... Luckily for all of us, she has experienced no symptoms.

In case anyone was wondering, none of us has been tested for virus or antibodies, nor has anyone suggested that we should be. This is reasonable as we have very little contact with the public, with patients visiting the centre only for the procedures that simply can't be done over the phone. We now keep the front door locked and we have a new doorbell and a perspex screen in front of the reception desk. When any stranger enters the building we all put on face masks and after they leave the receptionist wipes down all the surfaces they may have touched. If we have to be in the same room as the visitor we wear plastic aprons and gloves as well as face masks, and we ought to wear goggles or a visor too but those of us with glasses are omitting that inconvenience. So far we are not requiring the visitor to wear a face mask. We all work in separate rooms, and when we come together for lunch we sit 2 metres apart.

I have somehow escaped the order that has taken all Dietitian back to the main hospital to work on plans for the apocalypse. Fortunately the apocalypse has not come to pass, so there are a lot of Dietitians at a loose end - I have no idea how they are occupying themselves. Every fortnight I have a very busy Monday with the multidisciplinary clinic that used to allow people to see me and a nurse and a doctor all at the same visit. As a stopgap measure we are sharing out the telephone calls to patients between me, the doctor and two nurses, and it's working moderately well.

However, all the outpatient clinics for all the Dietetic services including mine have been cancelled except for one clinic for each service. That single clinic is filled with only the most urgent cases, so I have no means of booking follow ups for patients that I want and have time to see. I have resorted to keeping a separate diary - my own offline booking system - to get round the restriction.

On a Monday when I wasn't involved with the multidisciplinary clinic I was asked to do one of the sole bookable clinics for diabetes, and it was quite a challenge especially as I had one patient whose first language was not English. I worked hard that day, and it was just as hard to work out how to record what I had done and make plans to follow up that patient. There was no point putting them back into the general clinic because then it wouldn't be me following up, and it was too complicated to just pass the patient back and forth between different Dietitians. A little while later I got a call from the admin team querying how to record the follow up for the patient - the answer being "You tell me." It would have been perfectly straightforward if they hadn't cancelled all my clinics.

Most of the time, however, we are working less hard than before.

The local community is supporting their front-line workers by providing food, which has led to a situation becoming known in the Diabetes Centre as Pizzagate. Various local suppliers are sending food to the hospital - sandwiches, snacks, chocolate and pizza. These arrive at the management offices for distribution, but there are loud grumblings of inequity - the managers are accused of creaming the best off for themselves before distributing to the wards, and we in the Diabetes Centre receive nothing. I try hard to keep out of these discussions, not least because there is no way I can fit pizza into 1200 kcal/day, but it is getting as bad as back in the days when everyone was moaning about parking all the time.

The (first) peak in Covid-19 cases seems to have passed, and now the word from the top is all about how we re-start services. We are in a good situation at the moment - wards are so empty in our hospital that the opportunity is being taken to redecorate - and we have the chance to think about how we would like to do things differently. With this in mind I volunteered to send out a call to arms to our Diabetes doctors, asking them to contribute to a discussion. Not one has responded to me, but it seems they are thinking about it. I'm not holding my breath.

Still locked down

Adhisthana, July 2019

Here I am again, in my house, walking or running around Leamington's lovely parks, or at work in the Diabetes Centre. With a weekly excursion to a supermarket, that's it. But I'm thriving. I'm eating sensibly and losing weight very slowly, but unlike previous attempts at weight loss I think I can keep this up. While I hear most people talking about gaining weight at home, it's been relatively easy (after the first couple of weeks) for me to keep to my 1200 kcal limit, and even include chocolate every now and then.

I have mowed the lawn and pruned a load of shrubs, and then with the easing of the lockdown I have been in touch with the Lady Gardener to beg the favour of a visit (scheduled for June). I also contacted Ilf about external painting, and he's going to get back to me with an idea of when he might fit me in. Doors and Windows Ulf can do nothing about my front door at the moment because his suppliers aren't working, but Clf the Roofer may be able to help with my hall windows which he was so scathing about when he renewed the roof six months ago. Which then meant that I would need access to the pub garden, and the pub is most definitely still closed.

A sign in the pub window provided a phone number for the security firm responsible for keeping the site secure, and a helpful man even answered the phone. He disclosed a lot more information about the pub management than I was expecting, including the fact that the previous management is still responsible for the pub, but the interior has been stripped of all valuables and will need tens of thousands of pounds to restore it to a functional state. As well as this dire news he provided the combination for the padlock on the gates of the beer garden and told me that the lock is very stiff. So stiff that I haven't managed to prise it open yet - today I applied a load of penetrating oil and we'll see whether that helps.

