catmag

Yo kiddiewinks. It’s just gone 3am but it feels like 2am. If you have any old-fashioned clocks in your households from the early days of the forum then please adjust them accordingly. And can you clear up those bottles and pizza boxes before I get home from work this morning. Cheers. love, Mam x

Sending you so much love and strength Renton. I’m so sorry you’re going through this. 😢

I love it 😁

Oh and I’ve discovered that when things are as shit as you can imagine they could possibly be, something or someone will come along and pile more shit on top of it. And you learn ways of dealing with it, whether your mates drag you through by the ankles, someone brings cake just in time or you have a tantrum and then have to apologise to everyone afterwards. I’ve surprised myself. Turns out I’m nails.

I was thinking of doing something with Maltesers and Nutella just to cover the full range It has been, and remains an absolute shitshow. I’ve teetered on the brink of several mini-breakdowns but a couple of weeks ago finally had my first full week of annual leave since February. Got my first dose of the vaccine on Boxing Day and feel lucky that I’ve managed to avoid the virus itself so far, although the anxiety about bringing it home to the bairn remains. Getting increasingly annoyed with people who think that once the clock strikes midnight and it’s 2021 that it will alllllll disappear and things will be better. We’re still playing Russian roulette with ITU beds where we hit capacity and then just about manage to split staff into 3 to create ‘just one more’ It’s not safe but it’s what we have to do. We got a voucher for a free coffee at the canteen though so every cloud. 👍

Oi, you absolute knobhead, I’ve just seen this! That was my first and only attempt thanks to the absolute rinsing I got on here

We have in our trust.

😁 I’ll be at work, mate. His dad is a teacher so he’ll be off too and can do the job at home (Plus, my kid is weird. He’s 11 and it’s like living with a more sensible adult)

It’s. Not. A. Lockdown. If. The. Schools. Are. Open!! Fuck’s sake.

We’ve had lots of lovely bits and pieces sent in by the general public (hand cream/lip balm to help with PPE burns) but I really hope management aren’t wildly naive enough to offer us either of the above.. 🙄

I had my first Saturday night off for weeks last night. Woke up about 2am, had a bit cackle to myself thinking about how I’ve ruined all your days and went back to sleep 😁

Probably standing in the empty Nightingale hospitals (which we can’t use without staff btw - good luck finding more nurses) None of us have been routinely tested. Only eligible if we have Covid symptoms. When I left work yesterday morning our ITU was full. Not all the patients were ventilated, some were on high flow oxygen but are extremely sick. I took a patient from theatre to a Covid ward and took up their last bed, although we still have some capacity on other wards. I don’t ever want to have to work up there - it was absolutely grim 🙁 I don’t really have the emotional energy to get into any debates/conversations on here but this thread is always interesting reading. I find the only way to get through life in general is to avoid the whole thing as much as possible (news/debates/social media/general aresholery) on the days I don’t have to deal with it 12hrs at a time, 4 nights per week. Meant to be annual leave next week but as per my last 4 planned weeks off, I’m working some of it. Last had a full week off in January and will be taking the full week I’ve got booked off in December (not Christmas or New Year though because all A/L is cancelled for then) On the plus side, at least I’m not fucking homeschooling this time! 😆

Yes we’ve learned a lot from the first wave and it seems to be showing given current patient outcomes. No, we don’t have any more ventilators. The first time around we stopped all routine surgery and used the vents that would’ve been in those theatres but we’re currently still running routine surgery so they’re in use. And the elderly are still by far making up the greatest number of admissions although we are seeing younger patients presenting in greater numbers than last time. We’re still run into the ground and have large numbers of medical and nursing staff either testing positive themselves or being asked to isolate having been in contact with positive patients or family members. It’s taking a massive toll on staff physical and mental health. 7 months in and I’ve personally never been tested, nor have many of my colleagues so we could be spreading it all over the place.

I’m absolutely not school-bashing - they’re doing absolutely everything they can. Positive cases are inevitable and we just have to accept that. The alternative of going back to home-schooling would genuinely tip me over the edge and I’ve got a child who would get himself up in the morning and crack on with schoolwork without being hassled.

The bairn started secondary school a couple of weeks ago. Within 3 days we were notified that 3 6th formers had tested positive and the whole of 6th form had to isolate whilst they waited on guidance from PHE which they couldn’t get because it was the weekend. A few days later one of the kids in J’s year tested positive. The guidance was for kids that had been in his immediate contact to isolate for 2 weeks but the rest of the year could come in. Siblings of the isolating kids were still instructed to come in as normal. It’s a shitshow. Icing on the cake was when the bairn came back from his dad with symptoms. I was pretty convinced it was a heavy cold but also shitting myself. I also had to break the news that his/our lovely cat had died over that weekend and spent the next couple of hours consoling him while he covered me in tears and snot while I literally held my breath as much as possible. Ended up getting him a test through work which was negative. My second thought, after the relief, was the thought that if I ended up catching the fucking thing via school after intubating Covid-+ve patients for 6 months then I’d be raging.

We should’ve still gone for that coffee on Monday. You’re definitely not on your own.

I’m on nightshift number 4 tonight. We’ve spent every night helping out in Covid ITU as there’s not enough staff overnight given they’re proning the ventilated patients and they need fully turning onto their fronts every few hours. I woke up at teatime today and had 3 messages on my phone which all basically said “Please don’t listen to today’s government briefing” Now I know why. Sanctimonious bitch.

Renton - I can’t speak for anyone’s experience but my own. The patients I’ve been to intubate have been absolutely exhausted to the point that they are desperate for some respite. They’ve been conscious and consenting and I feel like I’ve been more terrified than they are. I haven’t posted much on this until today but I’ve been dipping in and out and reading bits here and there. This whole thing can become all-consuming and I know that personally given what I’m dealing with at work I need to actively avoid news, social media and forums for good periods of time otherwise I lose perspective and start to feel panic-stricken. Genuine question @Renton but do you think you would benefit from a break from the 24/7 nature of all this? It’s not healthy for any of us 🙁

I’m no expert. I can’t dig out the right graphs, or forecasts, or numbers, or theories, or projections or possibilities. I can just give you the reality of the day-to-day. Where patients are people and not statistics.

As the person standing next to you as you’re anaesthetised, I can assure you that in the case of Covid you’re just grateful that someone else is going to do your breathing for you. I’m yet to see ‘terror’ so would be grateful if you’d calm the fuck down and stop presuming things based on no experience whatsoever.

Yep, we did. In Washington

Who knows? You can predict precisely nowt with this thing 🙁

Just a thought aswell. If he’s been on a general Covid ward then it’s likely to be a 15:1 patient to nurse ratio. ITU gets him 1:1 care. Or it did until this past couple of weeks.. And they can do fancy tests like ABG’s (arterial blood gases) to check his respiratory function based on the levels of CO2 in his blood, thus being able to detect further deterioration far more quickly than if he was ward-based. If the ABG results show rapidly deteriorating resp function then ventilation will be required whilst the docs try to correct everything with the patient under anaesthesia. And I can guarantee that every nurse the Tories have shafted for years will do absolutely everything they can for him. As they should.

Not necessarily, there’s 2 levels to Intensive Care, the lower level being High Dependency (HDU) I imagine they’d have taken him there long before his condition became critical as they would with a Muggle but worrying news nonetheless 🙁

Uh-oh... 🙁