Hi,
So it has been a little while since our last contact for us at the FNN has changed dramatically since our first conception. There has been heartbreaks and new loves, career changes and cats!
In January this year I left practice to join academia after gaining an MA in Gender Studies last year, L is a bossing being a trainee ACP in ICU, and K is smashing it as a Sister on a Surgical Assessment Unit. Life looks totally different from how we imagined it would over two years ago, but life also looks different to how we imagined three months ago.
I do not need to go over the news reports because I am sure you have read them. You have been on social media and seen the reports from our colleagues in Italy and China - or you’ve heard them on the radio. I am not going to tell you what is coming, because we already know.
For the past month I have been carrying a sense of dread, although dull and quiet at first. Being based in the UK it is so easy to assume that we are impenetrable, the myths of imperialism still hold strong to this day and are often difficult to untangle. My “sovereign self” unravelled, however, as I listened to and read the stories of our healthcare siblings grappling with a disease which has pushed resources to their limits. The connection we have to each other as professionals transcends any boarders or time zones.
I brushed my teeth on a morning before work as an Italian doctor recounted on the radio how the hospital they worked in had run out of oxygen. My dread got a little louder.
At present I am lucky, I am an educator not a frontline member of staff. Keeping update with Covid-19 is necessary for my job, but it is not the crux my job. From tomorrow I will be working as much as possible from home, waiting for the nod to return to the wards.
In these coming weeks I will try to write every day, to reach out to all care professionals at this time (and to those who love them). I will share with you news, kindness, tips, amazing feminist stuff, and pictures of my cat!
I will never claim to be an expert, but I hope that a little background support during times of uncertainty can help us find stillness, if only for a moment.
Look after each other, stay mindful.
Wash your hands.
Rxx