34 hours

I do love me an obscure heading but this one defines itself pretty quickly.

A recap: I started this job, as you know, in a casual position working in the dispensary at Epworth Richmond way back on August 30th 2017. Can you believe that it’s been 5 and a bit months that I’ve been here? It’s an absolutely essential role, yes, but one that I would be happy not to have to fill very much ever again for the remainder of my career. I don’t have anything against working in the dispensary, but I’ve been a clinical pharmacist on the wards since 2010, and being back in the dispensary had me feeling a bit boxed in! In fact I’ve been a clinical pharmacist in heart since my first hospital placement at the Austin hospital with the wonderful Grace in 2008, but that’s kind of beside the point, I guess. I loved working in the dispensary for the social side; there are some great people working dispensary. One of the things I never expected I’d miss when I left work was the social side of it, always having been a pretty independent worker. But you miss the chit chat when you’re home alone all day! I’m afraid its made me a bit of a chatter box now, and probably one of those annoying sharers of inane stories, but I’m just excited to be having a conversation with someone other than myself. This is ironic to myself because of one such annoying girl that I used to hardly be able to stand back in the day; full circle, around we come!

So I jumped, almost literally jumped, at the chance to switch lanes back to a clinical role in the emergency department when I heard about an opportunity. I interviewed for the spot on September 13th and started working with my new boss (love her!!) on the 25th. Going part time rather than purely casual was definitely a bonus, but I kept the casual position going since the part time gig is only 19 hours per week. I say only, at the beginning that was as much as I wanted, and putting on one other shift was all I could imagine. I’ve done several casual dispensary shifts in the months following at Richmond, and now also at Epworth Eastern (Box Hill) for some diversity, and because it takes 5 minutes walk to get there! It’s good money, being casual, especially if they’re shorter shifts that don’t take as much out of me physically, but I’ve learnt not to take on 2 days in a row standing up, or accept the dreaded 5 to 10pm dispensary shift at Richmond because all catastrophe breaks loose after 9pm! I don’t know what happens to hospital workers after dark, but it’s not good. Everyone gives you attitude, demands the impossible, gives you grief over everything, sends you ridiculous requests and it’s just generally chaotic. Plus the 5 to 10pm shift is usually paired with an 8am start next day and two of those combo shifts were enough! For most people its no big deal, but I can’t hack that turn around, I can’t handle my sleep being messed with; it’s just not worth it. Goodbye 10pm finishes, goodbye stand-all-day shifts day after day. That’s the beauty of being casual, you pick and choose whatever shifts work for you, so I keep being told. It’s taken me a good long while to get this through my head. I’m much more of the accepting-all-requests personality. But in the end, if it wears you down, if it affects your sleep, or your health then you have to make the tough call and say no, however much your personality yells, just this once, it’ll be okay, just say yes. I’m still bad at it, I’m always tempted to accept more than I know I should when that voice is asking me down the phone…but I have to remind myself to look after me first. The selfish choice, the reserve-your-super-powers-for-another-day choice. It’s hard to explain, its hard to do but you just have to.

Ever since I’ve been returning to work after that whole breakdown thing (Box Hill public hospital, Priceline Boronia and now at Epworth private), being on my feet has been the major rate-limiting step of each and every day. I keep hoping its going away, but its not. The old plantar fasciitis in my right heel just keeps on shooting up through my heel; the extra 40 kilograms I’m carrying is weighing down through my ankles contributing to the general ache I guess, I cannot seem to pick a good pair of work shoes to save myself it so heel blisters come and go and come and go, and getting a pair of sockettes that don’t fall down or bunch or cut in at the seams is another nightmare, and so we go on day to day, seeing if I can survive the amount of standing and walking that the day demands.  Sometimes I really barely can get those last steps to home, and I mean this literally. Stumbling up the drive in pain with blisters roaring, heel stabbing, desperate to get off my feet and get them legs horizontal! On standing-all-day days, my main strategy is shifting from foot to foot, walking whenever I can including extra “toilet” breaks, and more to the point, sitting at every single possible imaginable opportunity, sometimes ludicrously. All while trying to ensure no one realises what’s going on, because, like, you wouldn’t want to anyone to think you were weak, would you?!? Wretched pride. I’ll happily divulge my mental illness once I’ve known someone a short while, but pity help them finding out I can’t do the job physically! Sheesh, what a weirdo!! So I grit and grit and take every break I can squeeze and push on, but I do not relish those days when I know I’ll be standing all day, which are the days I spend on dispensary duty. At this point a saying comes to mind: “push through the barriers”. It’s been said to me, but if you only knew how much I push on through every work shift, how it drains me, how I die inside a bit…, believe me, I’m pushing on. Remember when I used to lay in bed all day? I daydream some days that I’m back there, mostly when I’ve been standing at the same bench for an hour. Ah, to be lying down with my legs up!

