The little things, they really are the big things

It would not be an understatement to say that this time, this strange dystopian time of lockdown and social distancing, has been really tough for me.

Having cared for a  child who was frequently immunosuppressed for twelve years,  the concept of social isolation is not a new one.  In fact for all of my friends who care for children with complex needs this is not a new situation. Having to stay at home to avoid infection, practicing aseptic non touch technique, meticulously washing hands, keeping germ free....this was our life for so many years.  Staring at the four magnolia walls of an NHS hospital cubicle...it was my world.


This is a picture of Andy, going through chemo, FaceTiming Daisy who was in the next room as he was immunosuppressed and Daisy was colonised with some pretty nasty bacteria.  We know all about social isolation to protect the vulnerable here....

It's felt tough, having tasted freedom after years of cancelled gigs, holidays, wasted food orders....as plans were thrown awry when Daisy became suddenly and unpredictably unwell...it felt like I was going back into my gilded cage.  No novelty to it, it's a world I know well.

I've felt vulnerable and alone, missing Andy as I try and keep my children safe and be the strong adult once again for them, knowing that despite the fact that they are now teenagers/young adults, I am the one they look to.  I feel a sense of deja vu as we shut the door and hunker down...this was  our life for years... no choice, no freedom, just an institutionalised life of hospitals and unpredictability. 

Yes...the PTSD has  reared it's head.

But I'm in a different place  I can't deny it's hard but I'm trying to reframe it all.  I am better equipped than most people for this life.  After all it's one I know well.  And this time, it's all of us, I'm not alone.

When I speak at conferences I'm often asked what is the one thing I'd like to tell people who have found themselves in circumstances where their lives, like mine, are turned upside down....

The little things are really the big things......

Anyone who has heard me speak knows this.  That's what life with Daisy taught me.

I have never ever taken for granted the little things.

A walk in the park

Time with my family

Sitting on the sofa

Sitting at the dining table

Food together

Being together

The little things

They really are the big things aren't they?

That's the one thing I hope we all take away from this time.  An appreciation of what we have, not what we don't have.  While I struggle to keep my PTSD in check I remind myself of this.

Even though I've been taken back to a time I remember, even though I miss Andy and Daisy more than ever .....

The loneliness is hard, the isolation...but it's not forever. 

We'll get our lives back...and maybe by experiencing just a little of the lives that are lived by so many carers and people isolated by chronic illnesses the lives we get back will be more enriched, our eyes opened.

Most importantly I hope that we will all learn that the little things are really the big things.... take nothing for granted.


Faces behind the fight - Lisa

I'm going to share some of the faces behind the fight.The people who are working to keep us safe, to counter the threat of Covid19.  I keep thinking about all of my lovely friends in the NHS, London Ambulance and emergency services  People who kept Daisy, and Andy, safe and well.  I feel so helpless....I want to be able to help, so I'm using my platform to share some of the faces behind the fight, people I know who are working to help us during this unprecedented time.

Say hello to my friend Lisa. 



We were at boarding school together. She's a doctor, an out of hours GP in a busy Edinburgh hospital. When Daisy was dying she was there, on the end of the phone, all night, answering my questions. Now she's on the front line, treating people with suspected Covid19. She's putting her life at risk, night after night,, day after day,  being exposed to the virus. Her husband is sleeping on the sofa, her kids can't hug her. 

She's there frontlining, treating the sickest, the dying. She doesn't do it for the money, she does it because this is what you do, when you have the skills and experience....she's the kindest, most generous person I know. I want her to be safe but I know if I was fighting for breath at home and the 111 service sent a doctor out to assess me, I'd want it to be Lisa, because she'd fight tooth and nail for me. I

 stood outside my house and #ClappedForCarers tonight - for Lisa, for the nurses, doctors an carers who supported Daisy and Andy, for everyone who is going through this, for all of us. 

Do your bit, stay at home, flatten the curve, make sure Lisa can hug her kids again, when this is over, please.

Is this the wake up call?

