It feels strange to type 2021 when we didn’t really get our full value for money in 2020. Three months ago it felt as though we were over the worst of the global pandemic and were almost adjusted to our ‘new normal’. Masks and sanitisers still at the ready, it had been weeks since I had heard of anyone having caught COVID, and the Doctors I treated and chatted to reported zero or minimal cases at their hospitals.
While we were all familiar with the words ‘second wave’, many of us here in SA were foolishly hanging on to thoughts from the early Corona days, that even if a second wave were to strike; how the virus didn’t like the heat. And anyone about to enter summer in Durban knows that heat is not in short supply over this time in SA.
Well I think we all know the plot twist that awaited us. Friends who broke every lock down rule around in the first wave, are now choosing to stay at home; and we all know someone whose life has been forever changed through the loss of a loved one from this dreaded virus.
I feel that the more I learn about COVID 19, the less I know. It seems both very easy to catch (many people I know have no idea where they contracted it), and also very difficult (a number of my friends and patients have had it and not their partners and vice versa). We thought you would get it once and then develop an immunity, but now we are hearing of people getting it twice. I could write paragraphs on stories I have heard of people testing positive and negative on the same or subsequent days, those with zero symptoms who test positive, and those with ALL the symptoms and test negative. Positive antibody tests for those who didn’t think that they had ever had it, and negative antibody tests for those who most certainly had it. WHO KNOWS what to expect with this virus.
What we can all collectively agree on (if that is even possible these days on the internet), is that life as we know it is unlikely to ever be the same.
In news from my practice, despite the curve ball that was 2020 (and my broken ankle which thankfully has healed beautifully), we are very grateful to have had as good a year as we possibly could have. As well as being very busy with clients, I was fortunate to have taught my course to Physio’s wanting to treat children with bladder and bowel dysfunction live before the world shut down in Feb 2020, and then again in Nov/Dec online. Preparing and teaching this course is the most difficult and rewarding thing I have ever done and I am eternally grateful to all of you who attended my course, and for the wonderful feedback it received. (You can still attend the live recordings as a course here ). I have to thank Mandy Roscher from ThePelvicpts.com for encouraging me to run the course online after she attended my live course in the February. Mandy is the most organised, kind, knowledgeable and motivational friend and fellow pelvic health Physio. We as a Pelvic health Physio community in Durban and South Africa are really going feel the loss of her and her husband Pierre (also a phenomenal Pelvic health Physio and advocator of the profession) and I hope that Brisbane appreciates just what gold arrived on their shores at the end of 2020.
We opened rooms in Simbithi, Ballito at the beginning of 2020, where Chantelle was working out of, but have decided to not renew our lease there for 2021. Instead, we have created a second treatment room here in La Lucia and Chanty is now working solely from here. I am so grateful to have Chanty here to help with the high demand for appointments and love having a fellow pelvic health nerd around to brainstorm and clinical reason tricky cases with during the day!
As always, you can book in online here, where you will see we have put our prices up for this year. I always feel very awkward about price increases, but I am trying to be less so after working through my ‘money blocks’ reading Denise Duffiled Thomas’ books in 2020!
Thank you for your ongoing support of me, Chanty and our practice. Thank you for following along online, attending my webinars and classes and coming to see us for your pregnancy, pelvic and women’s health needs. A huge thank you too, to the GP’s, Gynaes, Urologists, Paediatricians and therapists who so kindly refer their patients to us. And an even bigger thank you to those of you who insist your friend/cousin/auntie comes to to see a Pelvic health Physio, not because you are a healthcare professional or have even been here yourselves. But because you have learned about how and why pelvic and women’s health Physio can be helpful from following along online, and have guided your loved ones to help to seek healing and solutions for what can be taboo and debilitating conditions.
Wishing you as good a 2021 as possible <3
Lulu x