Monday, May 31, 2004

Diet Buddy, Diet Buddy ... We're working at it ... How's This?

Produce Stand

Apples Golden Delicious Large 5 for  6.93

Apples Red Delicious Large 5 for 4.83

Apricots  5 for 2.50

Carrot Chips Bolthouse Farms 16 OZ BAG   4 for 7.96

Celery Sticks Cut 8 OZ PKG   5 for 9.95

Grapefruit Del Monte Fruit Naturals Cup 8 OZ CUP   7 for 13.93

Peaches  5 for 3.75

Pineapple Del Monte Fruit Naturals Cup 8 OZ CUP   7 for 13.93

Plums Black 5 for 3.95

Dairy

Colombo Yogurt Light Fat Free Cherry Vanilla 8 OZ CUP   5 for 4.25

Colombo Yogurt Light Fat Free Juicy Peach 8 OZ CUP 5 for 4.25

Colombo Yogurt Light Fat Free Red Raspberry 8 OZ CUP   5 for 4.25

Dean's Sour Cream Fat Free 16 OZ TUB   2 for 3.98

Breads and Cereals

Bread & Bakeshop Breadsmith Bread Honey Oat Bran cRc Kosher 28 OZ PKG   1 for 3.29   

Breadsmith Bread Honey Whole Wheat cRc Kosher 28 OZ PKG   1 for 3.29

La Tortilla Factory Tortillas Green Onion Low Carb - 10 ct 13 OZ BAG 1 for 2.29  

Paramount Fat Free Greek Style Pita Bread Whole Wheat 5 Count 16 OZ PKG  1 for 1.89   

Breakfast Foods Familia Swiss Muesli No Added Sugar 12 OZ BOX   1 for 3.19   

Kellogg's Healthy Choice Low Fat Granola With Raisins 18 OZ BOX   1 for 4.09   

Quaker 100% Natural Oats Honey Raisin 28 OZ BOX   1 for 4.99

Snacks

Chi-Chi's Fiesta Salsa Thick & Chunky Medium 24 OZ BTL   2  for 8.38

Grains and Pasta

Hodgson Mill Whole Wheat Spaghetti 16 OZ BOX   1 for 2.29

Pritikin Fat Free Tomato Basil Pasta Sauce 26 OZ JAR   2 for 6.98

Soups & Canned Goods

Health Valley Fat Free Spicy Black Bean Chili 15 OZ CAN   3 for 7.77

Old El Paso Fat Free Refried Beans Spicy 16 OZ CAN   3 for 4.17    

Subtotal: $137.08

Tax: $1.71

Delivery Fee: $4.95

Total: $143.74  

Est. Total Savings: $3.15

This has been an all afternoon project!  Note out of 2 weeks offood, only 4 meals involve cooking.  And, this can be all ordered with a tap of the button to be delivered :)  Very important details!!

Hmm, now the next part ... figuring out all the Nutritional stuff.  I KNOW its pretty low on fat and salt ... feelin fine :)

We figure though this is better than we are spending by eating out.  Most our eating lately has seemed to come from Fast Food.  Burger Kings 2 for $3 is killing us.  So instead its like $9.79 a day, $66.55 a week, $288 monthly, $3,460 yearly.  AND, it "Feels" healthy ... We figure the meals are smaller, but included 2 mid-meal breaks.  Ok, back to the board.   

Umm, one more thing ... shopping is new to us ... what is it supposed to cost to eat now days? 

Ahh, it works!

Ahh, mornin! Soon to be young afternoon! Please allow us to express, we are having the most wonderful of vacation weekends. True we were at work on Saturday, but that evening we took up a friend’s invitation, saw our eldest son yesterday, and this morning spent the most wonderful time with Tammy through Ims! And, in-between? Just a whole lot of journal reading and playing around in general on the computer! Great fun and relaxation...

One of our new toys is that we’ve purchase for minor bucks a wonderful new computer "man-servant." His name is "James." Hehe ... Every woman should have one. He does several things like read the headlines, predict the weather, remind me of the time and reads out loud, looks up websites, and about anything else I request. He also specialized in telling me jokes and telling me nice things at surprise intervals of time. And, we’re pretty delighted, because often to catch our attention he says things like, "Hello Pretty Lady," and "Pretty Lady you delight me!" Can’t go wrong there ... and he sings to my friends at request! Oh, I almost forgot ... he reminds me of stuff too. Yesterday, he said, "Pretty Lady, would you please empty the kitty litter box just for me?  Please?" *Giggle* We let him beg us three times first :) Did we mention he’s with black suit and gloves, but is bare chested?

