My COVID Vaccine Booster: A Haiku

Finally got it

No adverse reaction YAY

(Arm is still sore though).

Some Good News

With how hectic the last week has been I forgot to mention that I got my first dose of the Pfizer COVID vaccine!

It felt like every other injection I’ve had in the past- sore arm afterwards for about a day or so, but one week on and no other side effects so far; feeling good!

I got the vaccine because with new COVID variants and going back to working in hospitals soon, I’ll be very much exposed to and be at increased risk of infection. The vaccine offers protection and reduced severity of COVID symptoms, so I think the benefits outweigh the risks.

Here’s praying the roll out of vaccines bring us closer to some normality…

I Can’t Go Home For Christmas, But Here Are Some Reasons To Be Cheerful

Due to being on call on boxing day and a change in UK lockdown restrictions, I am unable to go home for Christmas. Not going to lie, after having to work last year, I was really gutted about not spending it with my family again, especially with everything that’s happened this year.

So as always, when I’m feeling low, reflecting on the positives helps:

1. I am alive and well. I’ve been working throughout the ongoing pandemic in hospital and in community, and so far I’ve not had to take a day for sick leave or COVID symptoms/exposure.

2. My family are alive and well. Despite COVID and with the #EndSars protests in Nigeria, my extended family have remained safe.

3. Now that I live with Boss, I don’t have to spend Christmas in my flat alone.

4. I’m not working on Christmas day.

5. Remembering that Jesus is the reason I celebrate Christmas, and His birth brought hope during a time of desolation and suffering; I guess not dissimilar to what a lot of people have gone through this year.

So what I try and remind myself is that there is very much a light at the end of the tunnel, and despite how bleak things might seem right now, I will do my best to hold on to that.

Wishing you a very merry Christmas, whatever it might be like this year, and as always, I leave you with my favourite Christmas carol, O Holy Night.

An Ode to Teachers

As England goes into lockdown 2.0, I’ve been thinking a lot about teachers.

This week, I had a teary consultation in GP with a teacher, who called to be restarted on anxiety medication due to stress from work pressure, and prepping for teaching in the lockdown.

This teacher was tired and feeling very drained. Her job was hard enough before COVID, and now it’s been made even more challenging. I could kind of relate, you know. Unlike her, however, I couldn’t really relate to not feeling valued/appreciated for my “key worker” effort.

Healthcare workers get a lot of recognition for what we do, and even more so with this pandemic. From profuse “thanks so much for what you’re doing” remarks, to various shop discounts and offers for NHS staff, it really has been a lot.

It makes me feel like a fraud and undeserving sometimes, because I really think a lot of people overestimate just exactly what my job entails. Especially with being in GP now.

So I spent the consultation thanking the teacher for all she was doing – teaching over 200 students and ensuring they’re meeting curriculum requirements and targets in all this chaos.

I thanked her for being brave for her students, and for being a source of reassurance for those of them who have come to her with their own fears and anxieties about this time.

She also taught the children of key workers during the first lockdown, exposing herself to the risk of infection from these students, but she knew they needed her because a lot of them couldn’t afford private tutoring. I thanked her for this too.

I told her how good teachers are really worth more than their weight in gold, and how it can take just one teacher, who believes in and encourages you to make something more of yourself, to change your life.

I would definitely know – my two favourite teachers from secondary school are huge reasons behind me being a doctor today, and how I became the first person in my school’s history to accomplish this.

So I concluded by reminding her that she might not feel like she’s being noticed for how much she is doing for her students, but she and her colleagues are very much on my mind during this time, and are definitely appreciated. Also, her students will definitely never forget this time and how she was there for them.

Good teachers really have the ability to change lives, and I am in awe of each and every one of them. If you have any teachers in your life, reach out to them and let them know how valued their work is- really truly unsung heroes.

Shout out to teachers across the country for all you’re doing, you really don’t get enough credit for it.

Loneliness Can Be A Rumbling Pit In Your Stomach

*A telephone consultation in General Practise*

Me: Hello, how can I help you?

Patient: I’m not sure what’s wrong with me doctor, but I’ve been having some problems with gas for a while now.

Me: Okay, can you tell me a bit more about it?

Patient: Actually, it feels more like reflux.

Me: I see, and when did you first notice this?

Patient: Around January, I think, and it’s gotten worse since then and during lockdown.

Me: Have you noticed any stomach pain with it?

Patient: Not really.

Me: Any tummy swelling?

Patient: No.

Me: Have you felt nauseous or been sick with it?

