Contagion

Three things to discuss in this post. The film, the family and the innocence of President Trump.

First of all, the film.  Contagion is a film I was not able to watch before.  Being a healthcare worker, I get anxious seeing patients because any of them may have COVID.  Some are more blasé than others about this, and seeing both high and low risk patients sets my nerves on edge.  I decided to watch it because of how Matt Hancock said that it taught him things.  Watching it, I can see how.  Back in 2011, while governments were looking at pandemic influenza as the cause of a global crisis, this looked at a cross over infection as being the cause of a pandemic.  It identified the risks posed to those around infected people, and also the fatal consequences for healthcare workers (which is why it was good that I did not watch it sooner).  It even dealt with how people would endanger lives by spreading fake news.  Eerily accurate, it is almost as if someone had a crystal ball in 2011, but saying that, training since Swine Flu has influenced this film.

Next, the family.  My wife got some flowers yesterday for Valentines Day which I did not get to see until today as I got home late last night.  They look amazing but I am worried about who sent them.  We had to go to Mersea Island as part of my job as I had to visit an undertakers.  Thanks to COVID bodies are being moved out of Colchester due to issues storing them.  Later we dressed up for a meal while listening to music from the 70’s and 80’s.  It was nice all of us talking and chatting together.  My dressing up was marred by two scars which Leia gave me this morning on my nose.  The one on the left side was from the morning when she greeted me and got overexcited, the other was when she helped my daughter when we had a play fight.

Trump has been found innocent of inciting a riot.  The attack on the capitol buildings in the US was planned and premeditated, but despite the rhetoric leading up to it, he was deemed innocent.  Which means that Biden should be able to do what he likes in the last few weeks of his presidency.

And last of all, a joke...

At school one day, Little Johnny’s teacher asks the class to use the word “contagious” in a sentence…

Cindy raises her hand. “Yes, Cindy?” She answers, “I was at the dentist’s office with my mom, and she said not to play with the toys in the waiting room because the other kids were contagious.”

“Very good, Cindy!” the teacher said, “Anyone else want to try?” Samantha raises her hand. “Yes, Samantha?” She answers, “My dad tells me not to yawn because then everybody else yawns. He says yawning is contagious.”

“Excellent work, Samantha! Very creative,” the teacher praises. “Okay, one more volunteer.” Little Johnny raises his hand. “Yes, Johnny?”

“Well,” he says, “I was helping my dad in the yard last week, and we saw the neighbor painting his house. He was using a small brush, so I asked my dad, ‘Daddy, why is he using such a small brush?’ and he says, ‘I don’t know son, but it’s gonna take that contagious.'”

13 Reasons Why, tape one (series one)

It should be side one really, not tape one.  I have read the book and watched the series with my daughter.  I am glad I did so as it did bring up many issues.  

I was quite annoyed after reading the book as well as I felt that Hannah did not have a reason to end her like and ruin that of those who loved her by doing so, but rather it was 13 excuses why.  One of the episodes is more upsetting for me, but I will post about that when we come to it.  I had read the book because a patient I was seeing before lockdown used it as inspiration to try to kill themselves.  Reading the book was harrowing, but the series is different, and while not as good as the book in some ways, it is much better when it comes to showing the devastation that suicide leaves on those left behind.  The patient was annoyed that Netflix cut the suicide scene itself, and when I used the series to show how suicide harms the survivors, then their case if they go through with it, their siblings and parent, they stopped watching it.

Anyway, my son has talked about watching this before, and the decision of my wife and I was that he has to watch it with one of us and is not allowed to watch it by himself, a message reinforced by the show itself at the beginning.  We were not able to watch all of it as we started to watch it late in the day, but it was nice to watch something with him again.  We finished watching Star Wars Rebels on the weekend and he is not keen on watching the rest of Star Wars with me.  He is aware that this means that we have to talk about what happened in the episodes.  Hopefully, it will not be too traumatic for him to do so.

