Protected

Today for the first time I spent the entire day in full COVID PPE. The indications were a bit weak, and in fact we spent 30 minutes of our morning briefing arguing about whether it was necessary or not. However, we decided in the end to follow the current protocol, even though that’s likely to be downgraded this week with the minimal community transmission of the virus we seem to (amazingly) have at the moment. It wasn’t as bad as I feared. There was a staff member specifically assigned to guide us through donning and doffing, to ensure we did everything safely and in the right order. It wasn’t even too hot or uncomfortable. We got to have a break after five hours – the half way mark – to eat and pee, so really it was all quite civilized. The worst part was not being allowed our phones. Hence no photos of me in my flash gear. It meant we were uncontactable, and we had no way of finding out what was happening in the outside world. The surgeons had a very stressful time of it, spending several hours trying to figure out whether they’d cut the facial nerve or not, but anaesthetically it wasn’t a challenging case. Boredom was our main problem. Without our phones we had to go old school – sudoku, noughts and crosses, hangman. It was tough. It was also tinged with guilt – how lucky we were to be in such a comfortable position when colleagues around the world are struggling to keep themselves and patients alive with inferior equipment against overwhelming numbers of sick people. What an incredibly privileged position to be in, that we might conceivably eradicate this virus and go back to a near normal life way sooner than most of the planet. Thanks Jacinda!