Hmm, see, see this is what happens when a woman spends too much time alone! Not to fear ... it’s all in the plan to be eccentric! And may we add, a little goofy! LOL he just told me he wishes he were as smart as us :) Hmm, maybe I could introduce you? I’m not sure if it would require a small d/l though ... let’s check this out, let me know if it works, k?

Meet James, Click here

Oh man ... we're just chucklin out here ... who sent us back Max with the meatball song ... We're in stitches!

Meet Max, Click here

Saturday, May 29, 2004

HEHE ... Well, it was Sorta Like Work :)

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The Center's Program ... We Just figured it Out. How Does it Sound?

The five program domains at St. Rose Center are Living, Personal, Social, Achievement and Community.  We are a community from which to safely practice optimism of self, others, and the environment.  This occurs through sharing time and attention with individuals one-on-one or in small and large groups.  We encourage responsiveness in learning opportunities within the training program such as enjoyment, observation, interest, caring, orderliness, patience and direction.

 

St. Rose Center believes the whole person grows and develops intellectually, emotionally, physically, economically, civically and religiously.  We feel that given the provision of least restriction, our secure and structured atmosphere becomes a breeding ground for the development of life quality, satisfaction, and dignity.  The individuals served come to accept and believe in natural laws that include order, tolerance, charity and respect.  We approach self-sufficiency and awareness through consciousness of life and life processes.

 

For most of us, life is sensing, feeling and thinking.  However, we can become more exceptionally aware and present.  Dispositions affect our mental processes.  For example, we might look with fear, sadness and anger, or with joy hope and thanks giving.  Positivism is a well nurtured disposition developed with care.  Although, some individuals are predisposed to favorable dispositions and can expand through them; others need assistance in defining goals, objectives and outcomes.  Individuals are challenged to think in general and believe in their rights and responsibilities specifically.  The response of the treatment is that individuals become more interested in their surroundings and find themselves choosing more uniquely. 

 

The varying day by day experiences at the center allow individuals to know trust.  Trust is a gatekeeper between idleness and movement.  Trust allows support and strength where we might otherwise feel inept.  With support, we can safely step out onto fields of what is known and what is unknown.  We can help to restructure commonly misconceived patterns; we look for working avenues of knowledge that may be new or dormant.  We model bridges to new characteristics and roles that work in adulthood.  Through willingness, the individual’s talents emerge to decipher how “things” ought to be.  Independence develops through the individual’s recognition of self discipline, effort and success.  Mind puzzles give way to confidence, competence and a sense of empowerment.  The individual freely breathes in accomplishments, builds healthy relationships in the community and matures in love and spirit.

The Living Domain includes the program areas of Self Help and Living Skills. In Self Help the individuals are assisted in several areas such as cause and effect relationships. This is basic sequencing where the individuals learn how what just happened affects the next, or to predict what will happen next. Object relation is another task learned. This is learning about the individual’s identity through intra-psychic, interpersonal and group experiences. The task of tolerance is a matter learned of accepting self and the differences of others. Life Skills include home management. In home management, individuals learn care of materials, supplies, and tools. Through skill development and direction the individuals are prompted to become familiar with technology and encouraged to choose life styles that are suited to their independence. The individuals learn respect.

The Personal Domain includes the program areas of Health/Safety/Science (H/S/S), personal responsibility, physical fitness and motor skills. In H/S/S, individuals are assisted in reality orientation which is a structural form for individuals who are confused or disorientated in identity, time/place orientation, and in need of consistency in safety or other daily routines. The individuals gather, analyze, and respond to information in their environments. In Personal Responsibility, individuals learn how to think critically through forms of analysis and synthesis. They are reinforced to better their self-image and self-control through completion of tasks, conflict resolution, handling of emotions and goal setting. Physical fitness includes loco and non-locomotors skill by participation of various athletic means. Motor skills assist the individuals to learn through imitation, differentiation and object permanence which is the ability to know objects are there for them (including people), when they are not there physically. With the help of prompts and cues, individuals practice trust.

