Lockdown Blog: Day L

So there we have it, fifty days in lockdown completed. It seems like a significant milestone to take a moment to appreciate. For fifty days we have been doing our best to remain and work at home, avoid contact with people, to only go out if absolutely necessary. There have been blips, and some people are clearly not happy with lockdown, but on the whole, the country has done a pretty good job, certainly better than I might have expected. I hope of course the restrictions are not quite as significant after the next fifty days, judging by the government plans from the weekend, that is almost certainly the case.

Day 50 started for me with a quick trip to the office. I needed to sign some paperwork, and could not find a way around it. The roads remained quite, and the office was certainly much quieter than it has (and could) be. In the end I made it there and back in just over an hour which is certainly efficient.

Back at the desk, and the computer was turned on for the first time in five days. I only had around 30 emails waiting in my inbox, a partly I am sure because most people were off work over the bank holiday, and none were about the patients I was concerned about last week. All in all a positive start.

The rest of the morning was taken up with phone calls. I was able to speak to a couple of people who did not answer the phone last week, as well as some more urgent calls. Sarah and I took our walk together at lunch today (obviously tomorrow we can exercise as much as we wish, although we are not going to go silly). Most of the walk was taken up talking about our house sale, in particular deciding what items around the house we will be taking with us and what we do not need. We have not quite agreed on everything yet, but there is still time.

This after noon was more phone calls, some to people I had planned to call, others for more urgent assessments with either the patient or with colleagues involved in their care.

I am on call this evening (technically it started at 9am this morning but nothing came up before 5) until tomorrow morning at 9. The shift started with a conference call with all the on call doctors, at all levels, in the trust. The idea was to get an idea of the current state of play on the wards, and offer support to colleagues where needed. Fortunately everything seems under control at the moment and the team on tonight seems very competent.

Currently, I have settled in for some TV viewing (with a little ice cream) while waiting to respond to any calls which might come in. I do have another update call at 10pm, but otherwise I am not expecting anything drastic this evening. I might even manage an early night in bed