A feel-good short story from NHS physiotherapist Claire Stainton

My name is Claire and I am an NHS physiotherapist, working in London, who was redeployed to the COVID wards during the pandemic. My day job is in healthcare, however I have always had a huge passion for writing. I find it so therapeutic to get my thoughts down on paper and I absolutely love writing positive stories that will hopefully be uplifting to others and inspire people to see the beauty in the world!

I believe that even in the toughest of times, there are always positive things that can be drawn upon and I love capturing the beautiful little moments in even the hardest of times. I have written up a few moving memories that I have from my time working during the pandemic and I would love the opportunity to share my story with you. I’m sure you can agree that as a whole the Covid pandemic has been a horrendous and heart-breaking time, but with my story I try to capture the rare but hugely significant positive moments as well as the sad ones.

The Beauty of Dance

One afternoon there was a rare moment of calm and quiet on the ward – all the patients were stable and comfortable, which was lovely as a lot of the time a lot of patients were very sick and deteriorating quickly. The radio was playing in the background; amongst all the sadness and chaos it was a comfort to have some background noise. I will never forget what happened next. A song came on the radio, Flowers by Sweet Female Attitude, a real club classic song! A patient with dementia, not his real name but let’s call him Len, then stood up and began to dance joyfully, waving his hands in the air and tapping his feet! It was beautiful. I asked Len if he liked the song and he shouted, “It’s my favourite song!”

At that moment another patient got out of bed and joined him in dancing in the bay. With agreement from the other patients we turned the music up and I remember looking around at my colleagues, who were dotted around the ward working hard, and even through our PPE, our goggles, our surgical gowns, and our facemasks we all made an unspoken agreement that we just had to join in. I put down my chart and we danced and we sang and watched as the ward did the same, the patients in their hospital pyjamas and the staff in our PPE. Some who were too poorly to stand danced from their beds. And it was the best feeling.

That moment melted my heart. We all forgot the horrendous situation we were in, we forgot the heartbreak and the sadness, the grief, the fear, and the exhaustion we were all feeling. I remember looking around the ward and thinking, although the COVID ward was a very scary place to be, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.