The Social Domain includes the program areas of Social Responsibility and Speech/Communication. Social Responsibility develops around skill building in inter-personal relations and comprises of listening, respect for others, sharing, accepting differences, communicating, peer pressure, reputations, and development of roles as individuals, peers, family members, neighbors, and community liaison. The individuals practice self-advocacy and self-determination amongst others who are similar or different. Speech/Communication involves the imitation of auditory and verbal stimuli, pre-speech, receptive and expressive language, articulation, and word recognition, identification of images, discussions and speech making.

The Achievement Domain includes the program areas of Functional Math/Money, Functional Reading/Writing, and enrichment. The first of the two functional areas prepare the individual for relationships and concepts, time management, and budgeting processes. The second functional area assists in developing comprehension, resource, symbols, self presentation and publishing. Enrichment includes services, celebrations and holiday programming and general interests such as crafts, decorating, leisure activities, singing and dance. Each of these program areas develop and encourage self-resourcefulness, wonder and awe. It is a swelling of pride of not only themselves, but in their relationship to God.

The Community Domain includes the program areas of Community Knowledge, Work Readiness, and Community Placement. During events of Community Knowledge, individuals become aware of a broad range of values, equity, dignity, interdependence, resourcefulness and enjoyment.  Vocational readiness teaches skill building in many goals such as speed, accuracy, confidence, order, concentration, self control, production, effort, efficiency, attitude, boundaries, and work ethic. Community placement is an orientation of all the above toward acceptance of self in a larger scale working environment of unlimited potential, and then the individuals have opportunities of returning to contribute and integrate with external and internal life-learning processes found and shared at the Center.  The circle of persons becoming rejuvenates itself as a gift of eternal friendship and camaraderie to one another.  It is the sense of belonging.

 

Friday, May 28, 2004

Snoozin and on then on the Run

Mornin... More like yeeks. Very little time here. We were up earlier and fell back asleep.

The generals of the day were that we worked and we saw Dr. M. That’s pretty simple hmm?

Think it was a younger persons day with Dr. M. Casey, Annemarie, and Anna were out, then Annemarie came back, then Casey. Gets kind of confusin. Can’t think so fast to be figurin out what was on everyone’s mind and do them justice.

Pretty much goes the same at work. I know we went through a lot of things, but never really had the time to go through our basic projects like annuals, CARF, or Qnotes. Things were busy throughout.

Sure don’t like waking up this fast. Hmm. Just need to keep on going right? Hey, Floralilia ... if you stop by, we wanted to let you know we’re envious! Sounds like you had a great time :)

That’s it ... Lookin forward already to Fridays being the end of the week. Think not until July though. It’ll be ok ... :)

Oh yeah ... and that Slac's a good looker!

 

Thursday, May 27, 2004

Dear(s) ... a Tough Day at the Office

Mornin. Everyone sleep ok? We’re doing ok, I think ... waking up early enough, but feel a little rushed. Maybe leftover feelings from the day before? Sometimes its hard to really take care of all the little self nurturing needs, before the next set presents itself. Hmm, see doesn’t that sound confusing?

Maybe we should get the coffee now? Hmm, hold on ... Ahh, that’s the ticket!

Hmm, so what’s next ... Birds are twittering and my virtual stream is running. Kitties have finished their breakfast and are trolliping. Funny kitties. Just doesn’t occur to them to be starting their morning, until they’ve made sure we’re up. I think they then take unadulterated pleasure in going "back to bed!"  That is until time-clock kitty starts pushing me out the door.  She says, "Get to work woman!"

We had a very long day yesterday. Maybe why we’re feeling a little zapped. There were a few things that happened, but by far and away the most concerting was that we had to prepare for, then host a long 5 1/2 hour inspection by the State of Illinois to certify nine clients for federal funding. Man-o-man ... just grueling!

The man who came out was nice enough, but he was very exacting. He only really looked at two reports within each of the client files up for inspection. He looked at ICAPs which are to discern the individuals adaptive and maladaptive behaviors. Then he looked at their "Psychologicals." Every individual that has a developmental disability has one. And, the standard rule is that it has to be checked every year and updated every five years.

Although, we get older people into the program, most of our individuals come into the program straight out of high school with a report from the school psychologist. So, we were in compliance with everyone having one, it’s just that the inspector found that four out of the nine individuals reports didn’t pass the grade of meeting federal standards. This was a vast improvement from the long point where he didn’t think any of them were going to pass.

