Vaccination

Great Dixter, July 2020

What a week it's been.

There was a massive low point, just after I wrote the last blog post. I felt terrible, everything was awful, I very nearly walked out of work but had the sense to talk to Lola II before doing anything foolish. I'm glad to say that my brain chemistry has reset itself and I'm feeling much better, thank you for asking. My Tuesday Buddhists saw the worst of it, and they and Lola II have rallied round like troopers to make sure that I'm OK. With chocolate, in Lola II's case.

I got vaccinated. I'm not over 80 or in a care home or in the NHS front line, but I am a healthcare professional and became eligible together with every clinician in the Trust. This Trust was where the first patient in the UK was vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine, and the 'SODA' (Surgery on Day of Admission) ward has been converted to a vaccination centre, with another in a Portakabin out in the car park. We aren't running on the scale of those mass vaccination hubs in a sports stadium that you read about, but we're working towards a target of 850 vaccinations a day.

How do I know this number? Because I volunteered to support the vaccination programme within the Trust without knowing exactly what that would entail. After doing the online learning I heard nothing, and they are understandably a bit stretched in that department, so I managed to find out that I needed to attend a training session in person, and was I a Registrant or a Non-Registrant? These are new terms to me, but it turns out that I am a Registrant because being a Dietitian requires you to be registered with a professional body - the Health and Care Professions Council, which also regulates 14 other professions including paramedics, hearing aid dispensers and prosthetists.

So with my newly discovered Registrant status I turned up for the training, which is when I discovered that I might actually be the one behind the mask wielding the hypodermic and approaching your deltoid muscle (another new word for my vocabulary). You might be lucky enough to get the paramedic, which I for one would be happy with. Not sure about the hearing aid dispenser.

A slightly-too-crowded room full of masked-up nurses with a few imposters like myself were shown the whole of the job role, which starts with administering the screening questionnaire to check for pregnancy, bleeding disorders and other eligibility criteria. Then there's the preparation of the vaccine itself, which has to be reconstituted with saline very carefully to avoid damaging it, then drawn up into syringes for administration. 

A number of steps within the protocol caused the nurses in the room to make the noise that plumbers make when they have had enough of working for you, because we are required to - wait for it - re-sheath a needle after poking it through the vial bung, and then stick the same needle, not a new one, into the mark's arm. Apparently this has been outlawed for long enough to provoke horrified glances among the nursing Registrants. Of course, I'm happy to learn bad habits without a second thought.

The actual sticking-the-needle-into-the-deltoid practice was done using a pad clipped to the arm of my practice partner. It's quite a long needle, and my only question throughout the whole process was to ask how deep you stick it in? The answer is that you have to judge for yourself based on how fat the arm is. Not really what I was hoping for. My practice partner was a bit taken aback when I said 'ow' as she stuck the needle into the pad, but she soon saw the joke.

Now my paperwork goes through some sort of process which will lead to me being able to use some e-rostering system to book a shift, where I will be supervised doing the job. And then, presumably, let loose on the punters. You can be sure I will keep you up to date on progress.

Annoyed

Munich Botanical Gardens, December 2019

When I'm about to moan about some aspect of my life, there's always a voice in my head reminding me that it could be so much worse. Of course it could, but still, I'm allowed to get annoyed about stuff. Even if the annoyances are very definitely in the 'First World Problems' category.

My colleagues at work are still very annoying. My wet room still lacks a fully working shower, a screen, a fan that comes on together with the light, and I have a whole lot of other water-related problems. A surfeit of food - that shouldn't be annoying of course, but I almost ran out of fridge/freezer space.

The food surfeit started with something that was entirely my own fault - I mentioned a while ago that I bought some groceries for mum and dad and forgot to take them when I visited. What contributed to this situation was that before Christmas I ordered some delicious vegan ready meals which come in 12 different varieties in a large box. Normally they deliver next day, but I asked for a date in January, which passed without any delivery. When I queried this on Monday they were quick to make amends and announced that I would receive my box on Tuesday. I responded very quickly to ask for it to be delayed until Wednesday because I wouldn't be at home on Tuesday, and was told that this change had been done.