Patient: No.

Me: Any changes with your bowel movements?

Patient: No, I’ve been going as normal.

Me: Any weight loss or night sweats?

Patient: No, my weight has been the same and I’ve not been sweating.

Me: Okay, so can you tell me more about this reflux?

Patient: It’s a bit odd; it started after my husband died at the start of this year, and throughout lockdown it was there all the time. Now I don’t really have it during the day, but I notice it more in the evenings.

Me: Is it brought on by eating certain things or lying down?

Patient: Not really, it comes on no matter what I eat, especially when I’m sat in my front room. Oh, and after my grandson leaves.

Me: Your grandson?

Patient: Yes, my son’s little boy- since lockdown eased I’ve been having him during the day when his parents are working.

Me: And you don’t have reflux during the day?

Patient: No, it’s always in the evenings.

Me: What else do you do during the day?

Patient: When my grandson isn’t here, it’s just me on my own- I sit and read or watch TV in my front room. I used to go line dancing and for lunches and Bingo with my friends, but it’s all been cancelled now because of COVID.

Me: Right, and it got worse during lockdown?

Patient: Yes, I was shielding here at home and had the reflux constantly then.

Me: When it first started, did anything make it better?

Patient: I think it was after my husband died in January that it started, and I had it for a couple of weeks. But it wasn’t so bad when I went to stay with my son’s family just before lockdown, before I got a letter that told me I had to shield at my own house.

Me: And that was when it got worse?

Patient: Yes, I think so.

Me: I see. And what were you hoping we could do for you today?

Patient: I was wondering if there’s anything you can give me for it? I woke up this morning and I felt the reflux again, and that was new because it’s usually in the evenings.

Me: Ahh, and that must be making it more difficult looking after your grandson as well?

Patient: Actually he’s not here today- it’s his first day back at school so won’t need me to look after him during the day anymore.

Me: Oh, right. And how do you feel about that?

Patient: I guess I got used to having him around for the company, you know? It gets quite quiet here on my own, especially in the evenings. That’s when I start thinking about my husband and how much I miss him, and seeing my friends, and then the reflux starts… oh.

Me: Oh?

Patient: You know what, doctor? I think I might just be feeling a bit lonely.

(Reader, I cried.)

A Letter To My Flat On Our Last Night Together

Today marks a year since I moved in, and tomorrow we’ll have a new flatmate; it’s kind of poetic in a way, isn’t it?

I moved in here fresh from uni and six years of the joys of communal living as a student, so I was quite sure I wanted to live alone. I fell in love with this flat straight away- it was the second one I viewed and I knew then and there that this was where I wanted to live.

We did have some hiccups at the start, didn’t we?

The day I moved in was so SO hot, and I couldn’t figure out how to open the windows. (Shout out to Abs, my mother, for patiently working it out after I gave up and called her for help. She also helped me figure out how to put the stove on, what a gal).

Remember how I camped out in the living room for the first couple of days? I was a bit overwhelmed by how massive the flat was, and it took me some time to sleep in my bedroom because I was nervous about being too far away from the front door.

Speaking of the front door, remember how I would triple and quadruple check it was locked before going to bed? I was so paranoid about accidentally leaving it open. Now I check once and trust that it’s been locked, look how far we’ve come.

As the months went by, I really grew to love this bachelorette pad. Buying furniture and little bits and pieces to spruce it up made me feel like such an Adult. Shout out to my dining table, I really do love that table.

Living alone taught me to do things for myself; sorting out bills, reading meters (yes I can do this now!), assembling furniture and equipment from instruction manuals (practically Bob the Builder now tbh), and perhaps most importantly: sorting out the Wifi when it’s down. I’m a troubleshooting expert now, no big deal.

(Still don’t know how to change a lightbulb though. Lol.)

I get a bit sad when I think of all the dinner parties and game nights and hang outs that never were because you know, COVID-19 happened. Oh, the many tears that have been shed in this flat because of this pandemic. Tears of tiredness from work, and tears of loneliness, and of frustration, and of anger because of silly government decisions, and people not taking lockdown seriously enough.

The lockdown also brought happy tears in this flat though. Tears of joy after reading thoughtful messages and cards from my dear friends and family, whose daily texts and calls, as well as weekly Zoom quizzes and catchups, made this big ‘ole flat feel less isolating and empty.