I was in Dublin last week for a little mini break and I did what every visitor to Dublin does, I went to the Guinness Brewery and took a tour. While I was there I watched a presentation about the Guinness Family, and about Arthur Guinness, and his wife Olivia.  They had  21 children, only 10 of them survived to maturity.

OK, so that's a lot of kids, but the statistics were still the same, without antibiotics, without immunisations, children died, babies died.  Death was all around; you just need to visit a cemetery to gain some perspective, you can spot the graves of the people who died in the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918. Now we can vaccinate against common strains of flu, against polio, against measles and so many other diseases....



We are no longer surrounded by death, modern science sanitised us and saved us, wiped out diseases that once struck fear into the hearts of parents and we have fallen into an easy complacency, confident that modern medicine will have the answers.

 We have come to rely on wellness and on science being able to help, to intervene, to make things better.

And this is why we are currently paralysed by shock and fear.

This new mutated virus, Covid 19, a corona virus, has reminded us of our frailty, that medicine is not infallible, that it does not have all the answers.

Those of us who care or who have cared for the sickest and most vulnerable of our society know that already.  We are professionals at hand washing and infection control, the majority of us will take up offers of vaccinations if the person we care for is able to have it, after all why expose them to any further risk?

 We tell people to stay away if they they have a communicable disease, knowing that for the person we care for even a simple cold can end up with a hospital stay.



This is the reality of thousands, day in day out, forced to self isolate in order to protect their loved one

And now we have a global pandemic and I see people questioning government and health professional advice, panic buying, confused and complaining.

So here are some facts as I , as simple lay person who just happens to have a lot of health care experience, understands them.

Yes Covid is in many cases just like a bad cold.  But in some people it's not, in the weak, the immunosuppressed, the vulnerable, it's more than that, it can be fatal.

This evening I read that there are 900 people in Italy in intensive care, 900 people needing ventilators to breathe.  A simple cold to one person is a death sentence to another .

And because this virus has never been seen before and therefore there is no herd immunity, that's why if we suspect we may have it, we need to self isolate, to protect others.

It's not for ourselves, if we are strong and healthy, hopefully we won't need hospital care.  But it's for those who are not, for those who can't fight it.  It's about them not us, it's about protecting the most vulnerable of our citizens.

And those who care for them and those we rely on to care for us.

If we are ill we expect doctors and nurses to be there, but what if they are ill?

And this is why I support vaccination....this is what our world would be like if we did not have vaccinations, only multiple times worse.  We are seeing deaths from Covid 19 and are shocked.  This is the reality when we don't have immunity to a virus.

So what can you do?

From where I sit , I am now in a position of privilege.  For 12 years I cared for a very fragile child who spent a lot of her time bouncing in and out of hospital, susceptible to infection, especially in her final years.  I spent a year caring for her daddy as his immune system was wiped out by chemo.  I needed to be well to care for them and keep them safe.  If I was in that situation now I would put our house on lock down. But to know that the less vulnerable people in our community were able to protect me and my family, that's what I would have needed.

So look around, who lives nearby who may be at risk, for whom contracting Covid 19 will be far worse than "just a simple cold".  Minimise your risk of spread by meticulous hand-washing - why does it take this pandemic to hammer this home?  Didn't we talk about this when there was a lot of scaremongering about MRSA and Cdiff...hand-washing was and will always be a simple precaution that we should all do, pandemic or not, to prevent cross infection and protect the vulnerable.  Those of us who care for the vulnerable know that.

And the other thing, if you are shopping and stock piling, why not buy for two? Stop being selfish, think about the people who are genuinely in need, knock on their door, ask them if they need anything, deliver a bag of groceries.

If you have ever posted a "be more kind" meme then this is your chance to put it into action. Get to know the members of our society who are more vulnerable, less privileged and help them, protect them.

Oh and lastly, maybe, just maybe, this is the wake up call you need if you have ever wavered , that vaccines are a good thing , they protect the weak and vulnerable....this is a glimpse into a world where vaccines didn't exist, where people died where parents lived in fear....do you really want to return to that world?

This is our wake up call.





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