So, it’s been a while hasn’t it? Understatement or what. Since I last blogged in February, things have all changed quite a bit, and social media and blogging has just felt like the hardest thing to get on top of, even though at one point I literally had all the time in the world. Anyone else, or just me? I thought I would take this time to explain exactly what has been going on with me. As some of you have seen from my Instagram it looks like I’ve been gallivanting around London on the regular during lockdown, visiting the giraffes at London Zoo and the like. But it’s not all been free Starbucks and 999 drive throughs at The Berkley, i’ve been working my lardy bum off, and trying to get used to the new world we’re going to be living in.
As some of you know, I am a second year student paramedic, however towards the end of March all university placement students were removed from placement because of Covid-19. It is now 3 months on and we are still waiting for the all clear on when we may get back on the road (fingers crossed for some time in July..), whilst completing a few online lectures a week. I’m not one for sitting still so decided to get a job with a private ambulance company in London to help out whilst I was off the road, to earn some money, and to also get some experience! Whilst my scope with the private ambulance is as an ECA (Emergency Care Assistant), my skills compared to a student para are a bit more limited, and I operate within a Patient Transport Service (PTS). Typically this involves taking patients in for appointments, home from appointments, home from hospital, as well as dignity jobs and transfers between hospitals. As I operate as an ECA this means I can carry out High Dependency calls – which sometimes require more work than the usual day to day stuff. But all in all i’ve been loving having something to do a few times a week, to keep me occupied and to keep my brain going.
It’s been a lifesaver for me as it’s kept me busy whilst being able to save and i’ve managed to gain some skills that are really going to underpin my future career, such as manual handling, building even better patient communication and driving that big old yellow truck….. with my university placement as we are not directly employed by the trust we are not insured to drive their ambulances (and most of us don’t have a c1 yet whilst at university), i’ve not ever driven anything bigger than my little fiesta. However with my current job, the vehicles don’t require a C1 licence as they’re a slightly smaller category, so it’s been awesome experience getting used to driving such a massive vehicle, I actually love it and hate getting back into my fiesta at the end of a shift – it feels like a go kart!
I still feel a little bleh with blogging, and I would really love to find my mojo again as I think it would be a really great relaxing release whilst things pick up with uni and work again – so going forward I think i’m going to start doing more blog posts around becoming a paramedic, going back to uni etc, as well as everything else I love and usually post about, such as travel, cruelty free beauty and skincare, food and drink. If there is anything you’d love to see me write about let me know.
How have you been?
Sophie xx