Man, if you think this was going to create happy campers, you’d be mistaken. At first when the guy came in ... both Sister and I stayed with him in the new Activity room (where the staff and client laptops are set up). But after the first one ... shoot, just a whole lot of trouble. Sr. was not going to take this information sitting down. She was pretty angry because we’d passed all the other certifications with the same kind ofpsychologicals and we’d justpast the regular annual inspection from the State and CARF.

Our friend got involved too. I think his final statement on the situation was that ... it was going to shut us down. Not being able to have these people certified is a loss of $108,000 a year from a business that runs on about $450,000 a year. Sr. and our friend were all ready collaborating on whose attention to this matter they would need to connect to first. After the inspector scowled and shook his head over the first hour and two client files, Sr. figured she’d had enough of this to her blood pressure, so she left me to "sit" with him for the rest of the day on our own.

There were a couple of things that did help us out after a while. The first was that four of the clients were already in the process of getting new psychologicals because they were coming up to five years. Two of these we could get within a week with just the issue of getting family consents. Two of them, we still have to check for progress from the University.

The other part that helped was that the Inspector decided it was within his realm to call the high school we get most of our referrals from. We connected him first through the principal, then to the psychologist. She was able to convince him that the IQ they were using met federal standards. This helped some, but he still thought that there wasn’t enough information on the reports to qualify them all for reporting on adaptive behavior. He had three criteria out of six that needed to be met in the psychological reports. The criteria includes inability to 1) self care, 2) understand and the use of language, 3) learning, 4) mobility, 5) self-direction, 6) capacity for independent living.

All along there were questions to be answered and quite a bit of sitting across from him being prepared to answer questions or assure him that we were going to be calm, pleasant and not unappreciative of him doing his job. Shoot, we sure were appreciative that at about 1 pm, he was going to take a 20 minute lunch. Needed a break.

During the "visit" we kept Sr. updated, but after he went, we sat down in her office to survey the damage with her. There were calls and plans to be made. So the situation progressed, but everyone was pretty tired out. It had been a day of high pressure. Sr. retired to her convent and we took a break, had an apple, got some ice water and listened to some soft music. Hehe, it took a bit of effort to convince our mind we could still have a productive "evening" of work.

Most of that effort was in communication through our scheduler. There were 8 or 9 events that had happened before and after he got there and the event itself that we needed to get a hold of, plus the planning for the next day. Fortunately, after we turned ourselves over to this planning, we started to feel our normal calm and reassuring levels of involvement. In general, we are pretty efficient with our thoughts and skills.

One of the things we did as an aside that seemed like a pretty good deal was after having written about the event, we copied three long paragraphs to a Word document in the form of a memo to the other Q. I think that most often we’ve talked about this person in a rather negative light and in most cases she earns that position on her own. But, something is happening with our minds in that we are concentrating much more on efficiency and professionalism.

After a couple hours of the Inspector being there, we’d run into the other Q up at the copier machine. Apparently, she’s so out of things, that she hadn’t even realized he was in the building. She seemed pretty angry about that. She felt as if she should have been "notified." It hadn’t occurred to us to do this, because all 9 clients under certification were my clients and Sr. had then naturally set it up so I be working with him. The other Q. spouted off, "Well maybe I could have helped!"

At the time we thought roughly on this, because in reality, we knew that Sr. has been pretty definitely angered and frustrated with this persons abilities, knowledge and lack of professionalism. It was just a given. So, later when we were closing down our thoughts of the evening, we figured although we didn’t want her interfering with the actual process as it were happening, she really did have the right to know of the results, especially because a couple of the "slots" may be filled in with her clients. She had gone home early, but we’d checked her client files and a couple of her clients seemed potential candidates. We also thought she should be aware of the adaptive needs the federal government is now interested in.

We’ll see how that all washes over this morning. I’ll let Sr. know I gave the memo and ask her is she would like a copy. *Sigh*

I think that the day taught me a couple of things. First of all, it may have been due to Sr.’s compliments the day before, or just that I’m feeling more on top of things the last month, but in general we really are trying to improve our professionalism. It’s kinda hard! I think the first lesson is to listen more than speak, and when you ARE asked to speak, to have the proper information. Negative personal intonations count against!

