 Hi everyone, it's me again. I just thought I'd do a little update. What's been going on? What's happening this week? This week I was in Monday, I was in Tuesday. We have set up our clinics now, so we have two practices. One practice is the hot site for anyone that's suspected Covid or Covid positive. So the hot site is for those patients and then we have a cold site which is for anyone that isn't suspected, they haven't got any symptoms, no sort of risk that they might have Covid well as far as we know anyway. So we've got two different sites now and we're all sort of rotating and we're routed on to do each site as and when. So it's been very strange is not anything that we're all used to so it's getting used to a new sort of way of working and doing things differently and sort of the infection control measures that are all being put in place. So we've all got to, I mean we shouldn't travel in our uniform anyway, but we have to take a spare set of clothes now so that we're getting changed when we're at work and make sure that we're not taking our uniform homes and then infecting people on the way if that makes sense and the uniform goes straight in the wash on 60 plus degrees. So there's loads of stuff being put in place at the minute just to keep ourselves, our families, our patients, everybody safe and it's all just, yeah it's all very strange, that's all I can say, very strange, very weird but you know what I think everyone's doing amazing, everyone in my clinic, everyone like at the top, the management, the CCGs, everyone's doing fantastic, I keep saying this but we really are doing the best out of this really rubbish situation that we're in and I'm just proud of us all to be honest right now. Anyway so as I've said before in a previous vlog our managers are really good at looking after us, well they want to look after us because they need nurses in the future so they have told us we're going to have these rest days in between periods to make sure that we're okay, to reduce our risk of contracting COVID-19, things like that, so I've been given the rest of the week off, I know, I mean it's Easter anyway so I wouldn't have been working tomorrow anyway but our clinic is actually going to be open for patients if needed over the Easter weekend which is a first for us but I've been very fortunate that they give me some days off this week and there's other staff as well that have been given days off and that's just to help us out basically and reduce our risk like I said so everything's been put in place to do the right things I think and yeah so I've got, I'm off now until Tuesday, I worked Monday Tuesday and then I'm off until next Tuesday so I'm a little bit happy to be honest, I desperately desperately needed this, I really really did and I don't think anyone at work knew that I really needed this because I haven't told anyone that I need some time off and obviously I am there for the patients, the patients are my priority but I haven't been sleeping very well, I've been being a bit anxious about everything so yeah I really need this time to rest, recharge, ground myself, get myself okay again so that I'm my best self and my patients so yeah I'm chuffed that I've got this time off right now I've got some gardening to do, I've shared on my Instagram if you're on my Instagram that I've been trying resin which is where you mix some chemical sort of ingredients to make things from and it hasn't gone very well, I've discovered I'm not very good at it right now but I know how to do it I just need to work out some little things so like these little like pendants that I've made I mean they're no good I'm not going to give them to anyone, look how rubbish that is and these I put some grass in and I put a dandelion and it was just a bit too dark you can't actually see the dandelions so yeah I did that but you know I can put the mixture together I can put it at the right ratio and it's come out all right it's yeah just needs adapting and adjusting so I'm going to work out that over this week I've also been doing some rock painting because I love rock painting it's my new favorite hobby and I took this image from something that was shared on social media I've got no idea who created this image but it's amazing and so I thought I'm going to do this on a little rock and this is it I mean that's not amazing it's all right but I tried thank you key workers it's amazing I'm going to put it out in the garden but I'm gonna I need to seal it first it's not sealed yet I need to seal it gloss it waterproof it I've got a really good sort of safe for the environment type of varnish that goes on it so it's really really good but when that's finished I'll put it in my garden and apart from that I haven't really done much else oh I have sorry I wrote a blog for my uni with who shared it and there was a couple of people interested in it who have now taken the blog and done things with it and I had an interview this morning with capital FM what yeah I had an interview this morning with capital FM for the west midlands region because obviously that's where I've come from that's where I did my uni course um so I did a little interview about how it's been feeling in a pandemic as a new qualified nurse um we spoke about PPE have we got enough probably not short answer to that um and just how we've been managing infection control and our ways of working as well as a GP practice because I think a lot of people have been speaking to hospitals and wards but nobody really thinks about community nurses or primary care nurses so yeah so that that was really really good it was a lovely lovely lovely interview and I think it's going out over the Easter weekend it was sort of like a pre-recorded thing um so that