So, I should be writing and editing my paper, although I’ve set aside tomorrow to do that, while Pepper sitting, again. I might hide myself in Nikki / Kate’s office and write like a demon tomorrow. I’ll be spared many of my traditional escape routes, being as it’s the weekend I shall have less on Twitter, and my RSS reader is likely to be less full of ‘stuff’ than it is on a weekday.
So today, at work, I discovered that I was, in fact, right. I do earn my annual leave up on a day by day basis, not on a monthly basis (apparently). I wasn’t that angsty about it, just asked because I’ve got two random days to do on a weekend after I’ve notionally finished, so it would be handy. I just got a message back saying I need to ensure I take my annual leave that I’ve accrued. So it seems that for, essentially, my first 2 weeks of work at the new hospital I’ll still officially be employed by my old trust, and just be on days off and annual leave. Which is a bit weird. Unfortunately, there are insufficient staff for me to take the annual leave at the weekend, which means (I think) that I’ll work a week of nights, have one day off, do induction week in my new place, work two days in my old job, then start at my new place properly… I may have trouble remembering where I’m going on any particular day!
I’m now into the day-counting phase, with 13 shifts (including the 2 random ones) left to go, and people at work asking me every few minutes when I’m leaving, which is odd. I’m looking forward to long days though, and working only 3 (long) days a week, as opposed to at least 5 days every week.
Hopefully this means that progress will start to happen on the house again, which is something I’ve been missing – and finding very frustrating. Because while I’ve been sick there were so many things I was meant to be achieving. Also, I really, really want to finish my desk. Really, really, really. I’ve made the top – it just needs trimming to the right width, sanding and oiling / varnishing. I think I’ve abandoned my beautiful height adjustable, counterbalanced, standing / sitting desk. Why? Because I want a desk. Now please. I find working on my paper much easier at a desk, and since my dissertation is going to be starting shortly, I’ll be wanting to have it to dissertate at, or whatever the correct term for writing a dissertation is.
Still. In two weeks time, things should start to happen.
In the mean time, I need to fix my bike*, and I need to fix the garden gate so that I can actually get the bike out of the garage and go to work in the mornings without carrying the bike up the entire length of the garden, through the house, and out onto the street. I was going to fix the garage door…then I realised that because of the two chunky padlocks on the outer door, that won’t help, necessarily.
On the plus side, since getting home I’ve sat down and listened to Gladsome, Humour and Blue (If you’ve not encountered them…), and Amy Winehouse. I’ve drunk some delicious and refreshing black tea with lychee, and sat in our knock-off ikea bendy chair, and now feel a lot more human.
I am still not ‘entirely’ well, and this is reflected in the feeling of my peripheral vision closing in and generally feeling floaty as I did all day today; which made looking after the really, really sick person with the fairly uncommon and totally unexpected diagnosis a bit more of a challenge than normal. Quite honestly, I can say I’m awfully glad that I updated his obs chart when I did, because while his observations had only deteriorated a little since I’d taken over his care, the trend that became apparent when I sat and charted them shortly after his consultant review made me sit up and take notice. And monitor him more closely. And then ring the medical team 15 minutes later with a phrase that you don’t really want to come out of my mouth.
“Did you see Mr X?”
“Yep…”
“Err, he’s become quite poorly….”
When I start a request for a review with the comment that I think they’re poorly, that means they probably are really quite unwell. Understatement tends to be my mark**, so ‘quite poorly’ is never a good sign.
And so it was.
And so he was transferred to a hospital at which I’ll shortly be working. Where they have posher surgeons who can fix what ails him. We hope. He apparently has a 3/4 chance of survival, which isn’t so…bad.
* I now have instructions. A handy PDF of the original BSA service sheets. But no time. Argh. I also have brake blocks, which I may go and treat myself by fitting now.
** Although I have resorted to blunt truth on occasionally, the one that springs to mind is dealing with a particularly obstructive obs & gynae registrar (not in this trust) who didn’t seem to grasp that someone exsanguinating from a vaginal bleed would be their speciality whether or not she was pregnant, and that right at that moment, as we had the consultant and two ED registrars, and another nurse desperately trying to keep her alive long enough that he might get to see her, no, they would not be coming to chat with him, he needed to get his lazy arse into the ED now, please, and maybe, if he was lucky, we might have sorted out a pregnancy test by the time he arrived, but only if she was still alive and we’d sprouted more limbs.
