Patient progress

Concerns: My beloved daughter is burning up with fever. She’s been off school for three days and I haven’t left the house for a walk or a bike ride.

Tedious tasks: I’m still transcribing a few interviews that got corrupted on my dusty computer disks.

Exercise: Hand-washing muddy soccer shorts and socks that never-really-get-clean any more. I wonder how other mothers get things clean.

Distractions: Instead of preparing food I watch Ready Steady Cook on TV with my daughter-patient. My grated apples landed on the sink near the neatly cubed boiled potatoes that didn’t tempt her either.

Progress: I leave her bored and miserable on the couch-bed and transcribe with unrecognisable speed. I’m good at this. My data companion and I make a good team. I have to live with this data in my head for the next 6 months. Transcribe, code, analyse. It's a cycle that never stops.

A thought: My mind prepares to tell the family at dinner tonight what one of the community elders said today. The blurred lines of my various realities shock me back to my senses as I realise it was only the voice in my earplugs who said it 9 years ago in one of my research interviews.

Next: I hope she’s well enough to go back to school tomorrow.