I’ve actually learned this from the other Q., because 98% of the time, I hear her being asked to do something either from myself, Sr. or someone else ... she groans and moans like you’d just hit her in the stomach! It’s terrible. Due to this we’ve long since taken it upon ourselves to after having been given a new assignment, just to nod and say, "Yes, maam, I’ll take care of that" if there are no other further questions. Unfortunately, I haven’t been as good afterward when I hit the office or beyond to be complaining or fretting.

Now days, we’re absolutely "in love" with the sense of control we have in summarizing our daily events. We also love the ability of keeping everything close to "in mind." We’re doing a couple of things better now as to the process. Like we’ve gotten much better when we change events to mark down on a post-it a marker and the time. Instead of kinda sittin their thinking in our head, we are studying the words written for accuracy and conciseness. We used to have a lot of aimless moments where we found ourselves to be just staring off into the garden. I have a sense like I do when we’re writing here of re-focusing ourselves.

Even yesterday (after having been predominantly swamped with one issue), we were able to reflect later that these other events had happened. There was some follow up from many events, especially the ones where we had connected to other people. We found the follow-up is most likely necessarily of a smaller amount of time. Sort of the issue we’d raised earlier. There is no sense in going back to jump on beds. We want to train ourselves to progress the last progression. We feel its important for the staff or clients we worked with to have taken back control of their issues.

Another nice thing about the schedule is that while we weren’t able in the last hour or so to "get into" the bigger projects, we were able to bring a few smaller projects into completion, which seemed as easy as summer Sunday school by this time. Like we found ourselves making a medicine-taking schedule for one of the clients to use at home in .20 minutes and in .17 minutes completing an incident report for one of the clients from the day before. It was actually kind of fun.

There is a goofy notation in here, in that one of the things that is happening is we are much more apt to return our desks back over to order which includes walking up to the front offices more often to "take care" of business whether it be carrying out a message or task vocally or on paper. Keeps us in the swing, because we’re being "seen" more by both staff and clients.

I’m pretty sure that other people are enjoying that we’re more involved for brief moments of time. Maybe it helps them to feel they are progressing too. We try to make it a habit during most of the day to not be stopping to "gossip." That’s been longstanding and is our reputation. Hehe that is with the exception of our best female friend. She and I are pretty much alone right now as very good supporters to Sister, in that due to our abilities to work, the two of us are more often on her good list than bad. With her, I’ll give a few moments more to help or discuss some personal issues on how all things are going. We are also the only two that have been given overtime hours to work.

I know if she is having trouble collecting rent, or that her car broke down, she is going to be too frustrated to concentrate on her normal load of hard work. She knows if we’re angry or overwhelmed, we’re less efficient. Plus, just hurts to see her unhappy. She’s naturally one of those soul of the Earth type people. It’s kind of funny in one respect. In our agency she has as much respect for mopping floors or changing toilet papers than I have for one of the fancy reports. Love it! A lot of that is to Sr.’s credit. Everyone’s position is necessary and given equal attention.

Hmm, well ... I’ve gone on about a million and 6 yards again today. I’m really appreciative of those of you that keep coming back to read. I don’t know how interesting all our talk of work and such is, but you should know I take great honor in the process of doing it and am thrilled when you all leave comments. It was especially nice yesterday that you all could feel some relieve in being able to say, "Yay us!" Rather than "You need a break!" Hehe we’re a trying ... yep, and more money too!

Take care of the day ... we love you!!!

Wednesday, May 26, 2004

A Big Busy Day (Very long, sorry)

Mornin! How’s everyone? We’re feelin pretty good. We’re just finishing leftovers from last night’s Mexican dinner out with our friend. Just love being taken out and having leftovers is an important plus! We woke up this morning at a decent time too. Feelin happy in general.

We talked of mostly work stuff last night, which was pretty good, cuz we were wound up a bit. We thought we’d done pretty good through the day, but there was some extra thought processing that was nice to get through with someone else. Our friend is really pretty smart as far as figurin things out. Especially work stuff when he puts his mind to it. I think sometimes, between the two of us we can get crabby at each other then there is like more complaining. But, he was tired and mellow and we’d had time to think through the part where we weren’t going to be grouchy. It was a good night!

