NO NEWS. Nothing has happened. Nothing has changed. !On the medical front all appointments have been cancelled or postponed. Dipstick’s follow up appointment after hospital admission in December 2020 is now in April 2021. Not that he would realise I am his patient let alone in hospital under his name. The Complaints department rang me. Lovely young man, probably 12 years old. He apologised for the delays in getting back to me. No no don’t worry said I. You must be so busy. Ah no he replied. We are having trouble communicating with the urology department he said. I just burst out laughing. Good luck with that I said. I know it well.

 Moorfields eye appointment is now telephone in April . How to examine your eyes down a phone line. 

Kidney appointment is now April telephone. 

Spinal implant is April …telephone… that’ll be weirdly impossible Last time these things were face to face will be over a year ago.  There must be so many people not being treated. Not sure what to do. Who to ask . How to ask. 
NHS workers under relentless pressure. My own daughter brought up short one dreadful Monday morning on the Covid ward. Sobbing down the phone. I know that ward from pre covid times. I could picture where she was. Got her to describe the view…it is so high up and stretches across London. She got a grip. Took a big gulping breath and went back to the carnage of the pandemic. As a mother indeed a grandmother my instincts are to nurture, feed and hug. None of that is possible at the moment. Of course it’s not just me. So so many mothers grandmothers fathers grandfathers siblings on and on it goes. My bread baking has taken on new heights after an online course. But with no one here to eat it, under cover of darkness I leave it on doorsteps of the neighbourhood. Especially those with children.

Later the same day daughter rang again. This time laughing. ‘Mum, you know how if you see a policeman you immediately feel guilty’. Oh yes said I …wondering where this was going. It turns out the hospital covid research and test team had rung. A nice young man , probably 14, told her she had had the South African variant. Checked addresses, travel, etc etc . Mum? she asked

, I am in such a state I wondered if I had been to South Africa? …of course I have not. Have I ? The team had announced a deep dive – track trace and sort. Asked for her plasma . Asked more deep dive type questions.
We managed to giggle and she carried on her way to tell the rest of the flat ie her partner and my youngest son and his partner, that they too must have had SA variant. Now they are famous because …the enhanced testing area of South London this centred on their flat!

Meanwhile my parents are at last being seen by GP and a cardiology department. Although the latter seem unaware that there is ‘a bit of a bug going round‘. No masks no social distancing ffs. To his credit the CEO answered my very polite email wondering if this was ok…with a very adamant…I will check and sort immediately.
Every meeting in NHS  advocacy land is by zoom. Actually productive and the impetus to get things sorted for bladder and bowel patients everywhere is gaining momentum. The phrase deep dive…comes up all the time. I realise I am getting bored when I start drawing pictures of divers and water and sharks and stuff. But then when I’m asked a question I say something ridiculous like ‘ bottom up’. I am a plonker. Inappropriate when its bladders and bowels….Help . Am I losing the plot?Nearly through February…Spring is in the air…soon be daffodils frolicking lambs and and and….deep dives?