Quarantine Diaries Update!

 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 Week 5 (20th April-26th April) - This week uni started again, online.This module (204) was about the Musculoskeletal and Immune Systems. I've got to admit the timetable didn't seem as full as usual. However, lectures which would take me 1 hour in the lecture theatre could easily take me up to 3 hours at home, so I was studying more than usual. I also worked on my case-based discussion essay this week, and got that submitted. 

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

Endocrinology, Reproduction and Gynaecology

I initially fell behind with posting due to general life being busy, and then coronavirus happened and wow did it complicate things! Anyway, for this post I'm going to talk about term 2, which has just finished.

The first week back after xmas break was our second immersion week. This time I was based in a GP surgery and only had to attend in the mornings! I spent two mornings with the GP, one with a practice nurse and one with a health care assistant. Even though I have worked in a GP surgery for 10 years now, and racked up a number of shadowing hours too, I still found this week interesting and informative, and surprisingly enjoyable! We also spent one day during this week studying personal and professional development, which included some teamworking, and legal aspects of medicine. On the Friday night I treated myself to a pamper night in with a new Lush bath bomb from Xmas, face mask and foot pack.

The World's Smallest Disco Bath Bomb - £5.50

We ended the week with a birthday celebration for one of my housemates and we were feeling refreshed and ready to start off the new term.

The new terms topics covered endocrinology, reproduction and foetal development, and gynaecology and sexual health and we worked through the topics in vaguely that order.

Refreshers week meant heading out for a meal with our medic kids. We had Italian at "VIP Pizza" and then walked to "Sprinkles Gelato" for dessert!

The clinical module this term included more clinical technical skills learning including wound closure and care, local anaesthetic, and intramuscular injections.

At the end of January I spent another day in theatres with the anaesthetists. I know I still need to type up a blog about this! (Another quarantine job to do!)

At the begining of February I decided that my room needed a shake up so I could actually get to my desk properly to study, and one of my housemates helped me to change it around.

Old Layout

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New Layout

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In the middle of February we celebrated "Galentines Day" with a movie night in with our friends, and then the next day I met some friends from home for dinner and then headed to The Brighton Centre for a Bowling For Soup concert, with support from Not Ur Girlfrenz and Simple Plan.

Not Ur Girlfrenz

Simple Plan

Bowling For Soup

I also treated myself to a Bellabeat Leaf fitness tracker in their Valentines Day sale, as in clinical environments we have to be bare below the elbows, ruling out fitbits or other similar trackers, and often may not have our phones on us either, while we are probably doing the bulk of our daily steps during that time. I was interested to be able to see just how many steps I was racking up on placements and look forward to gathering more data on it.

Towards the end of February we had our third immersion week. For me this was in the Early Intervention in Psychosis Service. This service was about a 45 minute drive from the medical school, and I had to travel there first, and the placement was full 9-5 days so it was a very long week! I have to admit that Psychiatry is one of the topics I am probably the least excited about and I could have ended up having a very miserable week here, however, I kept an open mind and engaged with the team and ended up learning a lot and really enjoying myself, which was definitely contributed to by the fantastic atmosphere of teamwork and support fostered by the team. During the week we had a day away from placement to attend our Manual Handling Training and Venepuncture Training. I used to be a phlebotomist so this was a great refresher for me. I actually hate needles being put into me though but I bravely allowed one of my colleagues to take blood from me as her first patient. I was equal parts terrified and so proud of her! And she did a great job, there was hardly even a bruise. I rounded off the week with another Saturday in theatres, and a very much needed Sunday in bed!

The first week of March I filmed a week in my life at medical school video and so that will be coming your way very soon. It was a very normal week, with lectures, more clinical technical skills, a powerpoint presentation, and a diabetes alert dog visitor!

The second week of March was due to be our last real week of teaching, but I missed the Monday to take my Brother to the Japanese Embassy in London to apply for his student visa. We usually only have one or two lectures on a Monday so fortunately I didn't miss much. As the week went on the coronavirus news only got more intense and other universities and medical schools were starting to close. Ours was still adamant that we would try to have our exam on Thursday 26th March unless we were told otherwise and that they would update us twice a week on Mondays and Fridays. Some clinical placements were starting to be cancelled though. On the Friday it was still "business as usual" so on the Monday morning I went to my scheduled phlebotomy supervised session at the hospital to get signed off, and when I arrived back home the school office was still not giving away any secrets about our exam. However, later the same day they finally emailed to let us know that the school was closing, the exam would be cancelled and term 3 would move online.

So after a couple of days of eating our way through as much freezer food as possible, I headed home on the Friday to be with my family before the inevitable lockdown.