Despite this, the box was left on my doorstep on Tuesday morning, and by the time I got home it was gone. The company was quick to arrange another delivery which came early next morning - and then my neighbour turned up at the door, with my box from the previous day which he had rescued from the doorstep. So I have had to find fridge/freezer space for 24 delicious vegan ready meals, which is no hardship really as they are very tasty.

The wet room situation continues. I find it quite difficult to go through the process of finding someone suitable, arranging for them to visit then deciding what to do when they do or don't respond with a quote. Olf recommended a reliable plumber, and I also had a visit from the company who service my boiler. It's a tricky situation for anyone to come in and finish a job started by someone else, especially now that most of the problems are not about plumbing - the light switch, the ceiling, the drains, water penetration through the wall. I had a chat with Olf as well, but he is shielding at the moment, and retiring soon.

The shower itself has been faulty all along, and I found a guarantee card and phoned the manufacturer. We have arranged for someone to come out and have a look, but if it is a fault due to installation, which it probably is, then there will be a fee. They will fix it at no charge only if it is a manufacturing fault. But since I owe Flf a good deal more than the call out fee I don't think I can lose. I've set a date for the call out that's a little way off, so if Olf's mate fixes it first I can cancel.

In between all these annoyances I spent some time on Zoom with Mr MXF, who shoved so much more stuff into my brain that I couldn't cope. We have started to record our Zoom sessions so that I can go back and replay them in short sections, which makes it easier to take everything on board. It's quite interesting and I like a challenge, but I had to take the rest of the day off.

And the most annoying thing - the pandemic. Or maybe it's Brexit. Or the state of affairs in the USA. Or the cold weather, or the rain. Almost nothing in the world is how I would like it to be, and it makes me sad. While I am cosy in my house (despite all my wet room woes) and have enough to eat and enough money to live on and no sign of plague, I am missing the life I used to lead, with badminton, and restaurants, and holidays, and festivals, and visiting people, and weekends away with Lola II and Mr M, and friends that I could hug. Not that I wanted to hug them back then before all this started, but I could have, and not being allowed to is annoying.

What I've been reading

Pigeon Pie
by Nancy Mitford

narrated by Rosalind Ayres

"When the highly imaginative Lady Sophia Garfield discovers a nest of very real German spies in her home, nobody believes her. With her maid murdered and her beloved bulldog held hostage, she sets out alone to gain proof and, with time out for tea at the Ritz, save Britain."

An early work, and it shows, but still pleasant enough and written at a time like no other - war has been declared and the nation is bracing itself, but nothing much has happened yet. Actually, now that I think about it, perhaps there are comparisons to be drawn with other times...

Whose Body
by Dorothy L. Sayers

narrated by B. J. Harrison

"Lord Peter Wimsey investigates the sudden appearance of a naked body in the bath of an architect at the same time a noted financier goes missing under strange circumstances. As the case progresses it becomes clear that the two events are linked in some way."

I know the story quite well, which is useful in spotting the clues leading to the murderer left along the way. I'm not sure whether the repeated allusions to the missing financier being a Jew is just a feature of the story or casual anti-Semitism. Times and attitudes have changed within my lifetime, let alone the hundred years since this was published.

A Woman of No Importance
by Sonia Purnell

narrated by Juliet Stevenson

"The remarkable double life of an American-turned-British spy, Virginia Hall, a woman from Maryland who, determined to overcome a physical disability that threatened to define her life, successfully infiltrated Vichy France, providing crucial intelligence and logistics for the mounting French Resistance and, later, Allied troops."

I wasn't aware of this formidable woman who had lost most of a leg in her twenties when she tripped and accidentally shot herself while out hunting. Using a prosthetic leg and reserves of strength that are hard to imagine, she achieved astonishing results working with the French Resistance while continually facing discrimination at almost every level of command. I kept expecting things to go wrong and was always anticipating the betrayal that led to capture, torture and death, but she survived the war and returned to the USA. She was recruited by the newly formed CIA, only to face further discrimination at work after the war.