was really nice and yeah I was nervous it was nerve wracking because I've never done anything like that like for a radio station like what never done anything like that so that was really really strange but it was nice and I hope that whatever I share helps people out there and helps people understand the seriousness of it but not only that shows how much everyone's struggling like not only just physically we're all drained mentally as well so it's really important to share that stuff and yeah it's not always about the positives which I did speak about the positives because I am a positive person come on um so I did share the positives and the kindness that's going on and COVID compassion that I've been speaking about it was really nice to talk about that as well and yeah just being really grateful for that so I'm going to excuse this hair look I'm so jealous of people that get these perfect buns on their head mine are never perfect it's so funny anyway um yeah sorry about that that's all I've really got to say um right now at the minute about everything I just wanted to do a little update um everyone's keeping safe her hope everyone's keeping well um just oh I'm sick of banging on about the stay at home thing let's not say that it's too late I've done it um but I hope you're all keeping safe and well and it is a crap crap time right now that's it I've said it I've said the word crap oh my god it's awful um but this isn't going to go on forever this is what people need to remember it's not going to go on forever it's only going to be for the next so many months or weeks in my head I've got it as months we won't be in lockdown for months and months and months on end like we will see Christmas guys we will be able to see our families at Christmas I think but we'll see you never know but as long as people stay safe and stay sensible we'll be able to see our families at Christmas so yes let that be a message to people just think of it like that think of it as do you know what this isn't forever this is only temporary it's just a new way of working new way of doing things a new a new changing behaviour which is really hard to do but it's not forever it's only temporary and it's it's going to pass guys and I know it is crap it's rubbish it's horrible focusing on death rates every day on the telly on the news on social media it's everywhere um but we need to try and think about the positives and this isn't me pushing pushing aside those deaths because it is horrific that anyone has died and suffered in this but if we stop if we keep focusing on that it's going to bring us all down and it's not good for our own mental health so please just try and switch off stop reading things on social media stop reading the news so much stop listening to your friends on what they said he shared the hamsters got it and whatever they're saying just stop listening to it look after yourselves look after your own well-being it's really important that you do that right now stay fit stay healthy and not only that but I know that I know it's again it's horrible that there's this really high death toll at the minute but actually looking at the statistics nobody celebrates that actually 90% of people are living 90% of people are surviving this every single day and nobody shares those statistics and it's about I think rethinking this and looking at it from a different angle just to support your own mental health or we're all just going to be so scared that we'll stop and do you know what we can't do that it's not good for anybody and it's really important that we keep going we stay motivated keep on top of things and we look at things from a different angle I think just to really help and support that and I'm sorry if I offend anyone by saying that I don't mean to offend anybody or put anyone down or anything like that I'm really sorry but that's the way I'm trying to see it to keep myself going and it might help you if you look at the stats but then you think okay but how many people survived let's have a look but anyway enough of that if you want me to talk about anything if you want me to go through anything if you want me to do any more different kinds of vlogs if you want me to do anything in particular someone's mentioned fluid balance charts which I'm gonna try and dig out of the attic I know I've put all of my folders and my uni stuff in the attic but I have got some fluid balance charts and things like that to go over so maybe I'll do a vlog on doing that sort of a thing or if I find one online actually I could just find one online to go through a fluid balance with you all maybe to do more something on clinical skills or something communication I don't know whatever you want to learn whatever one you want to know anything I can help you with please let me know comment below inbox me whatever you want to do however you want to contact me let me know and I will absolutely try my best to do some more vlogs on different types of things that you might be struggling with or you need to help with I can absolutely do that for you but yes everybody I hope you're okay however you're feeling about this it's absolutely normal to feel however you're feeling and get support if you need it and make sure you don't feel too lonely and isolated as such I hope you're all okay keep smiling we will get through this you've got this so today is Wednesday the 14th April I think 15th I have no idea what date is anymore it's Wednesday I just thought I would update you what's going on this week so I was back at work yesterday and we had our like weekly meeting as well on Monday we had a big zoom call which was really nice because it's nice to see everyone and see how everyone's feeling and see everyone's faces and it was