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today was my last day at work for 2020. here are some observations from a worn out psychologist:
all things considered, i have had an easy pandemic. my job is secure. my housing is secure. my immediate family - despite everything - are well. i have nothing to complain about.
but this year has been, professionally speaking, extraordinarily hard. it has been hard to be the psychologist i want to be and to do the neurorehab i want to do because the virus and the restrictions put in place to control it have made it impossible.
many of my colleagues - already doing a hard job, with patients with significant cognitive and physical impairments - have had huge amounts of joy and respite snatched away form them
the things that matter - community; collective worship; domestic and overseas trips to see family - have been taken away. they have gone from hard jobs to narrowed home lives that do not allow them to escape those jobs. it has been unspeakably hard for them
because we work on a ward, some of us have been effectively shunned by people who think we pose a deadly risk to them. now they’re not entirely wrong, but that doesn’t mean it’s not painful, and that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been lonely and frightening
i can’t speak for the nhs. but i can speak of my colleagues. and the truth is that we are so exhausted that we can barely feel it anymore. many of us haven’t had much leave, and the leave we have had hasn’t been anything like restful
we’ve been running on adrenaline for ten months. we’ve also been terrified for our patients and those we love. we are all complaining of aches and other low-level maladies. our bodies are giving us a clear message that they can’t go on like this
despite it, my colleagues have gone over and above to get patients the rehab they need and to do whatever family and transitional work they can, despite the fact that visiting has been banned for much of the year
brain injuries don’t happen to people. they happen to families. and good neurorehab always involves families. but this year we haven’t been able to do it. and that has been a tragedy for both our patients and for their families
the thing is, our patients don’t stay with us for a few weeks. most are with us for months. some, nearly a year. we get to know them, and because we know them we care deeply for them. and we care deeply for their families as they go through the devastation of brain injury
neurorehab is always hard. but in a year when you have to separate people from their partners and parents and children for months, when you can’t trial them at home, when you can’t have patient summer or christmas parties, and when you can’t do family work it is infinitely harder
the reason that my colleagues are exhausted beyond description is that - in the face of everything - they have gone above and beyond. they have faced every new restriction and found new and creative ways to do rehab that works. they are shattered because they continue to care
and of course this whole wretched year has been made so much easier by having a team who are on your side, and on the patients’ side, and on the side of the families we work with
the usual leaving lunches and retirement parties have been unavailable to us but the camaraderie, in the face of such horror, but been something to behold. and it has probably been the only thing that has kept many of us going when all else has been so bleak
in a year when so many have been isolated for so long, i have gone to work every day and spent nine hours with a team of people who will pull out all the stops to be good clinicians and good colleagues, despite everything we are all going through
we have had patients die, and we have had colleagues die. and many of us have friends or family who have died. but we have been the best we can be for the patients we work with, and for each other
and so, after a back-breaking, and often heartbreaking year, i am grateful for some time off, but even more grateful that i work with such dedicated people
and although i hope all my key worker siblings, and all my patients and their families, have as good a christmas as possible, my fondest and best wishes go to the absolutely stellar team at @RNRU_Homerton, who have been flexible, supportive, and good-humoured, no matter what
and here some of them are. still, somehow, smiling.