A special mention has to be made for my dear pal, Riyad. (He doesn’t read this blog because in his words, he “doesn’t see the point,” so I guess I can embarrass him). He really bore the brunt of my tears and moods throughout lockdown, and was always so patiently comforting when I would cry on the phone after tough days and holding it together following calls with my family. As much as I loved catching up with them, it made me miss home so SO much more, and obviously I couldn’t tell them at the time, because what could they have done about it, bless them. Ri is truly one of the most quietly selfless people I know, and what a great friend he is.

To my flat, I’ll say it again: I’m so proud of us. This flat might not be my bachelorette pad anymore, but looking forward to the new adventures and memories our new flatmate will bring. (I will refer to him as Boss from now on). You’ve met him before so he won’t be a stranger, and he’s such an all round wonderful human, so what a great contribution he’ll be to our humble abode. He’s also an excellent baker so we have many baked treats to look forward to, exciting times.

P.S, who knows? Maybe he’ll teach me how to change a lightbulb…

Your favourite flat mate,

Tai

Yet Another Failed Fit Test

The last two weeks have brought even further changes to our rotas. With the number of COVID cases gradually reducing in my hospital, services that had been put on hold are being restarted, and staff are slowly being redeployed back to their original wards.

So what has this meant for me? Well I’m no longer on a Gastro ward! After two months of life as a gastro junior doctor, I have now been sent back to my base ward- respiratory.

Not going to lie, after weeks of feeling drained and exhausted because of how busy the gastro ward was, I thought I would be more relieved to be going back, so I was surprised to find that I was actually a bit… sad?

Don’t get me wrong, life as a gastro junior was stressful AF, but I’m only now realising just how much I learned and grew as a doctor because of it. Spending many shifts as the only doctor on the ward meant I was reviewing patients on my own, which has increased my confidence with this. I’m also much quicker at getting through my jobs and A LOT better with cannulas- turns out situations involving patients with huge GI bleeds, who need transfusions ASAP, make you just get on with getting that cannula in without overthinking it, because the pressure is real, you know? I’m now pretty decent at taking bloods from IV drug users too, because we had quite a few of them on the ward throughout lockdown.

I learnt a lot about gastroenterology during my time on the ward- the registrars and consultants were always keen to teach, and I was very surprised to come to the realisation that I actually really like gastro physiology.

ALSO, have I mentioned that I now know how to do ascitic drains??? I don’t think it’s come up much…

Anyway, I’m grateful for my time on gastro, and I know that it has prepared me well for my gastro job next year as an F2 😊

In other news, being back on Respiratory means that I need to be Fit tested again, because I will be seeing respiratory/suspected COVID patients a lot more now. So I had my third Fit test last week with the smaller masks…

…. and I failed yet again. Sigh.

I’ve been told that the final option is for me to have a respirator mask, which is a lot sturdier and likely to fit. Currently trying to get that sorted before my on call shifts, and in the mean time, I am not to see suspected COVID patients/do ABGs on patients on NIV, because of increased risk of infection if I don’t have a secure mask. Here’s hoping I can get a respirator soon!

Finally, I had my antibody test results come back and not going to lie I was a bit disappointed by the negative result. But it means I most probably haven’t had COVID so we thank God! 🙏🏽

Turning 25 in Lockdown

Anyone who knows me will know how much I love birthdays, especially mine. The Keen One a.k.a. Kenny and I have referred to our birthday as Tai and Kenny Day for years, and we are blessed with loved ones who have put up with us being so extra about it.

For this first time ever though, I dreaded my birthday this year. Our 25th was meant to be celebrated with a huge party, in classic Tai and Kenny fashion, but COVID-19 scuppered all our plans, and I was faced with spending my first birthday without my twin sister. What made me feel even sadder is the fact that I live alone, so not celebrating my birthday with people would be absolutely gutting.

But as I said, I am blessed with the most amazing friends and family because it ended up being not that bad!

Just before midnight last Saturday, my not-so-little brother a.k.a. The Artist, turned up at my flat, completely taking me by surprise. He had moved back to his uni house in Yorkshire a couple of weeks ago to complete his degree, and when the government introduced the new review of lockdown rules, that stated that people who live alone can form a ‘support bubble‘ with another household, he was determined that I wouldn’t spend my birthday alone.

Yeah, I cried- seeing him made me realise just how much I’ve missed my family and how much I was dreading being on my own for Tai and Kenny Day. But the surprises didn’t stop there! At midnight, The Keen One a.k.a Kenny finally revealed my top secret birthday present:

I was absolutely speechless and so so touched by this- SO AMAZING. I cried again, ofcourse, because this video has like 99% of my favourite people in the world and I really miss them all. Really truly the best present I have ever gotten; one week later and I’m still not over it.