The Beast Must Die
by Nicholas Blake

narrated by Kris Dyer

"Respected crime writer Frank Cairns plots the perfect murder - a murder that he himself will commit. Cairns intends to murder the hit-and-run driver who killed his young son, but when his intended victim is found dead and Cairns becomes the prime suspect, the author insists that he has been framed."

Truly appalling narration - he seems to be trying to portray the protagonist as some sort of James Bond villain played by Gyles Brandreth, with a high nasal voice and ominous pauses... before... the end... of sentences. It's a great shame, because at last I've found an author who writes detective fiction that I can follow - not too many people, each easily distinguished and with realistic characteristics, and an outcome where enough clues were left that the astute reader could work some of them out before the end. Nicholas Blake is the pen name for Cecil Day-Lewis, ex-Poet Laureate, so there's some pedigree there. But his other books on Audible are all narrated by the same person, so I'll have to give them a miss.

Quicksilver
by Neal Stephensen

"A novel of history, adventure, science, invention, sex, absurdity, piracy, madness, death and alchemy that sweeps across continents and decades, upending kings, armies, religious beliefs and all expectations. It brings a remarkable age and its momentous events to vivid life in an historical epic populated by Samuel Pepys, Isaac Newton, William of Orange, Benjamin Franklin and King Louis XIV."

The friend who lent me this book interestingly mentioned that he read it as a historian but expected that I would read it as a scientist, which turned out to be quite true. It is very long indeed and not very exciting at all, but written well enough to keep me reading. It does give some sense of the potential of science (Natural Philosophy) at a time when there were so many things observed but not understood in astronomy, chemistry, biology, physics, optics... Even so, I don't think I can be bothered to attempt the other two of the trilogy. Too long, not enough action.

Blue Shoes and Happiness
by Alexander McCall Smith

"A new and rather too brusque advice columnist is appearing in the local paper. Then, a cobra is found in the offices of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. Recently, the Mokolodi Game Preserve manager feels an infectious fear spreading among his workers, and a local doctor may be falsifying blood pressure readings."

Least satisfying so far, perhaps he'd been churning out the little books for a bit too long. Still very evocative of the place, and probably romanticises Botswana beyond what is reasonable, but I suddenly found myself imagining the characters on television. That's probably what he was aiming for, and this is the last of the series that I actually bought.

A burst of enthusiasm

Great Dixter, July 2020

I was on retreat over the New Year. Sometimes these online retreats are fairly short and easy, with perhaps one meditation together and another session with some teaching every day. This one was full speed ahead, three sessions and sometimes four every day for a week, leaving little time for anything else - which is the point, really. It helps to keep you focussed on the Buddhist life.

I did manage a couple of other activities - a second trip to the tip with all the horrible thorny garden cuttings, a walk with a new member of the local Buddhist group and his dog, and a Zoom get-together with all the friends who would have been in the house in Devon if we had been able to go on the planned New Year holiday.

So when the retreat ended and I had a whole week of stuff to catch up with, I felt glad that I'm not at work until next week. I have spent a lot of time on the computer with that New Year enthusiasm that wears off so quickly. But I'll take advantage while it's there...

It's official - Flf the plumber didn't respond to my messages in the timescale I gave him, which leaves me with a usable but not quite finished wet room. New Year enthusiasm stretched to making a series of calls and emails to try and find someone to finish the job. I had the great idea of contacting Olf and asking him for a recommendation, and then while I was at it I thought I'd start on the next idea, which is to rearrange the bedrooms upstairs. 

One of the necessary steps is to make the wardrobe in the smaller room into something more than a clothes rail. Being an organised kind of person I went back to find the paperwork for the company that had installed the wardrobe in the bigger bedroom, which was 15 years ago. Not surprisingly, the phone wasn't answered, but a quick enquiry via Checkatrade produced a response from a different firm.

