My Day Off

I started the day searching for my cell phone-- unsuccessfully. It's a blackberry pearl, so it also is my brain, and I feel lost without it. I was late for my 9:00 appointment with our therapist, but then, so was our therapist. We were both relieved to be pulling in at the same time. She is a friend of the daughter of the woman who committed suicide. She offered reassurance. She told me it was a very atypical suicide, and there were no warning signs. No one could have prevented it. She also suggested Daughter's latest rage was a result of her guilt triggered by the suicide, since she had seen the pain suicide had caused, and she has been suicidal many times. Guilt has become a powerful trigger for her rages.

Since I didn't have my cell phone, I had to borrow their phone to call the man I had promised to take back to the hospital. I had to borrow their phone book to find his number, which was in my address book in my missing cell phone. When I finished the call, Therapist told me one of her messages was Daughter reminding her of their 11:00 appointment.

So I picked up B and we headed off to the hospital. Dislocated Shoulder was miserable. She was in pain, and foggy from medication. They hadn't given her any of her meds, or checked her blood sugar, which was 255 when they checked it in the ER. Dislocated Shoulder is a retired nurse, but was too miserable to be assertive for herself. Her husband has always relied on her and their two nurse daughters. So I called the desk and said we had some question about her meds. I was told her nurse was with another patient and would be in soon. By the time she came in, she had a glucose meter with her, and said she had gotten her meds ordered. She didn't tell us what her blood sugar was, just "high." I left when occupational therapy came in and promised to return after I visited Broken Neck.

As I walked over to the other side of the large hospital, I ran into a woman who comes to the monthly senior luncheons we have. She asked if I was there to see her husband, who had had 4 bypasses. I told her I didn't know he was there but I'd stopped by. I got up to the room number they'd given me for Broken Neck, and there was a stranger in the room. So, I went back down to the desk and informed them they must have two patients with the same name. She checked her computer, and sure enough, found Broken Neck back on the same floor as Dislocated Shoulder. I went to visit Quadruple Bypass, then check in on Broken Neck, who wanted me to stay and chat. I promised to be back Wednesday with more time to visit. I returned to Dislocated Shoulder, who was now eating lunch, but still hadn't had any meds or insulin. I went out to the nurses' desk, where her nurse assured me she had a sliding scale and insulin was on the way for her. I went back to say farewell to Dislocated Shoulder, and promised to call her daughter when I got home. I drove through to get lunch, and found my cell phone on the way home, when it started ringing from the floor of the back seat. Of course I couldn't reach it. When I got home, I found Daughter had been calling. I called her, and she informed me that one of her internal organs had exploded at lunch time. I asked a few questions, then told her I'd see her at 2:30 when I picked her up to go see Psychiatrist.

So, I walked in the house and got on the phone. Long conversations followed with Dislocated Shoulder's daughter the nurse and my secretary. By then it was time go get Daughter.

I picked Daughter up and asked her how her appointment with Therapist had gone. She informed me she had forgotten about it, and had missed it because she was on an outing with one of the supervisors. I was furious. I told her not to lie to me, as I knew for a fact that she had called Therapist to remind her of the appointment. I told her she had lost the privilege of setting her own appointments and having Therapist come to her. I used my cell phone to call Therapist, as it turned out, she had missed the appointment because an emergency had come up, so they had been confused by Daughter's apologetic call to reschedule her appointment. I'll take Daughter to see Therapist at 8:00 Thursday morning.

Daughter was in quite the mood when we got to Psychiatrist. She wouldn't talk to her. There was some minor tweaking of her meds.

We came home and I got on the phone again. I called the woman whose step-daughter was life flighted to Big City yesterday after a heart attack. We had a long conversation. I had a long conversation with a good friend of the woman who committed suicide. She was feeling like she could have prevented the death. I assured her she couldn't have stopped it, and told her I totally understood why she was questioning herself. I also told her I had checked out a rumor she had shared with me on Sunday with the daughter, and it was false.

I also cooked dinner, chopped up and fried a bunch of bacon (for bacon bits to use in salads and cooking). I finished the sausage balls that were interrupted last night. I talked to a woman who was going to a judicatory meeting with me tomorrow. I had decided I couldn't take the time to spend 4 hours on the road and 6 hours at a meeting tomorrow. There were other assorted calls, as well. The husband of Dislocated Shoulder told me she would be discharged tomorrow, and their daughter was going to come and take them to their new home in an apartment connected to her house. Tomorrow was the day they had planned to move, so I'm glad they're going to be able to make it work.

I figure I ended up putting in over 6 hours of work on my day off. One of my conversations was with a church officer who couldn't figure out how people could possibly think that they could get by with a part-time minister. I told her that I thought I had taken the church as far as I could, and it was time for new leadership and a fresh perspective. Granted, this has been an unusually busy couple of weeks, and the holiday season is always chaotic, but I don't think they have any concept of what I do or the time it takes. I'm going to keep track of the hours I put in over the course of a typical week, and how it's spent. I suspect it will be an eye-opening for them.