It’s getting easier now, in one sense, and harder in another. It’s getting easier to knock back the dispensary shifts because I am now getting offered clinical shifts on the wards!! Yeah baby!! The ED thing is a dream come true, and this is pretty close behind! So now that I’ve done some training I can formally back fill and cover the medical ward and kids ward for any pharmacist’s annual leave or sick leave. And at the moment, I’m doing some filling in for my boss who is acting director of pharmacy. Yippee! More clinical work, fuller calendar, less dispensary availability…that is apart from the shifts that I agreed to before this came up, but its all good; I’ll manage them as they come and then let them be bygones.

Which brings us to 34 hours. For THE first time since I walked out on my excellent fulfilling cutting edge full time job at the Alfred in mental health crisis in March 2014, I worked almost a full pharmacy week, which is 40 hours in public hospital; it’s actually less in private hospital but this has always been the goal in my mind. I worked 34 hours the week starting Monday 15th January and I’m thrilled! In my mind it brings me full circle to where I left off, and I have to admit two things: 1) that this has been a major goal in my mind, and 2) that I really did think it would never happen again in my lifetime; that I’d never be well enough ever again. You can sense the satisfaction, surely! I did it! I got back there! I came full circle and ticked a box that I felt doomed never to achieve, and it feels really good. Of course it’s not just the hours worked. It’s the work itself: feeling like I’m back to being useful, back to being the standard of pharmacist I was then (which I’m not fully, but the point is I’m on my way), that I’m back to being a functioning member of the workforce. I don’t know why being a useful home keeper never felt enough in my mind. I think its all about feeling torn from a place and occupation I loved, and the idealisation of that place and occupation as the ultimate indicator of success in bringing this mental illness beast under control and in subjection. Of course its folly to think its ever totally in control and subjection, but I dream! My GP so wisely pointed out that I am not to be doing it to make the point; that’s not a healthy perspective, and I think I’d realised that shortly before he said it. I did it, I ticked something in my mind, but that’s it now; there’s nothing more to prove. I proved it to myself, that’s all I ever needed, so now settle back and enjoy the work and the hours for their own sake, without any pressure to meet a target that in the end is pretty meaningless really.

Do you know what I think the most powerful balm is in all of this? Every shift I work on the wards or in ED beyond my part time hours, is filling in for someone either on leave or pulled somewhere else. I’m filling a role that were I not there, would not be filled. Excuse the false terminology but its the hero complex; the idea that were I not there, things would be worse, so I’m being so very useful. That can’t help but stroke the ego and I’m as vain as the next person, I suppose. Because I got out of bed and went to work instead of the opposite, I can do some good for a patient; it’s a powerful motivator on the reluctant mornings.

Anyway, here’s what I’ve been up to lately:

• Week starting 15th Jan: 34 hours being my usual 19 hours plus 2 full day shifts, one shadowing the pharmacist rostered to the medical and paediatric wards, and one working side by side
• Week starting 22nd Jan: 22.5 hours being my usual Monday only (1 public holiday Friday and 1 annual leave Saturday), and 2 full day extra shifts working the medical/paediatric wards
• Week starting 29th Jan: 29 hours being my usual 19 hours plus 2 half day extra shifts in ED
• Week starting 5th Feb: 31.5 hours being my usual 19 hours plus 1 extra full shift in ED and medical/paediatric combined, and 1 extra half shift in medical/paediatric
• Week starting 12th Feb: 32.5 hours being my usual 19 hours plus 1 full day and 1 part day in the Epworth Eastern dispensary

 

I can hardly believe the numbers myself but they don’t lie. As for how it went, it’s taken me too many words and too much time getting this far, so the how can wait for the next edition. See you then!

Cycling update

Recently I shared with you my love of social cycling, and all the hard work that goes into it, and fun that comes out of it. I had ridden an epic (for me) number of 7 rides in 2 weeks with Wheel Women last time I was talking to you, but where to from there? When you hit a personal best, whatever follows can feel a bit mediocre.

