A BUSY weekend on call always makes me think of the difference between weekdays and Saturday and Sunday.

So as I come into the hospital the roads are busy. People, I assume, are doing what I do and going to a Toolstation, Screwfix or EuroCarParts for bits and bobs. Or going to the park with the family and kids; or as I to do, take the grandchildren out to the canal without fishing nets.

In other words, normal weekend life without the strains of daily work. Or the many other things we do in our leisure time when the sun is shining on us.

But as I ride into the hospital it becomes another world. A quieter world in some senses; and at least some less frenetic time on some wards.

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And so this now becomes the normal. And for these people in this world, shopping and leisure are the furthest things from their minds.

The young man in his late 40s who I saw. He’d just learned he has got terminal cancer with no curative treatment options. We spoke about how he was dealing with this emotionally and physically; and the outside world’s activity seemed a million miles away.

The same with the parents who I was called in to see after they had lost their baby and the blessing I gave to that little girl. The depth of feeling was palpable in the room.

And the same again for a mom as she said goodbye to the twins. Each time the outside ‘weekend’ world stopped existing for them and for me; this reality I was seeing and being part of was a contrast to the business outside.

And then, at 3am in the morning, when everyone is tucked up in bed getting ready for work or school, the seminal moment of being with a patient and his family at the time when his life came to an end.

I choose not to live solely in one or other of these worlds. Rather I just need to recognise that both of them exist and run simultaneously.