Forget FOMO, may I introduce FOMP

FOMP - fear of making plans. I was meant to be here last night. But a colleague and his kids have covid so another night shift needed covering. As I write, another colleague, who was to cover tonights' shift, is heading to the lab to test herself and her daughter, who has had a positive screening test and needs a PCR. So I'll head to bed soon, bank some sleep in case I need to go in again. 

I'm hanging out for MIQ openings for March, I'm thinking of booking a flight home around the 22nd March next year. Theres an amazing, up and coming (up and already here?) artist, Sam Fender who has a show in Nottingham 20th March. He is so good. the capacity will be 10 000 people. I imagine there will be probably at least 10 001 there.  Mostly young people. Statistically more likely to be unvaccinated. Theres probably no surer way of mucking up my return flight than going to that show. A positive covid test for me as I leave the UK would stuff up all sorts of timing for me to start work in NZ.

Its super tempting to think of covid as just a skulking party pooper, but for all the (thankfully) many who are asymptomatic or only mildly fuzzed, there are still more people needing hospitalisation, including pregnant women we care for, some of whom have needed early delivery. Our NICU is full, and so are the NICUs from Bristol south. I don’t know if people in general visualise little babies when they visualise the people affected by the virus.

Theatre lists are being cancelled erratically and at short notice.

Thursday night at 7pm as I went home, there was a line of elderly patients getting pushed down the hallway, their beds like floats in a parade. Making room to reopen the covid ward that has been open/closed/opened again over the last 4 weeks.

I’m awake, but shouldn’t be, as I wait to find out if I’m needed tonight. There is a system in place for deciding whether a person can go to work when they have covid in their homes. It essentially results on several hours moving up levels of management with a lot of talking and concluding with a message to the index worker saying “it is up to you to decide the clinical risk.”

This is a higher stakes version of the wider English mandate of “you can decide for yourselves whether to wear a mask on the train.”

I haven’t written about it before but I’ve personally had two events the last month where I’ve had a positive exposure whilst on call and when talking to occ health have had the unnerving experience of being told (in order with approximate time stamps)

@0 min - test

@5min “go home immediately. Now. Call occ health from home.”

@7min “no actually standby. Stay in your office, close the door, don’t touch anything, don’t let people in, call this number..”

[stands awkwardly in charge midwife’s office as people walk in and out to get things, next to a phone that won’t stop ringing that I have been advised not to pick up, also on hold on my own phone]

@40min “you can work, but don’t see patients face to face. Oh you’re on delivery suite? can you email …”

@60min “go back to work immediately, but go home if your test comes back positive or you feel sick”

I didn’t want to write about it cos it sounds ridiculous right? And like people are stupid, right?  But what if we did just send all the medical staff home immediately?

And the midwives?

And the nurses?

Gah.

So yeah, FOMP. Fear that the cool things that you wanna do, that probably won’t affect your own risk, will affect your ability to help the people around you, and care for people who are at high risk.

Hence my new found love for wide outdoor spaces with no one in them.

Oh by the way, if you didn’t click on the link right at the start of all this, go back. It’s wild!