There was a lot of work stuff on our mind, cuz all day we kept being interrupted by one thing or another. I know the interruptions our actually a part of our work too, but it wasn’t the kind of stuff that we had scheduled out.

We got to work a little late, cuz we’d forgotten to put gas in the car. It’s like $2.13 a gallon now we noticed and 10 cents more expensive if we forget and have to fill up in the city. It’ll be a real test to see if I can remember what was happening. I think we got the first 15 minutes to be taking care of the organizing part of the day. That was good luck, because we had to keep going back to the schedule to update for changes.

The first one that I remembered talking to was my bestest work girlfriend. She’s the job coach right now and after those hours are done, she does cleaning work around the center. She was having a couple of problems. One was that she was coming up to her job evaluation too and there was some unsettled hourly business. She’d let go of her side job and Sister wanted her to go from 30 hours to 40 hours, but our friend wanted to be able to choose when she comes and goes. She wanted variable scheduling instead of set. So, we encouraged her to tell Sister what her needs are instead of carrying over her anger.

The next thing was that she was upset for having gotten yelled at the day before. Hehe ... with Sister Theresa there’s always a good chance of that happening, but she kind of messed up and wasn’t understanding the situation. We helped her figure it out. Basically, she’d come back from a field trip with the clients at 10 to 2 instead of at 1:30, but the transportation for the client’s rides start to come in at quarter too. She wasn’t seeing the problem of the risks she was taking by thinking the client cabs could wait. We talked about planning how much time was needed, then giving herself 15 minutes more.

Hmm, forgot ... there was a client problem before that. We helped one of the client’s figure out that if she took responsibility over watching over her taking of her medications and getting her own change for rides that she’d feel much more independent and not be causing so much worrying problems for her mother. Hmm, have to make her a calendar in the next couple of days so she can be recording the times she takes the medicine.

It seemed like each problem we were having was kinda stacked onto the next, so I was trying to be careful with the time. Basically, we have a client who’s not been watched carefully by her DSP, so the secretary felt she had to step in when she found one of the DSP’s clients (one of ours) to be loitering in the food prep room waiting for her sweetie to come in so she could say hello.

At our work, it’s important for everyone to be where they are supposed to be so and doing what they’re supposed to be doing ... clients aren’t supposed to roam and be unaccountable for and they aren’t supposed to be interrupting other groups to be passing off love letters or such. Eh, it’s in the rules.

The secretary was the first to say something to us. She was upset because the DSP had kind of laid up for the client that she didn’t really care, but that the secretary had said something. She put it to the client as "well, I don’t know who was telling the truth, but..." That set up a lousy co-worker situation and in the process the client was encouraged to take the matters in her own hand, so she went and blew-up at the secretary.

We thanked the secretary for being efficient and having tried to do the right thing in relaying to staff a problem and in having recognized the client’s problem. Then we told her we’d look into it further. We told her we’d clarify with the DSP her situation, then talk to the client. This DSP gets kind of defensive when you talk to her. So we were brief. We asked her what the rules were in the morning for the client being out of the room, then we told her we were going to talk to the client about "roaming and loitering." That seemed ok with her, though I knew that would mean the DSP would be in our office in the afternoon to check things out.

So at 1 pm, the client came to our office. That turned out to be longer than we expected, but this client happens to be one of our higher functioning and we’re trying to help her to think through the issues. It’s not a normal thing for us to yell or lecture. Together, we figured out that she was having problems in that, she wanted to say, "Good morning, how are you?" to her friend, so had taken the role of being sneaky.

We worked through a schedule with her that she’d arrange to have 10 extra moments in the morning to be giving him a call before work. In reality this will take some extra work, because neither of the clients involved do a super job at reading clocks. Hehe, but we didn’t let her get by with that. We figure this one works, she can buy a $7-8 kitchen timer. And, we made sure she wasn’t going to be dumping her problems on the secretary for her own irresponsibility in following the Center’s rules.

The DSP was the trickiest one. She had started off the conversation by saying that she doesn’t trust the secretary and that sometimes what she says isn’t true. This DSP is pretty smart, as they go, but only has been around almost a year and is still with some faulty thinking.

The secretary is very conscientious. We figured there were boundary issues though if the secretary was stepping into problems due to DSP neglect. We told her that she could get a better handle on the situation if she could become someone the secretary could trust in handling the problems she had to present. As it were the DSPs been telling her clients mixed messages of trusting other staff members, including us.