So here’s a little update on my riding. After that two week period, I rode 2 rides the next week, one the week following and one ride the week after that. Since then I haven’t ridden much. Oddly this has coincided with unofficially and then officially starting work. I’ve either been working on the day that a ride was scheduled, recovering from work the day a ride was scheduled or the weather hasn’t been that great. It sounds a lot less impressive, doing less rides, but each ride was significant in its own right.

One ride was at sunset along St Kilda esplanade which was stunning!

We had to change route without warning when 40 joggers turned onto the path in front of us (seriously forty!!), and I loved finding our way through the quaint Port Melbourne suburban streets until we got to the beach. We stopped for the fish and chip special up past the yachts, then rode back in the dark with lights. I hadn’t ridden with lights at night before, and I really wanted to try that with others before attempting it on my own, and yay, I ticked that off the list. I have to say whizzing along in the dark on a balmy night along the beach then into the city was pretty thrilling!

Then I voluntarily signed up to do a big long hill climb lesson one Saturday, figuring that after the very hilly Torquay circuit that I survived, I should strike while the iron was hot and keep working on my hill climbing skills! What’s the saying, sucker for punishment? Or something like that. There was a large group of us and I think that we each learnt something different, relative to our own ability and the experience of climbing that hill. Most of all, we had a go. Having a chance to try something is such a big part of Wheel Women. I wouldn’t think of doing a 8km hill with an average 5% gradient by myself. I probably wouldn’t try it with a friend; I most definitely wouldn’t try it with my husband! He’s an amazing hill climber: lean and muscular, terrific cardiac capacity, mentally tougher and most of all 50kg lighter than me!! Yep, that’s the difference between us! But being so competent, I think his coaching wouldn’t translate as well as from someone who has been through the learning process themselves relatively recently. Maybe I’m wrong, but I like attempting it this way, with several female coaches who have gotten into riding in the last few years and recently trained as coaches. The climb was a bit torturous, and I admit I put my foot down about 7 times for a “breather” or for a sip or five of water or to let the lactic acid burn in my quads abate, but I didn’t stay stopped. I had a good friend riding alongside coaching me; she really helped change how I thought about doing the ride, and I did better because of her!

By the end I actually felt like I could go back another day and using her techniques I could get to the top by myself; but it’s more fun with friends. I was last to the top, but boy did I make up for it on the way down!! I was second by a small margin and rocketed through those curves; now that’s bike riding!!!

For the third ride we rode 40km in a loop around Geelong via the chocolaterie. I was so proud of this ride. Despite the wind we rode into at times, I felt really strong and mostly rode up in the front group going faster than my usual average speed, and the couple of hills we came up against I hit hard, and punched up them. I found it really interesting riding around the refineries, the suburbs, and the coast of Geelong; and the chocolates were delicious! I’m proud of what I’ve achieved in skills and experience on these few rides.

The last one was just for fun! A loop from Docklands to Port Melbourne around our usual spots: the apartments on the marina, the industrial zone, up to the beach for a moment of longing for a swim in better weather, a stop by the pink lake at Westgate Park and back for coffee and treats at a gorgeous little bakery opposite Etihad stadium. And then I went and drove off with my phone on the roof!! But we’ve already covered that.

Well believe it or not that was back in the middle of April!! My last ride was the exact day before I started unofficially at work, and finally today I got out there again! And it was a stunner. We started in the thick fog that has been hanging around every morning this week. And it was cold! I pulled up my riding jacket over my chin and mouth after they started to go numb, fogging up my glasses and causing condensation and I began to think that a balaclava has some merit for winter riding! And I forgot my gloves!! Argh, not great with metal brake levers. But boy was it stunning along the river with the fog. Especially when we got to the outlet of warm water from some industrial place, and watched the steam coming off the water into the foggy air; beautiful. We stopped off for a look at Stony Creek backwash and the birds in the mist, especially a graceful pure white Great Egret, REALLY made me wish that I had my camera, especially when there was a lady there with a really nice lens.

But the most stunning scene of all was when we got to the Williamstown yacht club which is always lovely, but with this morning’s fog the boats were somehow perfectly clear but behind them was nothing. Usually there’s a view across the bay to St Kilda beach and all the houses, but with all the fog it was like being at the edge of the world…just the boats and then nothing, a hidden horizon. Somehow it was so mysterious, and I was dying to photograph it!! So I did, but my phone shots are nothing on what I could have taken with my digital camera.

The reflections today with the fog and lack of wind were PERFECT! Just perfect. But then would you believe, by the time we had coffee and started cycling back it looked like this!!

No words.