So, as you can tell from the last blog, I wanted to do a weekly update during quarantine but I was struggling with motivation and when term started I was swamped with work. I want to provide a quick update and I have been thinking about the future of this blog and the types of posts I want to make, which I will explain more at the end of this blog. So, let's get into it.
Quarantine Week 2 (30th March-5th April) - During this week I worked with my Mum and Sister to finish decorating the shed and garden furniture. I also finished a jigsaw puzzle, watched some movies, played sims, and played minecraft with my Sister.
Quarantine Week 3 (6th April-12th April) - This week I brushed up on my Arterial Blood Gas results interpretation, something I've always struggled to get my head around - shout out to Geeky Medics for having such a useful page on it! (https://geekymedics.com/abg-interpretation/) I went for a "short" walk with my Mum which ended up being a couple of hours in wholly unsuitable shoes and gave me more than a couple of blisters. I also tried baking the Royal pastry chefs' spiced Easter biscuits recipe, and it turned out pretty good! (https://www.royal.uk/royal-easter-biscuits-recipe) On Easter Sunday we had an Easter Egg hunt in the garden.
Quarantine Week 4 (13th April-19th April) - I spent most of this week with my youngest sister, and Mum, preparing a festival in our garden for my other sister's birthday. Apart from being rained off on the Saturday we had a good weekend in the sunshine.
Quarantine Weeks 6, 7 and 8 (27th April-17th May) - I've lumped these three weeks together because I was mostly just doing my uni work, enjoying the sunshine, and hanging out with my family. I guess I was also fantasising over booking a trip to Ibiza once covid has calmed down!
Quarantine Week 9 (18th May-24th May) - This week was one year since my Dad passed away so I went with my family to visit his willow tree. I picked out some nice photos and tried to write some nice pieces on my various social medias, but I'm not sure if I'll do that on here. At the end of this week some new holiday clothes I'd ordered online arrived so I tried them all on before tucking them away in a drawer for that post-covid beach holiday!
Quarantine Weeks 10, 11 and 12 (25th May-14th June) - Again, I've lumped these three weeks together because I was mostly just studying. I had a pair work poster project to finish and submit. Unfortunately, I also had a patient study essay to finish, which took my until 5am, but on the plus side I got to watch the sun rise before I crashed into bed! More holiay clothes arrived, it's safe to say I was really feeling the need for that trip! The med school supplied us with an anatomy self-assessment quiz which was helpful to see how I was doing with the exams approaching.
Quarantine Week 13 (15th June-21st June) - This week the government announced social bubbles allowing couples living separately to meet, so I moved my place of quarantine to my other half's house. With only a week to go until exams I was spending virtually every waking hour reviewing notes and drawing anatomy posters. At the end of the week I took a couple of hours off to visit Dad's willow tree for Father's Day.
Quarantine Week 14 (22nd June-28th June) - EXAM WEEK! On the Monday I had the exam for Module 204 (musculoskeletal and immune systems) which was the module I had studied fully online. The exam seemed okay to be honest. After a few hours off it was time to crack on with final revision for module 203 (endocrinology, reproduction and gynaecology) as the exam which should have been in March was cancelled due to covid. The second exam also seemed surprisingly okay. And then I was FREE for summer!
Quarantine Week 15 (29th June-5th July) - This week I was so grateful for free time! I would get up in the mornings, make a coffee and breakfast and sit on the sofa to eat it while watching an episode of "The Crown". It was such a little luxury to have time to enjoy it without feeling like I should be doing something else! I also did a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle, played so much sims, and started working on a little handbook for year 3. This weekend I would usually have been working at my first festival of the summer so I was feeling a little lost and made sure to keep busy.
Quarantine Week 16 (6th July-12th July) - This week I caved and finally baked my own banana bread! I added some chocolate chunks for a fun little twist and it turned out so yummy! At the weekend I went to a small local zoo (Thrigby Hall Wildlife Gardens - https://www.thrigbyhall.com/)
Quarantine Week 17 (13th July-19th July) - Out of quarantine? The tenancy on my uni house in Brighton was finishing on 15th July so I headed out on the train to meet my housemate at the station in Cambridge, we would travel the rest of the way in the car. Unfortunately, we suffered a minor accident and had to be towed back to her home, so I ended up staying the night there, a little detour on my adventure, before we borrowed her Mum's car to head down to Brighton the following day. With the help of another uni friend we got stuck into packing and storing our things for a couple of days before driving back on the 15th and I caught the train back from Ely to home.
Quarantine Week 18 (20th July-26th July) - RESULTS WEEK! I was relieved to see that I had passed both of my exams (86% for 203, 88% for 204) and as I had also passed all of the other components (essays, poster, attendance, SSC, etc.) I had passed the year and I was now a THIRD YEAR! What?! That's crazy. It feels like only yesterday I was a first year and third years seemed so mature and knowledgeable. Wild! This week I visited Dad's willow tree again and told him all about my results. For the weekend I had signed up for the Tomorrowland Around the World livestream so I enjoyed watching that and making myself "festival food" to eat in the living room, haha! I also spent a couple of hours at the beach on Sunday with my sisters and we built a sandcastle!
Quarantine Week 19 (27th July-2nd August) - This week I had to have a biopsy at the hospital (results are all okay) but I think I want to talk about my experience of this in a separate post. It was at the beginning of the week so I spent a couple of days being lazy and taking painkillers. At the weekend I headed to my Mum's for a birthday BBQ for her partner.
Quarantine Week 20 (3rd August-9th August) - This week I had a couple of outings to play crazy golf and to the beach again. I usually like staying in but apparently after 20 weeks of being mostly indoors I was starting to feel a little crazy and my mental health was starting to decline.
Quarantine Week 21 (10th August-16th August) - This week was my birthday week, so roll on a whole new wave of mental health struggles. I had my birthday without my Dad last year so this wasn't the first birthday without him and I was a little surprised at how unstable my mental health was this week, but it was definitely compounded by quarantine. I had a couple more trips out to go kayaking and to another zoo (Banham Zoo this time - https://www.banhamzoo.co.uk/). On my birthday my family held another garden festival and I was so grateful for how carefree and fun it was!
Quarantine Weeks 22 and 23 (17th August-30th August) - These two weeks I've been mostly indoors during the weekdays, but I've spent the weekends at my Mum's finally sorting through a bunch of my things in storage from my old house. It's been so therapeutic to throw away old things with old memories, and give away some things to charity. I also packed my things to take back to uni and will be heading down to move into my new house on Sunday 6th September. I can't wait to finish buying things for my new uni room and decorate it.
And after 24 weeks of quarantine I can't wait to see my housemates and friends, and I can't wait have some routine and structure back in my life!
Going forward I want to have a bit more structure to this blog so I can make posts about different things and not just updates on my life! I'm hoping to cover medical topics, some personal experiences/stories, reviews of books/movies/series, and just generally more content. I hope that makes sense.
I'm looking forward to bringing you all on this journey into Year 3 and clinical placements during covid and beyond!
Thanks for reading!
Katherine x