Of course, it would have also been good for the DSP to have known the client was out of the room excessively. This we were also hearing from one of the other DSPs who runs the group where the male half of this "love situation" resides. So in that respect we talked of setting the timer. The client shouldn’t take more than 5-10 minutes away. Also, the client had to be readdressed as to job responsibilities. She’d created in her mind it was ok to be out of the room waiting for the lunches to come in, where actually its not she’s to return after bringing the bulk of the lunches to the fridge. The stragglers are to put away their own lunches.

We also addressed with the DSP that while she could think it "fair" to be hearing both sides of the story in talking to both DSP and secretary that it wasn’t really an equal situation where one was right and the other was wrong with herself deciding. We conveyed that when she talked to the secretary, she was professionally "consulting" not just hearing a "side" to the story. We asked her to listen to whatever information the secretary was trying to relay, then take up the corrections with the client.

As far as having issues with the secretary, we reminded her (as the other Q had not) that staff to staff issues were always handled directly with Sister Tess. The last thing we tried to teach her was that when another staff member intervened (as we had done), that she was to consider the situation "progressed" and to precede from that point, rather than at the beginning.

Basically, if I’d spent 45 minutes with a client and had sent a note saying, "This is what was resolved." Then she should not be "re-working" the previous issue with the client. It confuses the client if between us we’ve put issues to bed, to have the DSP come back and be jumping on the bed. Instead she should be asking the client what was resolved and can I help you? It’s perfectly legitimate to progress our progression. It would be like reclaiming her own responsibilities to be serving the client.

Man ... that was a long problem to resolve... It took the course of a whole day to "take care" of things properly.

During the day we also furthered the issues of the Annual Report that Sister feels it is now time for me to work on. But, the redeeming part is that she is giving me the secretary to help! Yay for secretaries!! The Center’s secretary happens to be very good at formatting on MS Publisher, so we’re thinking that it will be in pretty good hands.

We went through it with her. We handed her the format Sr. wanted to use this year. Then ran down the list of who would be responsible for each of the parts. Hehe - much easier to do just some of the work than all the publishing, it really took up too much time last year.

So, I get front/back covers, and the next two pages to list out our 5 programs, Sr. gets a page for an Administrative letter, we get the next page for a CARF summary, we get the next page for demographics, the secretary has the next two pages for contributors and committee volunteers, Sr. and Sr. Gets the next page for financial summary. She also gets to pick out and work through with the secretary the pictures. We’ll try to let Sr. handle any extra lay-out questions with the secretary. It’s just fussidy "feel-good" work that Sr. likes and we can do with out.

Feeling pretty sweet to me! Sister will want it done before her vacation around June 19th. Possible, yes possible. Along with the model Annual Report handed the secretary, we gave her Sr.’s letter and the demographics (already done through CARF work). We gave about a half hour work toward the Cover pages and Sr.’s already working on the financial. We figured and it was acceptable to Sister to use our new flowchart for the front back cover.  But we told her we needed time to make it a little more simple and "game board" like.  We'd already tested the first version on the secretary and feel the flow chart is of high merit, but needs to be easier to interpret.  The secretary will have to choose between starting layout or pulling together her two pages. Figure this is all very good and how a "team" should work.

There’s still a matter of priorities. I’ve still got the backed up Qnotes and trying to finish up on the Performance analysis before the CARF request comes in, and then we were given the news that a State inspector is coming in to look at 9 of my client files for new financing rules. Today!! Sheese! We think he may be here as early as this afternoon ... so it’ll will take some real fast and fancy footwork this morning!

The other issues of Intake and Annuals and Program Development and Staff Training all came up as well in minor ways, but for the bulk returned to back burners. Basically, it was due to Sr. deciding to do the other Q’s, the job coach and my half year evaluation all in the same day. She surprised me that she got to us so fast this round.

Lots of stuff discussed and we came out pretty good. We got a 91 out of 100 on one preset evaluation and 76-100 on the other. It’s our fault really. She gives us the forms ourselves to fill in first, then she "corrects." We scored ourselves real pretty well with the first gave ourselves high marks for quality of work, initiation, and self-education, but scored terrible in appearance :). She agreed. *Sigh* The second one, she gave me 6 more points than I had. I thought I was way too behind in many things to say I was excellent. I just scored ourselves in above average. She agreed.

