Battling Infections

2 weekends ago, I tried to visit Rowden House as normal. When I arrived there, there was a sign on the door informing visitors that they had had an outbreak of Norovirus in the home, and no visitors were allowed. The following weekend, all was back to normal, but some of my favourite residents were still suffering the after effects of this infection. I’m aware that Norovirus is common in the community but younger people usually recover quickly. At Rowden House, many of the residents are over 90 and it took them a long time to recover. This showed me how important it was to control any infections, especially in very communal areas. The residents were very pleased to see me, and enjoyed their sing-a-long to my saxophone playing even more than normal.

Over £5,000 for CHSW!

It’s been almost 5 years since I started fundraising for Children’s Hospice South West, and have just reached my £5,000 milestone (most recent total is £5,528.44)! As you can see from the photo, I was quite young (that explains the silly look!) when I started. I have visited one of the hospices – the one near Bristol – twice and it has never failed to impress me. It’s amazing how such a fundamentally sad place is kept very cheerful and homely, despite all of the specialised equipment. Just before Christmas I did another collection outside the local farm shop and raised £245.20, bringing my total for 2011 to over £1,000. Now I need to start planning my fundraising for 2012!

Visiting a Pathology Department

Over the Christmas holidays, I spent some time in the Pathology Department at Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton. This is often an area of medicine that is forgotten, but most hospital patients and many who visit their GP will have tests done that find their way to a Path Lab. Getting quick and accurate results from these tests is a key part of quick and effective diagnosis. The team I met were very proud of some recent work they had done to dramatically speed up the cytology process. They had done a step-by-step assessment of their process and removed bottle-necks and delays, so that now, patients and their doctors can get their test results much faster. I was also given the opportunity to look down a microscope at some disease cells and compare them to healthy ones. The differences were often obvious, but some weren’t, showing the skill required to interpret the results. I’m looking forward to going back for a longer visit soon!