Day 2 Wise Fool

Wednesday 11th November

I have the same tight chested feeling in the morning but I am sure it’s the steroid inhaler and so I push it the back of my mind. I have a pleasant day at work and post a spoof pic of me in PPE on Face book

PPE! Because with Covid there is no fucking about

And I post a statement!

Lockdown 2 seems to be lot more relaxed then the first go round. I don’t know why. This is no less contagious and no less deadly, as of this morning 1.23 million people have been tested positive there have been 50,000 deaths from it, 532 yesterday. Five hundred and thirty-two!

This is happening now, news of a vaccine is reassuring, but won't happen instantly, whatever the politicians may say this is likely to be the situation until Spring next year

Be careful, stay safe, don’t be part of the problem and do not become a statistic

That evening my lovely wife, Brum, says she still has a sore throat but it’s not too bad. My chest feels ok but when I take my evening inhaler it makes me cough for about five minutes.

Covid Summer

Understanding my vulnerability, the practice very kindly awarded me shielding status even though I did not meet the criteria, which meant that I could work from home. There followed a frustrating time as we did not have the technology to make this work initially and we tried bodging connections to the software operating system at work from my home PC. Eventually I got a laptop and amazing innovations in software enabled me to do video consultations from my front room. Incredible

I had mixed feelings about working from home, I missed my colleagues, they are a great team, I couldn’t just knock on a door for advice on the other hand it was a rather lovely hot summer and I could wander out in to the garden or strum a guitar when I felt the need.

Part of my role involved contacting patients who had been given shielding status to see how they were coping. There were about 500 patients across all three surgeries that we cover. It was fascinating listening to their stories. These patients range from the very young with birth defects, people severe health problems to older patients with chronic issues. Several of the chronic respiratory patients were obviously suffering with chest infections but had been too scared to contact the surgery, they did not want to come in for fear of catching Covid.

Every day, the Brummage and I would take a walk around the local area. We picked a different route each time and soon got to know every alley and lane. It felt like we were in one of those 1950’s Sci-Fi movies like the day the Earth Stood Still. We saw no one!

In August we were lucky enough to find and book a fantastic family holiday in the Gower. It was like being on a different planet and we all recharged our batteries.

News from Italy was startling. Doctors were reporting that Covid patients have a crisis on days 6-8 when even apparently well, young, previously fit patients can suddenly drop their oxygen saturation and very quickly die if not intubated and taken to intensive care. Covid lungs are reportedly very “stiff” and require high positive end pressure ventilation to do well. Monitoring oxygen saturations is a key part of treating Covid

The advent of you tube videos from “experts” advocating conspiracy theories, Face book warriors with their insane alternative ideas based on their own “research” became common. I was appalled to see several of my friends sharing this nonsense and talking like lifelong experts about a condition they had only just read about in mainstream or social media. They were quoting discredited medics, quacks and amateur “scientists” as if they were experts and suddenly everyone was an epidemiologist. It seems it’s not just in the US that people are “dumbing down”