Hmmm... think I'm feeling stressed?

The idea that I forgot to use my June free monthly movie coupon from Blockbuster almost brought me to tears - I think I might be feeling a little stressed!

evaluating a life - part 2

So at any rate I think about my life and evaluating my life, and I think that I feel the same way about my own life. But there are many days when I am not so confident about it.

evaluating a life

So riding in the car the other day my mother said to me that she wouldn't change her life a bit. That maybe someone else might have questioned the way things unfolded but that to her looking back it was a good life.

And what more can one ask?

stuff and more stuff

So today one of the kids I worked with asked me why I had so much stuff. I was trying to clear out some drawers in my office because I am going to have to start sharing an office in the fall. And I thought, it's obvious even to people who see me in such a limited setting, that I hold onto way too much stuff - all because I might need it at some point.

But I have to start sorting out my parents stuff within the next few days, and that is preoccupying my energy at the moment. I am tempted to rent a storage area to deal with it and create some time to be able to move forward... although I suspect that is just procrastinating about the inevitable!

life is what happens when we're busy making other plans.

I am sad and tired - kind of a continuous state for me these days. I realized that there is very little I have control over in my life at the moment. And that other people are stirring the pot with their own ends in mind (talk about a mixed metaphor) and there is very little I can do to change the outcome. I just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other - own that I haven't been at my best and keep striving to get better.

What makes it hard is that when I'm depressed I tend to think I have never been at my best and wonder exactly what it is I think I'm doing.

wow the hospital made a mistake?! no way!! (heavy sarcasm)

Taking care of an elder means that you have the distinct honor of learning just how screwed up our medical system is. You learn how little doctors really know, how arrogant they can be, how little vision they have and what poor decisions they make. They are just lucky they don't have themselves as physicians.

But don't get me wrong - I think the geriatric specialists that I have had the chance to interact with are really sharp and have some good skills (medical and social). And in general I really like the ER staff. It's the floor docs who boggle my mind. Partly because they have the longer responsibility. ER docs respond to a crisis and they triage and move on. Your personal physician (or team) have the chance to deal with a range of problems over time and develop relationships and see the big picture and the details. The floor docs are seeing you at a time when you are very at-risk (otherwise you wouldn't be there) but it is probably not an acute crisis. They have to make the decisions which guide the direction all of your treatment goes.

It's like if you are a researcher, all your biases effect everything from your choice of subject matter, to your hypotheses, and the methods you use to research it.

But this is someone's life, and they don't have the luxury of reading a different research article or changing physicians. And if you fail to even contact the doctor who manages the on-going care and knows more about the situation than you do, how can you expect to do a halfway reasonable job?

Mother's Day

"Some mothers get to go to brunch for mother's day...we get to go to the hospital ER."