Late shifts are not quite so hard, in that you don’t have to wash all the patients. They tend to go slower, as a rule, and there’s a bit of an opportunity to get caught up with all sorts of bits and pieces – you can usually get a chance to look at the notes (so long as you’re not short staffed). Apart from the weird way they tend to run – not much to do (catchy up things) and then suddenly a rush on at the end (I must remember to write notes on the fly, rather than all at the end, I have a terrible habit of doing that). No, the problem is a different one.
It’s that at home, before a late, you just can’t get that much done. I mean, I have been known to work my tail off in the morning when I’ve been really in a hurry – but basically if you have a task that needs to be done that involves, say, going to the post office – well that means that your whole morning has to be shifted to take account of it (especially ‘cos I can’t walk there at the moment – my foot is still killing me for reasons which have yet to be explained). So, all I’ve done this morning is shower, a little teensy bit of finding (managed to find my BNF; I’d link so people who are not medical can see what a BNF is, but my BTHomeHub’s lost it’s DNS again. And it’s wireless is playing up. (I am still waiting for the new one to arrive. If it’s not appeared by thursday I’ll be shouting at BT, because this is ridiculous). Anyway, a BNF is the National Drugs Formulary – it lists all the drugs we prescribe in the UK, what they do, what their side effects and contraindications are, and because I’m way out of practice on drug rounds I’ll be reading bits and bobs over the next few days to get myself back up to speed for the drug round assessment. Sadly my BNF is hideously out of date and I’m too cheap to buy a new one. Wards each have their own, but it should do for groups of drugs, just some new ones won’t be in there), and I’ve rung my builder to see if I can get a quote – only he’s not about, so I’ve left a message, oh, and some laundry (this is a hideous run-on-paragraph/sentance, but I can’t be bothered to fix it having written it).
Yeah, so, I feel like my morning’s mostly consisted of not doing much. I sometimes wonder if my definition of ‘not much’ is different to other people’s. I’ve been debating losing a few more books, actually. And one day this week I need to get sorted and get the books that are going off to charity. I’m going to stick a few on bookcrossing which could be interesting. I just need to decide where to leave them, and which ones to give away.
I’m thinking though,I’m going up to Norwich in 2 weeks time and there’ll be some opportunities either on the way up, or on the way back to leave a few books lurking. And maybe I can drop one off (or get my mum to do so) when she’s flying out on her plane. Let’s get these books out and off and running.
Anyway. I should make food so as I have something to take with me to work, and then get changed and head off. Hopefully my foot won’t hurt too much today, but I seriously can’t afford any more time off sick. I don’t even know *why* it’s hurting for so long, it normally disappears after an hour or two. Meh.
