WhenThe TV Doesn't Work

So really it's the remote that's not working.  Started last night while we were doing our usual veging out.  No channel changing...stuck on HGTV (aaargh!!! Love it or List it!!! aaargh!!)....then one moment of remote-ability which got us to Video on Demand, but that was it.   None of the new batteries we shoved into the back of the remote would get it to work.  Of course it was Saturday night, so we left an e-mail for our cable provider who we know from past experience will bring us a nice new remote.....but not until Monday or (nooo......!!!!) Tuesday.

Now Sunday night is my favorite TV night.  Last week the latest HGTV Star (formerly Design Star) competition started up again.  Also there's 60 Minutes.  In January it'll be Downton Abbey again....I am hopeful our remote will be working then!!  Also, last Saturday night we watched three episodes of House of Cards on Netflix on the TV which was awesome.  So in many ways my weekend schedule is RUINED by the dead remote.


I truly do not consider myself a TV-holic, but it has certainly been instructive today every time I had that impulse to "watch" TV (alot of times it's just background, but I'm sitting there, and it's on....).  But then there was the yoga I did this morning and the half-hour my husband and I both hung out on the couch in the living room (non-TV room), reading this afternoon.  And the forty-five minutes we worked on a couple of garden projects we've just started.  Nice.

Already paying dividends, that broken remote!

You probably already know this, but....

I love my job.  I'm lucky that I don't have to DO ANYTHING TO the people I visit.  I don't have to take their blood pressure, I don't have to ask to see their skin on their butt, I don't have to watch them get up out of a chair and walk across the room.  I get to visit people in their homes and offer a listening ear and an open heart as they talk about whatever they are willing to share about how things are going for them.  So much of what I hear has to do with how they feel in the "health care machine."  So much of what we do as health care providers has pretty much nothing to do with what the patient actually wants or feels.

This week I took a new patient who has no regular family doctor to a "transitional" clinic which sees patients temporarily while they seek a regular provider.  I had to take her, because she is just that impaired and frail that she would never have been able to get there on her own....and she lives one-quarter of a mile from the clinic.

 P.S. the reason she had to go to the clinic AND HURRY UP AND DO IT THIS WEEK is because without a doctor's order, the home care clinicians cannot make any visits -- well, they can't make any BILLABLE visits.

 The questions on the health history forms!!!  "Do you feel safe at home?"  "In your relationships?"  CHECK YES OR NO!!!

How about this.....when you first sit with a patient, during your CONVERSATION with them -- no, not an interview, not a session where you mostly look at the computer screen as you input answers (alot of times incorrectly -- believe me)....how about this....sometime during your conversation, let them know that if something is awry in their lives, in their home, in their relationships or family, you are open to hearing about it and brainstorming with them about what they'd like your help with.  Explain that you know that what goes on in their lives affects their medical condition and whether they feel like taking care of themselves.  Explain that that is why you are checking in with them about this seemingly extraneous topic.

BUT don't put a check box on a history form and call yourself open to hearing about family violence.

OK end of rant one.

Beginning Again....and again

It is never too late to begin again.  If you are having a day where you start out being creative and end up sobbing about all kinds of things....well, that might be a day to post to your blog even though you haven't done any posting for two years.

It was a crazy day in Kathy-land when I decided to make each of my children a scrapbook upon their high school graduations.  My daughter graduated in 2009 and today I finished hers.  Mostly.

When you put together a scrapbook celebrating someone's life up till now, you get continual glimpses of the past, looking through photos and papers and national honor society pins, etc., etc.   You see pictures of yourself looking just a little better and younger on the verge of tears saying goodbye to your daughter at her new college dorm room on her first day on campus.  You look through elementary school yearbooks to make sure you mark her pictures with the correct grade, and you gasp in pain and joy at how adorable and unique she was/is.  You acknowledge that any commentary you write on a scrapbook page is just a tiny representation of the love you feel in your heart and soul for this child, now an adult.

Consider this: despite the troubles my mate and I have caused each other over the years, we didn't do such a bad job raising our two children.  We took them all around America and overseas.  We encouraged their activities and friendships.  We kept them in church and school and provided structure and tradition as well as new ideas.  We loved them fiercely even when we were crabby and depressed and distracted, and we hope against all hope that they know it and can feel it even when they are crabby and depressed and distracted.

Here's to the future!  May it be filled with love and hugs, with tears and comfort.  May we continue to appreciate each other with all our many and varied foibles and oddities.