Sensitivity training......

I've about had it with (mostly young) interns, fellows and residents... "doctors" in various degrees of their training.

Doctors "to be" aren't much different from the kid at Micky D's that wears the "have patience with me I'm a trainee" button, except that they don't wear a button.

You can be patient at the fast food counter when it takes the newbe forever to find the "no onion, light ketchup" option, you can be patient when you confuse the hell outta them when you hand them over different money then they've asked for, expecting to get different change than the register tells them is owed... you can be patient when you both smile and shrug shoulders as they stumble.

A night and day difference in a hospital setting.

A screwed up burger with extra onions and light mustard verses a screwed up treatment or a messed up fight for your life....

not weighable.

My dad's continued, very long, seemingly never-ending running streak of really shitty luck recently gave him a doctor in training that could barely manage to say "hello" in English...

couple that with my dad's one good hearing aid (low on batt-ries + old, poor quality equipment = he misses a lot)...

... add to that hot mess his being hopped up on treated with Morphine and you got yerself a little problem in the communication department.

When my dad told me what was said and I tattled on the trainee to his supervisor words weren't needed to convey to me that the trainee was in deep poo.

His supervisor's slack jaw, pop eye'd response said it all.

He then contested/corrected/backstroked/damage controlled every thing the trainee had said (or rather, tried to say).

Yesterday, my dad and I spent the better part of the morning in the emergency room.

He slept, I mostly listened to moans and cries of patients in surrounding rooms.

Separated by dingy, orange/green striped floor to ceiling curtains.

These emergency room slots were smaller than one of my bathrooms.

The chair I was sitting in hit the curtain of the room next to me, and my dad's bed was nearly as close to our neighbor, the patient on the other side.

When I tried not to listen, I would doodle heart shapes in the small notebook I carry to doodle small heart shapes in.

I had lots of pages filled.

In the room behind my chair was a mother and her daughter waiting for test results.

I knew both these things because that is what they told the hospital worker who stuck her head in to refill supplies.

While my dad slept and I scribbled heart shapes I heard some people enter the room next to ours.

A man's voice introduced himself as one of the doctor's on her case.

He also identified himself as an intern.

He told the mother that the source of her severe back pain appeared to be coming from some lesions on her spine.

"Any history of cancer?" Doc jr asked.

"Nope, none" answered the patient.

"I fell some time back" the old woman continued "when was that? she quizzed her memory...

"In December, yes, it was December" she determined.

"I think there was a little snow on the ground" she remarked.

"How long has your back been bothering you?" Doc jr asked.

She answered in an unsure way, again attempting to put time and incident together.

"When we see lesions like this" Doc jr said "they normally indicate cancer" he told the woman and her daughter sitting in the room next to me.

I stiffened in my seat and my pen stopped making heart shapes.

The old woman, panic rising in her voice asked the doctor what he meant.

"I have cancer?" she said, her voice cracking.

"Well" Doc jr said "we don't know that yet. We are going to put you through some tests and see if we can identify a source. The cancerous lesions are not the main cancer, in our experience, so there must be something else in your body, another source, a large mass, something like that" he went on to explain.

"Someone will be in to admit you to the hospital" he said, leaving the room.

I sat stiff in my seat as the mother and her daughter in the small room next to mine comforted each other.

I couldn't not hear their muffled cries.

Or hold back my own.

What in the hell is wrong with the training these new doctors are getting.

Why, I wonder couldn't that news be delivered when they were sure or knew more?

Maybe they wanted her to prepare?

Maybe Doc jr was practicing.

Fuck.

I hate hospitals, and heart shapes, and bad news, even when it's not mine.

Thank you for listening.

xoxo

Waiting to exhale......

It's 9:30 in the evening and I'm sitting in my computer chair typing this post because there is no way I can do anything else.

I'm waiting.

On pins and needles.

I have a pit the size of a basketball resting heavily on my diaphragm making it hard to breathe.

It all started with a phone call to our landline a bit ago. I didn't answer because I didn't recognize the number.

A couple of minutes later Daddio walked upstairs with my cell phone. Bear had just called.

He was calling to tell us that he was on the way to the hospital, his best friend since the first grade had been injured in a car accident.

With hands shaking so badly it was hard to hold the phone, I called Bear back.

"How bad?" I asked.

"His parents didn't know how bad mom" he answered. "They called me and weren't to the hospital yet."

Then he just about broke my heart when he asked "If he was dead mom would the hospital keep that from his parents so they could make it to the hospital?

I don't know. Do they do that? I didn't think they did that? Please tell me they don't do that.

"No, honey he's going to be fine" I said.

Suddenly I was scared for my own child.

Scared because he's driving and upset.

Scared about what he may find when he gets to the hospital.

Scared to think about how his life could change because his best friend got into a car accident.

Then I thought about his friend's mother.

And I thought about my own mother who lost her son to an accident one seemingly ordinary mid October evening.

And I thought about Bear and his friend's graduation ceremony tomorrow night.

These two boys who became fast best friends when they met in the school supply aisle at K-Mart the first day of first grade.

Bear and Metzie were in the same class and became a perfectly matched inseparable pair.

They would be best friends all their growing up years.

They planned to walk together to get their diplomas.

And now Bear was on his way to the hospital where Metzie was taken after the accident.

A couple of hours and lots of text messages later Bear called one last time to say he was on his way home.

"Anybody want any MickyD's?" he asked when he called.

"Bring your dad a big mac" I said.

"Nothin for you ma?" He asked.

"Yeah" I wanted to add.....go to the store Bear and get some party hats and some balloons. Stop by the church and kneel and say a prayer of thanks. Lets make a cake. And throw confetti. And blow kazoos. And bubbles. Lets dance a jig and sing some songs.

"No kid, just hurry home" I said "and be careful".

Bear's best friend is going to be fine.

Life goes on as planned.

Halleluiah, Hallehuiah......

Takin care of bid-ness

Time sure flies when we're havin fun, or working too hard. I have health insurance through work and it's quite a good plan. So good, they mail my doctor letters about me and call me at home on a regular basis.

They also send to me pamphlets and reading materials in the mail about medical issues I don't have...(which of course scares the livin daylights outta me and has me drafting to Daddio a last Will and Testament).

A recent visit to the doctor had him flipping through my chart and mentioning that the insurance company had sent him a note asking him to remind me to get my mamogram.

And my pap smear.

And an eye exam.

And a blood test.

Geeeez!!

(Isn't that what your mother is for???)

Well, I've done most everything they've asked, and more.

But I guess most everything is not enough, because yesterday they called and left another lenghty message reminding me that I still haven't gotten the mamogram.

And I'm still getting letters and notes in the mail about the other tests.

Oooooo-kay, apparently there is a little communication problem going on here.

And a picture really can be worth a thousand words. So I will be taking this...

with me for when I'm up close and personal with the boob vice.

And I'll add it to an email with the pictures below to be sent to the insurance company.

See, new glasses (case is proof)

And proof of my visit to Jean Gray, Nurse Practitioner, extraordinaire.  

That should do it (although, I won't hold my breath).

On a side note....

(Am I the only one that has two thoughts instantly come to mind when my feet are in those stirrups???? (1). Damn, I wish I was more flexible and better able to shave the back of my thighs and (2). I hope my gold bar Dial lives up to it's hype.)