Working 9-5....what a way to make a living!

This week (and until the end of January) I will be working every day. Why did I think this was a good idea a few weeks ago?! I already mentioned that I have agreed to facilitate a whole block at university which starts tomorrow. We had the briefing meeting last week to give us the notes and some general information on the block - it's hearts and kidneys before Christmas and lungs in January. I am looking forward to it but am a bit nervous about working every day (albeit half days at uni) but it will be a good challenge and some extra pennies for Christmas shopping! So tonight I will be reading about heart anatomy and physiology - of course this is clearly relevant to my current work in psychiatry ;-)

Last week I was talking at the carers group at work - they meet once a month in the evening for support and information, so I was wheeled in to chat about medications. It was interesting to meet some of the carers who play such an important role in the lives of our patients, yet are often left on the sidelines and I think they found it helpful to have the chance to have some questions about medications answered. It's all good experience for me in learning to talk for different types of audiences so I think it was worthwhile going along.

I had a mad cleaning thing over the weekend - last weekend I was 'sorting' but this weekend I was moving sofas to hoover behind them, washing windows and all sorts of other things. I was totally shattered and went to bed at 9pm last night! Andrew went out to tidy the hut but I am sure it was to get away from me in case I gave him any more tasks haha. It was very cathartic though and it's nice to get all sorted before Christmas - especially since it's nearly time to put up the tree :-) I can't quite decide when to put it up yet but probably this weekend, if I can last that long. Since I go home for Christmas I feel the tree has to go up as early as possible so I get plenty enjoyment from it before then - which I think is fair play. Only 25 sleeps :-)

I will leave you with a Seb picture. This was taken driving back on the motorway after buying the 7ft Christmas tree. We had to fold the seat down so Seb managed to get himself up on the raised seat beside the tree so he could stare out the front window. It was SO disconcerting having a back seat dog driver peering over my shoulder!

Update

Some good news - Emily is home from hospital to finish her IV's there and they were pleased that her lung function is going back up again. Phew!

Sadly I also heard that another young lady (known via CF forums) has lost her fight with CF - her transplant call did not come in time.

Another friend from my hospital has just had another false alarm for transplant today - this is her 6th false alarm now and I cannot imagine how that feels. Here is hoping that her real call comes soon and brings her the best Christmas present ever!

If you haven't already signed the organ donor register -please take a couple of minute to do so today. You could save a life.

Click here register.

Weekend indoors

I am so glad I was at home this weekend as it has been pouring for the entire time - some flooding but not as bad as most other areas. A good excuse to stay indoors which is sometimes quite nice! When I have gone out Seb has been forced to wear his little rain coat - a passer by commented that he looked very smart haha. Despite being indoors I have not really relaxed much as I was in 'sorting' mode yesterday and ended up clearing out the two big hall cupboards along with lots of those 'stuff' drawers where you just pile in everything and anything. I was actually looking for 2 particular items, neither of which I found...although I did come across lots of other interesting things I didn't know I had ;-)

I went into town with my cousin Sarah on Friday for some Christmas shopping - we were very efficient shoppers and didn't hang around long as it was stressfully busy. Unfortunately I got home to find I had left a carrier bag in Debenhams - which I had put down when looking at something. Argghhh. I had to go via a call centre to get redirected to the store - the first time I got cut off, then the lost property department rang out, then I got the department where I left the bag but they didn't have it. I tried again yesterday and after three calls via call centre eventually convinced someone to give me the lost property number - which was constantly engaged for 3 hrs (off the hook more like!) Eventually I got through and they did have the bag (along with several others left my people). I then got a 5 minute lecture from the lady about leaving my receipt in the bag as someone could have returned the item and being more careful in future and I was a very lucky lady blah blah blah. You would think I had left a million pounds lying in a bag the way she was going on!

This week is quite busy as I have a meeting to brief me on the PBL block I am facilitating, which I need to fit into my lunch hour on Wednesday. Then in the evening I am talking to the carers group at work (carers of people with severe mental health problems) about drug therapies. I have spent this afternoon looking over some information but to be honest I think it's quite informal and it's more likely they will just want to ask me questions about various worries. I am not really sure how it works but will be interesting to see. Then I had a letter as there has been a recall on my car - something to do with the steering shaft, which doesn't sound good to me! So that has to go to the garage, and somewhere in between I have the dentist and my second swine flu jag. People who are immunosuppressed have to get two jags as the response to the first one might not be sufficient (since my immune system will not respond the same as a normal person). I felt ok after the first one although my arm was really sore compared to the normal flu jag. However this week I had a bit of a temperature (and it flickered last week too) so I think this might be a delayed response to the vaccine. I am otherwise ok and didn't have any other symptoms so not sure why else it would happen. It has settled down now so hopefully I will be fit and ready for the 2nd jag at the end of the week. Lucky me :-)

The BIG news in this week is that I have purchased a 7ft pre-lit Christmas tree. Oh yes. It is rather magnificent(don't worry, it is still in the box). Post transplant I am not allowed a real Christmas tree due to bugs that can grow in them so I feel quite entitled to a special fake one. Not long until I get to put it up :-)

Lastly can you have a special thought for my friend Emily who is in hospital at the moment. She had her transplant before me and helped me through the journey - the same Emily who I am doing the booklets with. Her lung function has dropped recently and she has had a cough for a while now so she is in getting some IV antibiotics and they will see if lung function has improved tomorrow before deciding on next step - so some good thoughts her way that all goes well tomorrow. In her own words 'I am in hospital being mendificated'. I might try using that word at work next week..