quite nice I think quite nice that management are sort of keeping us in the loop with everything so this week we have been told that we will be doing the home visits I've talked about this before in previous vlogs but now it is we will be doing home visits to the shielded patients so these are patients that are maybe immunosuppressed that can't get to the GP these are people that have to self-isolate for 12 weeks as advised by the government because of their long-term condition and any sort of immunosuppressants or anything like that they might have we've got to see those patients at home now which we sort of knew was coming anyway but it's like it's sort of I feel like it's slowly weaving us into it at the minute so they've advised that we get business insurance for our cars to do the home visits which I sorted out yesterday so that's done it's ready it's put in place I'm quite hot on these sort of things so I've done that and I think it was only like 13 pounds anyway to change it over to business insurance so it wasn't bad at all our management have said they will reimburse us but it's 13 quid so we've got that in place and I'm not 100% sure when these home visits are going to start happening but I assume maybe next week they'll probably start happening but we are sort of just getting ready and getting prepared to do those home visits now so yeah so it's all go it's all change every day is a new day I go in thinking what's going to change today because there's constant changes but at the minute it's okay my patients yesterday were all amazing they're all okay they're safe they haven't got symptoms and yesterday those patients were just coming in for their urgent blood tests so these will be blood tests that they need to check their renal function is functioning because of a certain medication they're on if not they could end up in acute kidney injury or chronic kidney disease or kidney failure anything that like that sort of thing they need monitoring people's ionars need monitoring for their warfarin because they need to get the dose right because they're at risk of a heart attack blood clots all of that so these are the urgent blood tests that we're doing right now and then we've got wound management so anyone that cannot physically do their wounds at home themselves or they haven't got family that can do it for them at home to save them coming in they are still coming into our clinic and we are doing that for them because they're obviously a massive risk of sepsis so we need to really manage that to make sure that they're safe not just from covid but there are other diseases still happening the world doesn't stop just because we've got an added disease now or virus now however you want to call it we still need to see the patients and manage the patients to make sure that they're not going to die of anything else so yeah so we are still doing that everyone my team's doing amazing they're absolutely fantastic the everyone's really pulling together it's just so nice to see how how people can work together and help each other out and no one's sort of complaining about anything no one's having to go at anyone obviously we're all anxious we're all worried we're worried about our patients we're worried about ourselves if we come into contact with it of course but our main concern is patients and everyone's concern is we need to make sure our patients are safe and that's that seems like a regular theme across the board and it's quite nice it's quite nice that nurses are thinking like that but also we do need to protect ourselves and make sure we've got the right PPE and things like that which we do still have PPE at the minute hopefully we will still have PPE at the end and we won't run out but the way things are going and just from hearing of other people and hospitals and things like that who don't have enough PPE it might get to the point where we might run out but when that time comes then we'll have to face it and deal with it at the time but for now we're okay we're safe and the patients are happy so I'm happy with that also this week as you know I've had a few days off so I've been sorting out the garden because the gardens are mess I've dug out not dug out but I've tossed all this soil out the front because it's really hard and really dry so I've been watering it down every day turning it and making sure that it's well prepared and ready to plant some seeds to get some flowers growing because the idea behind it I wanted something nice to come out of this COVID crisis so when I look at them I'm thinking do you know what that's really nice I planted those during the COVID pandemic and these are beautiful there's something beautiful coming from this so yeah I've planted some flowers I've painted my wall so I've painted the the beautiful rainbow that's been spread across social media at the minute people are putting the pictures in the windows I painted some bricks and I'm going to show you that now so yeah so my day I come out the front door to go to work I see that rainbow I come home at the end of my day I see that rainbow and I give a little smile because it's just nice it brightens the garden up and it makes me cheery so yeah I'm happy with that yeah so that's it everybody that's it for now I'll keep doing some little updates and update you how we're going as we go also welfare check is everybody okay do you need any help are you struggling with anything let me know I can help you out please let me know and yeah if I can't help you I'll try and point you in a direction of someone or something that can help you but let me know my inbox is always always open please don't think you're ever a bother I hope everyone's okay keep being amazing and I shall see you next time