ISRRT_COVID-19_book
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My 4-year-old daughter attended Nursery, but it shut once lockdown was declared. I have an<br />
approximately 40 miles commute to work from Yorkshire to Manchester, so I batch cook<br />
meals. However, my daughter, like many other children, developed a much larger than usual<br />
appetite while she was home-schooled. Therefore, before I set off on my journey to work, I<br />
used to fill a Bento box with snacks for her. I would leave some raisins, nuts, fruit, a chocolate<br />
bar, sweets, and a small stack of Pringles. As an essential worker, I was required to go to work,<br />
unlike many other people who were asked to stay at home. The snacks kept my daughter<br />
occupied while her dad worked from home. Everything seemed to be quite orderly.<br />
Outside, people went into panic mode and began stockpiling anything and everything, from<br />
milk to toilet roll. When we went to Tesco the shelves were bare. No toilet rolls. No tinned<br />
tomatoes. No eggs. No rice. No flour. I craved a Pot Noodle- for some odd reason, I could keep<br />
this down despite having Hyperemesis. There were no Pot Noodles either. I had severe pain<br />
due to my PGP and endometriosis and was advised to take paracetamol. There was no<br />
paracetamol in the shops either! I cried because I felt frustrated. I had managed to have one<br />
manual physiotherapy session, but the remaining sessions were cancelled. I would wake up<br />
in the middle of the night and I could not physically move due to my PGP. The pain was<br />
excruciating first thing in the morning, and I needed paracetamol to ease my pain.<br />
We discussed the difficulty of shopping at work. By the time many of us had finished our shifts,<br />
the shopping aisles would be empty. One of my colleagues could not find pasta in Manchester,<br />
but it was available in Yorkshire, so I brought them a packet. I mentioned to my manager that<br />
I had run out of paracetamol and I was struggling to find some in the shops. He said that there<br />
was a box in his drawer which I could have. I have never felt more grateful to receive<br />
painkillers. I ended up rationing the paracetamol tablets.<br />
I was moved away from frontline healthcare due to my high-risk pregnancy, but I was still able<br />
to attend work because I had recently qualified as a Musculoskeletal [MSK] Reporting<br />
Radiographer and I spent my time reporting x-ray images for several weeks. Each morning I<br />
would thoroughly clean the equipment at the reporting station including the keyboard,<br />
mouse and microphone. I would turn the computer on and review MSK radiographs and<br />
subsequently write a report, describing the findings to help the referrer to decide on the<br />
patient management. It became a mundane repertoire; very different to the dynamic clinical<br />
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