CONSULTANT RADIOLOGIST
LORRAINE MOON, who lost her father to Covid, has endured a juggle during the pandemic involving family and a demanding job at Brighton’s Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital.
“Covid killed my father, Dr Jack Frost, last April. He had dementia and so, in some ways, his passing was a blessing, but it was awful that we couldn’t be there to hold his hand in his final moments. Only my mother, my sister and I could attend his funeral.
So the pandemic has been personally hard for me, and it has also changed my working life. Since last March I have been on call, answering a variety of emergencies, for 29 weeks instead of the usual 11. It’s draining, and I have to juggle this with my part-time job as a consultant radiologist and with bringing up my three children, one of whom is only 10 and requires help with home schooling. I’m a doctor, a teacher and a mum all rolled into one.
When Covid first struck, for nearly two months at the height of the first wave, I was the only doctor in the radiology department at the Alex Children’s Hospital able to see patients due to other staff members being assessed high risk.
Most of my patients are children, but I have assessed a lot of chest X-rays on adult Covid sufferers.
One of the saving graces has been having a work computer at home. This means that if, at 3am, an ultrasound image needs assessing I don’t need to travel to the hospital from my home.
My husband, James, is more in the thick of it than I am. He’s professor of cardiology at UCL, but at the beginning of the pandemic he became head of Covid research at the London Nightingale. Recently, though, he answered the call for nurses in intensive care, so he does his full-time job in the week and then two 12-hour nursing shifts at weekends.
He feels totally out of his comfort zone, but he was really revved up for his first stint as he felt that he could make a difference. However, the reality is that his feet hurt after 12 hours without a rest, and then at night he finds himself in a lonely hotel because it’s too far to travel home before the next shift. He started off in charge of charts, plus he helps with general patient care. In fact, it reminds him of the time a few years ago when he was a junior doctor.
Riding is my salvation. I took it up at the age of 42 when I went part-time. I thought what shall I do with my spare time, and I plumped for lessons. I became addicted and when I saw other people on their own horses, I thought that could be me.
I keep Tilly on DIY livery and I do most of the chores myself. I find the riding and the routine therapeutic and a dose of normality. I can school and, if I’m not on call, hack out. I may feel flat and exhausted when I climb into the saddle, but by the end those endorphins will be flowing. My elder daughter, Alessandra, has noticed how much enjoyment I get from Tilly and she once said: ‘Mum, I hope that one day I’ll be able to follow a hobby I love as passionately as you do horses’.”
“I have assessed a lot of chest X-rays on adult Covid sufferers”