I was able to thank a lot of the people in the video during our birthday Zoom quiz later that day; I keep saying it but I really do have the best friends and family. Well done to In For A Kenny, In For A Pound for winning the quiz, so here is your long awaited shout out guys (Ally a.k.a AJ, Foster a.k.a. Q, Louis a.k.a. The Little Engine(er) That Could, Rosie a.k.a Chicken and Ria!)

I also had a cute socially distanced mini tea party with my lovely CMF leaders, who kindly invited me round when they found out it was my birthday.

I was very overwhelmed by all the cards and flowers I received- shout out to my neighbours for signing for the various packages that came for me whilst I was at work.

Birthday celebrations continued yesterday with a surprise birthday picnic in the park, organised by some of my F1 pals. So cute!

So yeah, that was my 25th birthday. It really wasn’t as bad as I had worried it would be, so I’m feeling really blessed and grateful for another year of life, which is definitely something to not take for granted with all that has been going on.

Happy birthday to us, Kenny- love you, miss you.

My Thoughts Re: Dominic Cummings

I wasn’t even angry, you know.

I just cried frustrated, fed up tears.

Cried even more when I watched the Daily Briefing live for the first time since they started, and watched Boris Johnson defend him.

I can’t even begin to describe how gut wrenching it feels to see them stand by this disregard of lockdown rules with flimsy excuses, when people have been separated from loved ones for months because they were following the social distancing guidance.

Some of the patients on my ward have died alone, and watching my nursing colleagues cry on the phone with patients’ families as they break the bad news to them has been heartbreaking. People have really made sacrifices because of lockdown rules; what makes Dominic Cummings so special?

It’s just so unfair and really, really sucks. My final thoughts on this are from a line in Stormzy’s Vossi Bop- I won’t quote it here but let’s just say it rhymes with “Chuck Norris.”

“Did you hear about the F1 doctor who cried on the phone to HR?”

Yupp, that F1 doctor was me. Allow me to explain:

As I mentioned here, my rota has recently changed, which means that I have been working more shifts with less breaks in between them, and all annual leave has been cancelled indefinitely. Work has been draining and I have felt so so tired. As in so tired that I was struggling to sleep, because the thought of going to work the next day filled me with trepidation that kept me awake, making me even more tired at work. And the exhaustion meant I was slower at my job because it was taking me twice as long to do things, and I was constantly worried about making mistakes. It was awful.

So on Tuesday (my one day off this week), I called my hospital’s HR department (a.k.a Medical Staffing), and asked them about my annual leave requests, because they had been cancelled, yet again. I was told that they can’t give me any days off because of low staffing levels on my ward; I tried to explain that with the way the new rota has been done, the staffing levels on my ward will be low till August, so did this mean I wouldn’t be getting a proper break till then??? I wasn’t even demanding like a week off or anything like that- all I wanted was at least two days off in a row to catch up on sleep.

The lady on the phone couldn’t give me a straight answer, so I was put on hold while she went to get her supervisor, who relayed the same information back to me. By this point, I had had enough and felt so fed up with everything… so you can probably guess what happened next. (Hint: It’s in the title.)

Yupp, I started crying and I couldn’t stop- it was actually soooo embarrassing. I then went into a massive rant about how I just wanted to sleep, how exhausted I was, how I have never taken a sick day but might have to take one soon to rest, because if this continued, I would not be safe to look after patients; tired doctors make mistakes!

The lady on the phone was definitely not expecting that, and she was so apologetic after this. She said she would get back to me, and lo and behold in less than an hour she had arranged for me to have the next day off, in addition to four days off next week, as she explained they would get locums to cover my shifts (I cried some more after this).

I’m grateful to have some time off because this new COVID rota is A LOT. And I’m not the only one who thinks so- a lot of my junior doctor colleagues at my hospital are just as tired as me, and this is an issue we have been raising to the medical staffing team; I shouldn’t have to be in tears to get time off, that’s not okay.

There is to be a meeting next week to re-evaluate the rota, staffing levels and pay for junior doctors, because we’re not even getting overtime for all these extra hours and shifts we’re doing, which makes it even more rubbish. So I’m really hoping for a positive, less tiring outcome from the meeting.

I’m feeling much better now, so I will conclude with a reason to be cheerful: I learnt how to put in an ascitic drain this week, and did one by myself!!! SO MUCH FUN.