What one shitty day taught me about watch collecting. A.K.A. How watch collecting could help you save a life.

I have had to keep off social media for the most part this week because my general mood has been….

… and I don’t want to get banned for snapping at some poor unsuspecting watch enthusiast (plus I’d feel awful later).

This week has been an absolute disaster.

We started with 3 doctors already off work and then on Thursday we had another call in sick, so this meant running clinics with 2 doctors instead of 6.

We ploughed through Thursday morning, me seeing folks in the surgery and my colleague doing home visits for those who needed them.

After the main morning clinic we have an additional clinic where anyone who feels they are unwell and need to be seen that day can rock up and we’ll check them over.

So after the first clinic I grab myself a cuppa (being a traditional Brit, tea helps me tackle any day) with a feeling of….

… and start seeing the extra patients.

I get through a couple and then have a young mum come see me with her 17 week old baby.

She said he’d been crying in the night, had a high temperature and started with a rash, so she thought it was chicken pox.

Fair enough. All pretty standard.

She gets baby out of his pram and… well… to put it into watch terms… you know how you can look at this watch….

…. And be fairly confident it’s not a real Submariner?

That’s how confident I was looking at this kid and knowing he was sick… REALLY sick… like… ‘I’m not sure this baby will live long enough to make it to the hospital’ sick.

I wish I could say “Oh man! It was lucky I was there that day! No one else would have spotted it!”

I can’t.

This baby very obviously had bacterial meningitis. It wasn’t a clever diagnosis.

Meningitis kills 1 in 6 people it infects and can do so within 24 hrs of getting the infection.

Seeing a baby with it is an “OH SH*T” moment for ANYONE.

In cases like this it really is a matter of ‘every minute counts’.

There are several things that saved this little boy’s life.

My receptionist knew the baby didn’t sound well from mums description over the phone, and got him in to be seen.

My nurse sorted out the antibiotic injection for him in double quick time (quick antibiotics are essential in meningitis).

The ambulance crew were with us and taking him to hospital within 20 minutes.

As soon as they arrived at the hospital this little boy had 2 paediatric consultants, 2 registrar’s and an anaesthetist waiting for him.

The anaesthetist intubated him on arrival.

Bloods were sent off to the lab for the lab techs to determine the strain and best antibiotic for him.

The paediatric nurses and care assistants have been looking after him in the baby intensive care unit since.

Public Health England were informed and have organised antibiotics for close contacts to prevent spread of the infection to others.

No one person is responsible for helping this baby live.

Now…. I could relate all this back to watches somehow. Talk about how watches have many elements which all need to work together to make the magic happen.

Talk about the watch on my wrist that day.

I could maybe even talk about how the whole process of watch collecting is similar… it’s not just the buying that makes this hobby so amazing, but the learning, the community, the meetups etc. All the parts help make the whole so special…

But, I know many of you guys have children, grandchildren, have friends who have children…

…I would rather talk about how any of you can be critical in saving babies lives.

Meningitis can cause a very distinctive rash.

To tell if a rash could be meningitis, do the glass test…

So next time someone says to you “Little Johnny isn’t well and he has a rash” say: “Have you done the glass test?”

If the rash disappears, then by all means get little one checked over. But if the rash DOESN’T disappear on the glass test, it’s an EMERGENCY.

Just by knowing this you can be part of the long list of people who save babies lives.

And your friends will be like “OMG how do you know that???” and you can shrug casually and say “Because I’m a watch guy.”

Take care of yourselves and your family everyone! ❤️

P.S. Why the picture of the Llama (I presume it’s a llama) as the top image? Well, I did a search in the free image library for ‘bad day’ and that was the second suggestion. I’m not sure what went down for the llama that day, but the guy does seem troubled.