The Girl in the Book

I watched this film on the weekend. It was one that I had heard about and was interested in for a while.  Not a major block buster, it was a sad story, well told, and one that I suspect is all too real for too many women, but just in the wold of literature, but everywhere else as well.   

While the adult and teenage versions Alice look nothing like each other, it does make it easier to understand which parts of the film are flashback's and which are set in the here and now, an issue which can complicate other films and TV shows.  Part of me does wonder if Ana Mulvoy-Ten has been type casted into the role of playing a teenager, as if this is the case, there is only a limited amount of time that she can play that for.  I have not seen Emily VanCamp for a while, it being when I would watch the occasional episode of Everwood with my wife, a show I found hard to watch as one of the characters reminded me too much of someone I used to work with (and was one of the reasons I left my job back in 2010).  

It will be interesting to see if Marya Cohn directs or writes other films in the future and what they are like as I did like this one and would recommend it as a film to watch, if you are willing to see one which has no humour in it and may open healed psychological wounds.

There is no night without a dawning

No winter without a spring
And beyond the dark horizon
Our hearts will once more sing ….
For those who leave us for a while
Have only gone away
Out of a restless, care worn world

Into a brighter day

One of my children wished my death upon me tonight.  

Needless to say they were not in a good mood with me.  I defended them against their mother, over a minor difference of opinions, but they decided to take things up a notch and made some statements what required to be challenged.  It can be argued that I could have challenged them tomorrow, but I do not know what time I will be back from work tomorrow, so I dealt with them then.  The thing is that the child admitted that they were wrong, but then decided to redefine back and while and ignored the admission that they had made.  Saying that their mother had made no sacrifices for them was the issue, though later they said that their mother did not need to have made any sacrifices.

As a parent, we will make sacrifices for children.  I do not want to be thanked for all, and yes, some are not going to be appreciated by children, but some are, and the refusal of this child to acknowledge that made me see red.

They did hit and kick me, but I still love them, and told them so.

On a more positive note, Leia loved the snow, this video being taken when there is a light dusting.  A lot more fell and she kept wanting to be taken out, just so she could play in it.  In the end, we tied her lead to items so she could be in the snow, but she preferred to be with us so wanted to come back in.  Playing with me can be interesting as she does view me as her fight partner as well.  Saying that my daughter and I took her for a walk on a cold snow swept part of Colchester.  It was so cold, but Leia loved it.  Sadly, it did not tire her out.

Other than the end of the weekend, I would say it was a much needed rest.  I do feel guilty that I did not vaccinate at work this weekend like so many of those I work with did.  But not so guilty that I had volunteered before.  

Anyway, I hope you like these videos, one to make you laugh, and the others on the topic of my child wanting me to die.

Holding Keir Starmer to account

Yesterday in PMQs, Keir Starmer was wrong.  Boris Johnson challenged him when it came to PMQs about obtaining vaccines, and how, if the UK had followed the lead of Keir Starmer when it came to Brexit (a view I share with the leader of the opposition), that the UK would not have been able to vaccinate as many people as it has.  Keir Starmer said that Boris Johnson was in the wrong, but this was a situation where Boris actually spoke the whole truth.  

The media are quite right to hold Keir Starmer to account on this, but what I find sad is that most of the media do not do this for the Prime Minister on the many occasions in Parliament that he gives the wrong answer.  I do not consider Keir Starmer to have lied.  I consider him to have got the facts wrong, an embarrassing issue considering this was over that he himself had said.  He has been decent enough to apologise for the mistake that he has made.  While this meant that he lost the bout of PMQs in parliament yesterday, it was a rare loss as he normally savages Boris in his debating chamber. 

Saving lives through vaccination, and a rant on fake news.

I worked at the Colchester Vaccination centre today.  I was meant to work in the afternoon, but got called in early due to sickness of someone else.  Considering that I got home after midnight the night before, I was not too pleased.  But the service needs to be provided so that we can hope to make a dent in the plague.  

