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Sherwood Voices - Edition 13 - Kathryn Jackson
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As I stood in a layby on the A616, snow all around me, I looked out over the fields and although I was alone, I didn’t feel lonely, like I do at home and at work.
There was a serene atmosphere and the landscape was so beautiful in the snow, the air was clean and cold and for a while, I forgot the madness of the past year and a half.
My name is Kathryn Jackson and I work in the community for the Stroke Early Supported Discharge Team. We provide therapy for stroke patients in their own homes.
Usually based at King’s Mill Hospital working for Sherwood Forest Hospitals, I have worked all the way through this pandemic, as have all my colleagues. The team consists of physiotherapists, an occupational therapist, a stroke nurse, speech and language therapist, psychologist and five rehab support colleagues who cover all four disciplines, and an administrative colleague. The area we cover is vast, working from Mansfield to Newark and beyond, with usually just ourselves for company.
The past year has brought about change, which has been beyond my control, and this has been in both my work and personal life. My hospital colleagues have been very busy and I cannot begin to imagine what they have had to deal with; it must be really hard to work in these areas.
My job has changed in many ways and I have had to learn new skills like using technology: which for a dinosaur like me has been very challenging! My work life is very different as I no longer work from the hospital due to social distancing, and our meetings are all over Microsoft Teams now, which means we work from home.
I personally find this lonely, as there is no social interaction with the team. My mental health has suffered through this time; I have had feelings of anxiousness, depression, guilt, uselessness, fear, feeling unhappy, and I have wanted to shut people out regularly.
When I pulled into the layby that day, I wanted to be away from the fear of COVID being around every corner, waiting to pounce, and being alone in the middle of nowhere felt safe. January had brought a new sense of hope but for me this only lasted a few days, especially seeing the devastation in hospitals regularly on the news and the rising COVID deaths.
Then it snowed, which brought the worry of not being able to get around seeing patients, and then the floods left me wondering if this will ever end? My mood has been up and down; I never have the ‘middle ground.’ I am either down with a black cloud over me, or up like a child who has had smarties.
The constant worry at work thinking of who has been in the homes I visit or if the patient has been infected with COVID during their hospital stay?
Another situation I worry about is using supermarket toilets, wondering who has been there before me and seeing people out and about not obeying the lockdown rules, which makes me angry. At home I miss my family interaction, the social activities we used to do, my holidays and just being able to pop to the shops for some retail therapy.
I feel this blog is very negative and depressing, but for me this has been a reality, as I am sure this has been a reality for the majority of us. So, let’s have some positives…
The team I work in has been supportive with regular catch-ups and phone calls scheduled, and I have been able to talk to my managers and others when I needed to. This is something I have only experienced since moving to King’s Mill Hospital from Chesterfield Royal nearly six years ago (and I have worked for the NHS for nearly 29 years).
The patients in this community, who I have seen in the past 11 months, have been amazing and they make me want to come to work every day, as they cope with the worst of situations in such positive ways.
Seeing the patients improve and knowing I have played a part in their recovery is the best feeling anyone can have. I consider myself very lucky to have had the COVID vaccine and I thank the trust for giving me the opportunity to receive it.
In my personal life I moved from Barnsley, from where I travelled over an hour every day for the past three years, to Ollerton which now makes me feel more part of the Sherwood community.
Members of my family have overcome COVID and recovered. I have been able to protect my partner by making sure I wear my PPE at work, which I have plenty of, and keeping to the lockdown rules.
Finally, I consider myself so lucky as at the beginning of this blog I mentioned the countryside and by pulling into that layby and taking time to take in this wonderful place we live in, I realised I have so much to be thankful for. I now take each day as it comes, and yes, I still have the bad days where everything seems impossible, but my colleagues know when this is happening and support me through it as much as possible.
I suppose more importantly, I know when I am having a bad day and I am learning slowly to be kind to myself as much as I can.
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If you would like to write your own Sherwood Voices blog, please get in touch with the Communications Team on sfh-tr.communications@nhs.net
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