Butterfly Trust Auction

Mum's charity auction last week in aid of The Butterfly Trust was a huge success raising over £2,300 on the night! Everyone had a great time and the double act between Carol Ann (auctioneer) and her mum, my aunty Agnes, was first class as always. The night really would not exist without them. There was also of course a stampede for mums tablet (with Granny Monaghan's famous recipe) and mums well known fruit loaves - hands were flying up all over the place trying to get some :-) I had made lots of cards so raised nearly £90 from selling those and another £100 from the butterfly charms - although we managed to sell most of those before the night. We also had a raffle with Watson the Hawick Cashmere teddy bear as first prize. I have had my eye on Watson since the day I first saw him via email - a photo of a lonely (but rather expensive) little bear in need of a very good home. I joked all night about how mummy had come to take him home and bought a good few raffle tickets - the only thing stopping me buying more being the fact we had run out! Helen the Butterfly Trust chairman drew out the ticket - which gave first prize of Watson to my mother in law who promptly handed him over to his rightful owner. Me :-) Anne, I can assure you that he is being very well looked after and it well out of Sebs reach. Oh how Seb would love to get his paws on such a squishy soft teddy bear! I know he is a posh dog but he isn't quite posh enough for a cashmere teddy quite yet...

Watson

Speaking of Seb and his teddy bears. After the demise of 'Mr Moose' which he chewed the face off he now has a floppy rabbit I got in some pound (euro) shop in Berlin. He LOVES this rabbit. Well, in a chew to death, jump on top off, shake the stuffing out of kind of way. I came into the living room the other day and saw the poor thing lying on the carpet and seriously thought 'that does actually look like road kill lying on my good rug.' I have been hunting for a replacement and have found 2 different toys for his Christmas which I think might fit the bill - I stood there in the shop squeezing them for 'pad-a-bility' factor (where he pads on the thing like he is performing CPR -for those who missed it first time round click HERE), shake-ability and likelihood of head to fall off. I do these tests quite surreptitiously.

Seb's bunny road kill

I have been offered my own PBL group to facilitate at the university for the next block which runs from Dec to end of Jan. I am really pleased as casual facilitators don't often get to take their own group (we usually just fill in) so it will give me a chance to work at getting to know a group, how to organise this group and also carrying out their assessments at the end. Unfortunately the block is on 'Cardiovascular, Respiratory and Renal Systems' which, apart from maybe respiratory, I have forgotten a lot about - and to be honest i am not sure I even got 'kidneys' the first time round ;-) It is however twice a week on my two days off so I will be working every day until end of Jan - oh how I will regret this on the cold mornings! It will be good to see how I cope with this level of work though and it is only in the mornings so I am still factoring in plenty time for coffee meetings and shopping. Got to keep things in perspective...

So off to another party this weekend and then I think we might finally have a weekend in our own house - can't wait! Just in time for me starting my Christmas preparations......40 sleep to go :-)

Been rather busy..

I have been meaning to catch up on my blog for days now yet somehow the time keeps escaping me! Work has been fairly busy but I am coping much better with it now. In fact I would go as far as to say I am starting to enjoy it ;-) It is always hard moving to a new job and this was always going to be a challenge - more responsibility and a completely different cohort of patients. I am however really enjoying that challenge and I am learning a lot of new things. In particular I am starting to gain some confidence in dealing with more emergency type situations, something I missed out on earlier in my training due to not doing the on call work. I am trying to progress training wise and am currently applying to do the mental health act training, doing a couple of audits and somehow managed to agree to speak about 'why medications' at a patient support group held at work. As if I wasn't busy enough :-)

I had my second organ donor stall this week held at the medical school. It was quite interesting to see the differences between this and the one we held at the student union. Mostly we found that more of the students were already signed up (which I would hope for from medical students) and the ones that weren't seemed keen to do so. The people who tended not to be signed were members of staff! There was again some misinformation - about being too old to donate and about not being able to due to other medical conditions. There is no upper age to donation (the oldest person to donate their corneas being over 90!) and most medical conditions don't prevent donation - and anyway it is better to sign up and let the doctors decide if your organs are good enough! Lucie helped me out again and it was quite strange as we bumped into a few members of staff who were around when we went to uni and I think they were quite pleased to see some former students back doing something useful :-) We also had some help from a first year medical student who has followed the work of Live Life Then Give Life due to knowing someone with CF. It was great having the extra help as at some points we were all dashing off to catch different groups passing. On the topic of organ donation some of you may have noticed the new TV advert (which incidentally features someone with CF) - this is a new hard hitting multi media campaign launched by NHSBT which hopes to bridge the gap between those who support donation in principle but have not signed the register. You can see the advert here - would be interested to hear what people think of it.

Last weekend we were at a 40th birthday party and I also started my Christmas shopping - seriously. The countdown will start quite soon :-) This weekend is the auction mum is holding in aid of The Butterfly Trust so hopefully it will be a huge success. I have been making more cards this week to sell and she has already sold all the butterfly charms I made - so that's a good start to the funds. It's a small but much needed charity providing support to people with CF in Scotland - you can read more on their website about the various services on offer. Fingers crossed for a great night .... and also that I win the raffle featuring Watson the Hawick cashmere teddy bear :-)