Today I am on call for the first time during the lockdown. Officially, I am on call for the city from 9am this morning until 9am tomorrow morning. In reality, with the day teams in work until 5pm, the chances of a call before then is slim. Today was no exception with just the routine work to keep me busy.
The day started with me calling into the trust Sit Rep meeting. This covers all the services in the organisation and runs through issues like staffing levels and equipment problems. As I am on call out of hours it seemed like a good idea to know what is going on, and fortunately at the moment the system seems to be coping with the added pressures.
The meeting lasted nearly 2 hours, with Sarah able to take the dog for a walk in the time I was on the call. After this, I had a good selection of emails to pile through and keep me out of trouble for the rest of the morning.
For lunch I used up the eggs which were near the use by date, rustling up scrambled eggs and toast from the frozen bread. Once we had eaten, the three of us headed into the garden to enjoy a few minutes in the sun. Darwin spent most of his time hogging his tennis ball and running in circles, so Sarah and I got another ball out and played an impromptu game of catch.
Back in the dining room-office and I had several patients at the same home to call and review this afternoon. The call was straight forward and all four patients are doing well despite the current restrictions. What was not working as well, the bloody computer system which seemed particularly slow this afternoon. It took nearly as long for me to copy my notes from the call into the system as the call itself, and by the end I was quite ready to throw the machine into the garden for Darwin to play with.
Before I finished I had a phone call with one of my colleagues Alwyn to catch up and make sure everything is going well. Despite the isolation he is doing well. Sarah took the dog out for a run on the grass while I did this, at which point he managed to get hold of a bag of his own, well, you know…! How exactly this happened, I am not entirely clear, but as you can see in the video he was thoroughly enjoying himself.
Dinner this evening came straight from the 1990s, with a chicken Kiev and a side of baked beans. Depending on the calls this evening, my plan is to watch a little TV and then have an early night, while Sarah is working her way through her latest book choice. I’ll let you know tomorrow if anything happens work-wise, something to look forward to!
Self-Indulgent Twaddle 