Then I was notified that my request to set up remote working had been actioned. This is more a precautionary measure in case I have to self-isolate, to allow me to phone patients from home. I need access to three specific systems plus my stored files and email, and it took quite a long time to follow all the instructions, installing an authentication app on my phone, then using that to log into a remote connection, then working out how to launch the systems that I need. Two of them won't work at the moment, one because it requires a keyboard where you insert a smartcard, and another because it doesn't work on Microsoft browsers. But we're halfway there.

I also responded to a call for volunteers to assist the vaccination programme. This has now extended to Allied Health Professionals like Dietitians, but it's unclear whether I'll be trained to actually give the vaccine injections or just support the team at the vaccination hub, perhaps with paperwork or helping patients. Anyway, the first step along the path has been to complete two extra training modules on anaphylaxis and core knowledge for vaccinators, which I've now done.

Another outlet for my enthusiasm this week included a trip to mum and dad who are defined in this third lockdown as my support bubble. Each time I find my time there fully utilised, finding out the progress of our attempt to switch mum's bank account (in summary - a right old mess), helping with all types of computer things, and this time, listening to a number of dad's stories after lunch. These tend to start with plausible memories (the friend with whom dad played violin duets at a school concert, the inspirational English teacher) and then progress to less believable detail (the friend's body was dug from his grave by wild animals). But some of the medical anecdotes remain fascinating all the way through. 

I managed to forget two things, though - one was the shopping that mum had asked for, so not only is she short of the specified items but I am now the proud owner of more margarine and soft cheese than I normally eat in a year. The other, which I have only just remembered, was to change my own email address in their Contacts list. Either that will have to wait for the next visit, or we'll arrange a time to go through it remotely.

New Year, New Variant

Great Dixter, July 2020

It's been an unsocial yet comfortable time at Lola Towers over the Feast Days - I allowed myself quite a lot of chocolate and ended up feeling slightly sick, which is a first. When all the plans made for this time period had to be called off and I wasn't at work I reverted to hibernation mode, broken only by phone and Zoom calls with friends and family. I even made the effort to get dressed, just for these highlights.

Given the long stretch of nothing over several days, I managed to tackle a job that has been waiting literally for years - my Lasting Powers of Attorney for both health and finance. While not all that difficult to create given that the Government website sets it all out in a very straightforward way, the main barrier is with the 'Certificate Provider' (who agrees that I'm sane and not being put under pressure) and the witnessing arrangements, given that we're not supposed to meet indoors and I don't want to involve anyone at work.

Then I got ambitious and embarked upon another long-postponed task - the Advance Decision (or Living Will) which outlines my wishes should I lose mental capacity but need life-prolonging treatment. Alongside that lives the Advance Statement, which gives all my preferences should I reach that state of loss of capacity, so why not do that at the same time? And, since my divorce was finalised in November, why not look at my Will as well?

Since nothing else was going on I knuckled down and printed all the paperwork ready for signing. 

On Monday I'd been so bold as to arrange a socially distanced walk. Surely that couldn't be called off? and no, it wasn't. Three of us wrapped up warm - snow flurries were forecast. A whole lot of other people had the same idea, the paths were two inches deep in mud, and there was quite a lot of dodging around puddles and people and avoiding getting pebbledashed with mud from all the loose dogs. My two companions were also kind enough to sign and witness all the legal documentation, which was no trivial task. And it felt good to go outside even though my knee started to complain towards the end of the walk.

I had been feeling bad from not moving enough - both my body and my mind start to complain when I've been sitting down too much. I've mentioned before that my knee was playing up and I couldn't run any more, so I had the great idea to do a bit of skipping, with the bonus that it can be indoors. It seemed to go well and the knee didn't hurt at all, but it turned out that I was using muscles that hadn't seen much action since badminton stopped ten months ago. I was crippled for nearly a week afterwards.

So that's the end of a pretty bad year, when isolation and solitude (usually my good friends) conspire to turn me into a recluse, relieved only by going to work, seeing mum and dad, and Zoom calls with friends, family and Buddhists. There has certainly never been another year like it, but we will have to wait and see how soon the vaccination programme will make a difference, and what that difference will be.