I'll be updating from quarantine and, you never know, I might even be able to keep on schedule!
Thanks for reading!
Katherine x

Xmas Holidays

Xmas break this year was only 3 weeks, when last year we had 5 weeks, so it seemed pretty short. It was cut short due to the introduction of our immersive week placements, they made our year 4 weeks longer and so 2 weeks were cut from the xmas break and 2 weeks cut from the easter break. Fortunately, it means that summer break was at least left alone.
The first day I got back my sister talked me into going on a night out with her and her partner as one of our local nightclubs does a specific xmas night and this was it. I was tired from having my exam the day before but figured it would be a good night, and it was good fun.

The following day I went to visit Dad to take him a home made wreath which my Mum had put together and a xmas card. It was freezing out and all of his little leaves have dropped off. I'm just hoping he recovers well in the spring and hopefully has a good growth spurt too!

The next day I headed into the city with my Mum to make a start on my xmas shopping. Yep, it was the 16th December and I hadn't started yet. I hadn't had time during revision season and was starting to feel slightly stressed about it at this point. I didn't actually get much done that day but eventually I got it all finished!

I honestly spent most of the holiday being my Mum's little shadow. I went everywhere with her, to see family, to go shopping, to run errands, the lot, and it was really nice. I'd been used to being so busy for holidays that it was nice just to have some time to spend doing normal things with my Mum and my family.

I did squeeze in a couple of short days at work, not actually working, but shadowing with the urgent care team and GPs, and I was even given a chance to practice taking a couple of ECGs and manual blood pressures. Naturally I had to get that shameless stethoscope selfie with my work lanyard on.

A few days before xmas it was my brother's birthday, the big 21! He recently received a place to study at a language school in Tokyo and is due to move out there in April so we had to think carefully about what to buy him. It needed to be small and light enough to be packed to go with him, and it needed to be special enough or practical enough to make it onto his packing list. I chose a matcha tea bowl which was almost identical to one he used in Japan when we travelled there in 2018, and some matcha tea powder and a matcha tea whisk. When I was wrapping them up I pulled out a couple of tourist magazines we had picked up in Japan and cut out some pictures and stuck them all over the presents!

His other presents also included some guidebooks for Japan and Tokyo and a matching set of suitcases.

My Mum also made him the coolest Japan themed cake! It had Mount Fuji, cherry blossom, a Torii gate and a bamboo forest.


As soon as my Brother's birthday is over it is always a slightly mad rush to get xmas finalised. But we still had time to pop out and visit Dad again on xmas eve.









I think I mentioned it last xmas on this blog but every xmas since 2014 we have chosen a theme. This means that the house is decorated to the theme, the presents are wrapped to the theme and sometimes even what we wear on xmas day is influenced by the theme. Previous themes have included:
- The Nightmare Before Christmas
- Narnia
- Harry Potter
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
- Star Wars

This year the theme was The Hobbit, which was a relatively easy theme to do as it was just a cosy and homey vibe. The colour scheme for the tree was a classic red and green, the presents were wrapped in brown paper or paper with trees on, and we wore xmas jumpers on the day.

My sister decided to make xmas eve bags this year for me, my brother and my little sister and we got the cutest sloth pyjamas, slipper socks and blanket... not my brother, I can't remember what he got instead! But it meant that on xmas morning all the girls had matching pjs on and it was adorable.

I feel like this photo of our living room should come with a warning. The presents in here were for ten people (including the dog) so it looks more excessive than it is... but also, we like xmas I guess!

We had our grandparents, and the dog, round on xmas day, which is something we've been doing for a good few years now, and it's so lovely to have everyone together.

After opening the presents we got dressed and put on our cozy xmas jumpers.

We sat down for dinner while the dog enjoyed one of his presents!

After dinner we usually have a xmas game which wasn't part of The Hobbit theme. This year the game was Disney Brainbox.

Then we usually start a xmas jigsaw puzzle so we started that and after some time to digest dinner my Mum brought out the Hobbit themed xmas cake she had made.













We also received a game for xmas from my Uncle. It was an escape room board game, and it was actually really immersive and good fun. It came with 3 scenarios to solve but there are more available to buy. We played the first two scenarios within a couple of days and played the final one recently on a day when my Uncle came round.





















This year I decided not to go out for New Year's Eve, I stayed home and spent time with my little sister and watched the fireworks on the TV. On New Year's Day my Grandparents came over for dinner again and after dinner we played Newmarket which is a New Year's Day tradition in my family.

Before I headed back to uni I made time to visit my Dad's work. They had installed some pieces in their new memorial garden and they wanted us to see them. So I went with my Mum and siblings to take a look. The pieces they had chosen were just perfect and we loved them.

I headed back to uni at the weekend and prepared to head out on my second immersive week. In the next blog I'll finally be caught up to this term so I can start talking about how it's going.

Thanks for reading!
Katherine x