It is scary working in the NHS on the frontline, and vaccinating patients meant that I saw loads of people, a number in a day that I have not seen since the flu clinic last year.  I know that these vaccinations are not going to be effective in all, but I also know that this will save lives.  Saying that, I told all those I saw to observe the hands face space rule.  The only way to find out if the vaccination that someone has got is effective or not is to catch COVID and I strongly recommend that people do the best they can to avoid contracting this terrible plague.

And on this topic, I reported by first YouTube video.  I am a firm advocate of free speech, but I found my limit with a person spreading fake news on the internet.  I know that there are those who are sceptical about vaccinations, but people spreading, what is in essence either lies or delusions is unacceptable.  Due to this, I have made my first report of a post, in this case, a You Tube video.

This video is littered with half truths.  The first half truth relates to how COVID was geographically located at 03:10.  COVID was geographically located within Spain and Italy, the worst affected areas having much higher rates than other areas of those two countries, this relating to a Champions League game involving Spain and Italy.  At 05:40 she discusses how mismanagement of patients was the reason for deaths.  This ignores how many people died of COVID in the community who were not admitted, an example being how a COVID-19 outbreak killed many in a nursing home which I am involved in caring for.  She talks about how a quiet year with deaths would result in a spike later, but this ignores how influenza killed so many in the winter of 2017/18. At 09:20 she talks about how many die of other causes and just happen to have COVID, describing an example at 09:55 of a patient with heart failure who died after contracting COVID.  She is right that this patient may have died soon anyway, but COVID places additional strains on the heart due to the hypoxia it causes.  The odds are (I have to say this as I am basing this on my experience with other patients) that COVID was the big shove that pushed them off the cliff edge and resulted in their death.  In the UK, such a death would be recorded as 1a- heart failure 1b - ischaemic heart disease 2 - COVID19.  She later talks about financial incentives to doctors to record COVID cases.  There is no such incentive in the UK and in the US, this is not an incentive, but rather compensation due to the increased costs that caring for someone with COVID brings.  At 10:40, she features a doctor talking about the uncertainty with COVID diagnosis.  This was a major issue at the beginning of the pandemic when testing was not available but COVID also presents with certain features not normally seen on a chest x-ray making a diagnosis of COVID more likely, an example being patchy bilateral pneumonia and on CT scan, also has a characteristic appearance.  In the first lockdown, I treated a fit runner who came down with sudden onset fever and shortness of breath.  They did their best to remain at home, but when they got to hospital, it was too late for the PCR tests to pick up COVID.  The x-ray and CT findings however confirmed the features of COVID.  So on testing they were negative, but based on other investigations and the presentation of this, they had it.  If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck and is seen amongst loads of other ducks, the odds are that it is a duck.  It just happens that she is selling a book, which I suspect is spreading half truths.  

This woman tells the real truth about COVID-19.  I disagree with some of the things she is saying (notably about government support considering that there has been a recent change in government in the USA which means it must be given a chance to bring about change).  The change about what happened is from 0:55 and at 1:15 she explains why so many celebrities have not died, but so many others have.  An issue described so well last year on the BBC.

Locally, our GP surgery is working really hard to vaccinate people.  Healthcare workers are working extra hours, in hospital to treat people with this and in the community to continue treating people with other issues as well as preventing illness by vaccinations.  So when people like Jimmy Kimmel calls for people to be vaccinated 24/7, he forgets that we need trained people to vaccinate the population of the world and those trained people like me are busy doing our job. 

Quiz night mark two

Tonight was another quiz night.  This one was with the friends who had invited us to the one on Friday.  We actually had done this quiz last week as well, it being run by the local rugby club.  We stayed in the background, not being part of the club and discussed the answers with Lindsay and Nick using WhatsApp.  Both children came in and out of this and helped us with the answers.  They were not as involved as they had been on Friday night, but it was still a good family get together and a relaxing end to the weekend.