On a sunny and warmish late-November day, my husband and I were meeting some close relatives to deposit our brother-in-law's ashes in a columbarium beside the remains of his late wife, my husband's only sibling. She had died during the pandemic, and her husband had subsequently moved away, but none of us were going to let the grim reaper separate a couple who had been conjoined by a lifetime of shared experiences.
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars. I was born with spina bifida and faced multiple surgeries, leading to uncertainty about my ability to walk again. Despite the fear and pain, I refused to accept paralysis as my fate.
The HIV ward, the scene of graphically ill patients when I was training, is long closed because it's no longer needed in most rich countries. When my young neighbour had a stroke, doctors cleverly retrieved the clot suffocating his artery, not just saving his life but also returning it to its full potential.
A report last year found unnecessary surgeries were carried out, cancers were missed and poor standards of care were delivered at the University Hospital of North Durham and Darlington Memorial Hospital. CDDTF said it wanted to support the patients it had let down, including by offering access to psychological support, and to ensure they knew how to make a claim or raise concerns with police.
Our most recent influencer campaign is really focused on patient stories. For this one, we're not really creating new content per se, just amplifying the stories that people are already sharing. We didn't change any of the parts of it. So it really was almost duplicate content in some way.
They arrive on time, think clearly, and care about their clients. Outwardly, everything seems fine. In private, though, things can feel very different. A clinician's depression may not show up as clear despair. More often, it feels like emotional numbness, quietly withdrawing, or slowly losing interest in things that once mattered. Pleasure fades, curiosity lessens, and the work goes on, but it feels heavier and less alive.
