26th March 2020

Such a wonderful evening.

Tonight was #clapforcarers.

I have to be honest, when I saw the post going viral over the last week I wasn’t sure if anyone would really bother. How wrong I was. Sat there in the bedroom this wave of sound hit, I cannot tell you how excited I was. I ran down them stairs like a 5 year old on Christmas Day! So many people on the street were out, all with such enthusiasm, it was such a surreal experience.

The day has been spent trying to express to my ex-colleagues how much I’m thinking of them, I managed to get them a cheeky shout out on our local radio station.

Although I know I will soon be playing my part, there is definitely an element of guilt, I feel like I jumped a sinking ship. What worries me is that it was sinking a long time before Corona hit.

The pressure of that department literally made me suicidal six months ago, what hope do my colleagues have now. There were reports today of an ITU nurse who killed herself whilst at work, presumably unable to cope with the emotional trauma of fighting to save patients from this virus. What’s worrying is that our resilience has been battered out of us, we have very little left to give. I am lucky that I’ve had the last 6 months to recover and rebuild, whilst my colleagues have had no choice but to battle on regardless.

Covid-19 has stolen so many things already.

Time seems to have stood still for weeks, maybe because time has been stolen too. We will never get these months back, they will be lost, along with the plans we had for them.

We should have been at a Hen Do this weekend for a mate from work, who’s wedding should have been in May. She will most likely be working in A&E on her wedding day now, and I have no doubt she will still be bouncing around the department with a smile under her mask.

There have been so many hidden costs to this crisis.

Despite all this I know the show of appreciation tonight meant a lot to so many people, the A&E group chat didn’t stop!! We were all sharing videos of our street’s contribution, with everyone getting pretty emotional about it.

I think it was a shock to see how many people were out and how many are clearly incredibly grateful to the NHS.

We work so hard, and give so much, I can’t tell you how it feels for it to be truly recognised.

From all of us – a massive clap back 👏👏👏

THANK YOU!