Other activity at home includes jigsaws, games and socialising via Zoom, Buddhism three times a week at present (and a fourth time when I joined a thing at the weekend) and I re-started a tiny OU creative writing module online. I first started it about two years ago so had quite forgotten what I had done back then, and re-reading my own work after all this time was a delight.

So all is well for me in my little bubble, hoping for the lifting of restrictions on hairdressers while appreciating that such close proximity means I wouldn't be comfortable going to the salon even if it were allowed. The weather has been glorious with more sunshine to come, and the news reports tell of a reduction in the infection rate and mortality figures while warning of the seriousness of the recession to come. We certainly live in interesting times.

What I've been reading

The Blind Assassin
by Margaret Atwood

"As Iris Chase Griffen, the sole surviving descendant of a once-distinguished Toronto family, recalls the events of her life and the pivotal death of her sister Laura in 1945, we simultaneously read Laura’s posthumously published novel. In that novel within a novel there is yet another narrative."

When I first read this nearly six years ago (how can it be six years!?!) in audiobook format I resolved to get a copy in print so that I could flick back and forth to see the clues to the ending that had been given throughout, but in a way intended to deliberately deceive the reader the first time round. So this time in print I remembered one of the two twists while I was reading, but she still got me with the other. It stands up to a second reading too.

A History of Britain: At the Edge of the World? 3000BC - AD1603
by Simon Schama

narrated by Stephen Thorne

"Change - sometimes gentle and subtle, sometimes shocking and violent - is the dynamic of Schama's unapologetically personal and grippingly written history. At its heart lie questions of compelling importance for Britain's future as well as its past: what makes or breaks a nation?"

History at school was complete waste of time. I don't know whether it was the fault of the teacher(s), but suspect not. I think I just didn't see the relevance of knowing what happened when the Romans were here. I didn't have enough life experience to put ANYTHING into context. So they had great baths - they still looked pretty primitive to me compared with my bathroom, and they built roads and walls - big deal. So what. But now, now I know that history is everything. History is politics and religion and geography and masculinity and patriarchy, and most of all, power. At least, the history in the history books, which is all about the people who were in charge. The ordinary people - well, they worked hard getting food out of the ground and avoided early death if they were lucky. Now I can put history into context, even though it's mostly about subjugation and political strategy. This book ends with the death of Queen Elizabeth I, and I've started the next volume already.

The Poet
by Yi Mun-Yol

"When a governor to the King falls into rebel hands, he switches sides to save his skin. When later he is captured by royal troops, it is not only he that is condemned to death as a traitor but his sons and grandsons too. They survive by subterfuge, but though they keep their lives, they have lost their place in society."

I can't remember where this book came from, but I was interested in reading a Korean book, even though it was about a poet. Well, there's really no need for me to do that again. Not my kind of thing at all, and I know barely anything about Korea or its poetry so I couldn't relate to that side of it either.

Leave it to Psmith
by P. G. Wodehouse

narrated by B. J. Harrison

"The idyll of Blandings Castle is about to be disturbed, for the Hon. Freddie Threepwood is poised to make his debut as a jewel thief. Freddie, however, is not alone: Blandings is simply brimming with criminals and impostors all intent on stealing Aunt Constance's £20,000 diamond necklace."

The third time I've listened to this book - twice in the Jonathan Cecil narration (in 2008 and 2009) and this time in podcast form by my regular US podcast narrator. It's a fine book.

Nothing at all to report

Paraty, Brazil, April 2019

There's so little to say that it hardly warrants a blog post. I'm fine, working 2 days, idling 5 days, still keeping up the running and the Zoom games and Zoom Buddhism and not feeling much like working in the garden at all. Or getting the stuff down from the loft. At the end of a period of such idleness I should be able to look back and say "but at least I got xx done." Doesn't look like that's going to happen based on the last week's activity. But today, with a supreme effort, I have made a start.

At work, I got a call to say that the Ward Dietitian's Assistant was off sick, so could I liaise with her in case she needs help. She doesn't need help - there are more empty beds in the hospital than at any time anyone can remember - but she is finding that seeing people on the wards takes a lot longer than it used to, what with having to put on all the PPE and take it off again all the time. So she gave me a pile of telephone follow ups for cardiac rehab, which was most interesting. I managed to do five of them, not all that well I suspect, but good enough. It was particularly nice being able to tell someone without diabetes that they could have fruit juice if they liked.

And that's really all there is to report.