What a week I have had! Packed and progressively stressful it really started last weekend. In preparation for my birthday, Huw took me out to buy my birthday present – a new mountain bike. For now it will not be going near any mountains or even hills. In fact it won’t even be off concrete for a while! But it meant that on a lovely sunny Sunday morning (with a horrible body crippling hangover) Huw and I set off along the sea front for a very nice bike ride. It was great to be doing some exercise outdoors with the wind in my hair, well ok the helmet was on (worsening the hangover), but there was wind on my face and the heart rate was up. I did however have so much fun that I was desperate to master a small set of jumps and bunny-hopped over every shadow in my way. This was great fun until I got home and realised my knee was the size of a small melon and did not appreciate being walked on for the next three days. I hate it when I only have myself to blame. The bike has been locked up and the key hidden until I can be supervised and controlled and of course when it stops raining!!
The week was always set to be demanding – turning 25 seemed very old to me, but in fact it ended up being the highlight of the week. It was a great excuse for a huge quantity of cake to be eaten throughout the day, starting as soon as I walked through the door at the surgery. Work on the other hand has been very stressful and makes me want to stay in bed in the morning. There have been no big problems or nasty inpatients or testing clients, but a new computer system! I thought that I was high tech enough to cope with this, but now I’m 25 it is beyond me!! We thought this system was going to be an upgrade with the odd difference here and there, but to our great dismay everything seems to be different. You write all your work up and automatically hit a button and it all seems to have gone or you’ve printed a random prescription or lost the client. It shows promise and has some useful tricks, but it takes time to get to grips with. It's also a terrible feeling looking at an empty waiting list to then walk out into a full waiting room! At times we have even resorted to the good old pen and paper. I felt lucky to escape the electronic crisis on Thursday, going to a CPD (continued professional development) course, which ended up being two courses and almost 12 solid hours of learning – no break for my ancient 25 year old brain this week!
After keeping the physio a bit lighter following my overenthusiasm on the bike and the full diary, I hit the pool again last night. After a good session and feeling pleased with myself I was at the last junction before home, waiting for the flow of cars to stop, when there was a hideous noise and I was shunted forward into the road. After the volume and force I was sure I would find some idiot sat in my back seat, but it seems no damage has been done and I was just shaken and praying that I'm not involved in any further accidents.
That brings us up to date and almost concludes my roller coaster week, topped off by working second vet on call this weekend. I’ve been in the surgery all morning but got home in time for the start of the rugby marathon on TV all afternoon!