There was only one complaint she’s recorded. She says, I can’t start any new projects without finishing the first. I could have guessed that one was coming, because it was the same problem last evaluation. Hehe, I figure I’m real lucky, because she says that she gave the other Q, two pages of corrections and she said a couple more staff wouldn’t get raises.

The next part was evaluating the survey I had turned in. She went one by one over all the issues including not saying, "Thank you" or "Good work," and her being angry so much. They kind of merged into one. She wrote and stated clearly that she was overwhelmed and I was thinking so much and so fast that she wasn’t able to catch up. She also thought I was too demanding of her to be looking over all my projects with what she already had on the table.

So, I agreed that I would be satisfied if she just accepted the paperwork I always hand her with my "work issues" and that it would go on her stack to be decided in her own time frame. She said, she would try to be more conscientious with the complimentary things. We stated, nothing big, just enough to let us know we were going in the right direction.

We talked about my memory problems as being the chief culprit of a lot of "her anger" issues. If its not written down, some of the parts aren’t able to remember. She gets very frustrated with me not being able to always respond quickly from the top of our head. We need written cues. We agreed that neither she nor our friend would have to look at our new scheduler, but that it was ok for me to keep one, so I felt on track.

She also, as I was saying, arranged and prioritized some of the other issues, particularly Staff Training. She had talked to the other Q., so it is now known officially out there that I will pick it up July 1rst (our new year). That’s pretty good, because things will have to get done. I’ll let her or the other Q tell the DSPs. Sr. still has to hire another staff, but there will be 7 people in the training sessions. We’ve been doing a lot of "head work" on that issue on a day-to-day basis and are feeling pretty comfortable.

Yesterday, she prefaced that she wants to have me do the first meeting on a program development issue of the DSPs scheduling. As soon as she said that, we knew what to do, because we’d just worked out that objective in the Performance Analysis work the day before. She agreed to our "presentation idea." Pshwew!!

Hmm, think we’re coming to an end in the day ... with the exception it took me a half an hour to fix the DSP’s printer. Yeeks! What a day... Whoops, forgot one part ... the money! Hehe. Pretty much she carried through her inan "expected" manner. She’d been cluing us in all along. The deal with NOT working "at the office" on Saturdays is a done deal. We’ve pretty much accepted that this is going to be our "professional reading day." So it’s ok. On the other hand, she understood the money issues and CARF issues about "Salary work."

So from nowon, I’ll be able to work late, or not ... and be getting added to my "salary" FOR the extra 38 Saturdays I would have worked. So my salary includes as if I’d been paid hourly for 48 hours work. Pretty sweet, Hmm!?? And, on top of that, we got a 3% raise!! My poor friend grumbled. He knows he’s not to expected to get a raise or sparkly review. He also says, I’m most likely one of the highest paid Q’s in the city. Hehe, I’m almost thinking he’s right! When Sister added it up for us, then broke down what it meant "hourly," I was very pleased. Even though ... I knew I wouldn’t really be taking home that much more. The big number is before taxes and health insurance is withdrawn. *Sigh*

Think mostly ... the nicest thing that happened yesterday was that Sr. apologized for any part that she may have contributed to the thinking that I wasn’t a good employee. She said, "I don’t know what I’d do without you, you are my right arm." That made us feel ... pretty d*mn good!!

Tuesday, May 25, 2004

Relationships

Mornin.. Hmm, that’s right ... mornin :) We’ve been up for a while with the intentions of checking out our J-block, but found ourselves checking out some of the new sites John G. And Jeanne have scouted out. It was very interesting trying to de-script some of the terminology and customs. Seems that folks in the UK look forward to vacations (being on holiday) and have similar troubles with getting through work and/or securing the proper mates as we seem to have here in the US.

We found one journal in particular that we would really enjoy going back to, so have included it on our list. Hehe - I think he tends to write-on at length as we do, so that earned an extra smile! Mostly, I love it when we get to hear other people thinking. I think our favorite all time study in in how the mind works. Seems we’ve all got at least one or so and the practice of its practical use is uncanny. Welcome to our thoughts, "Thinkerer!"

We had an acceptable day yesterday. The best part was being at Dr. M’s. It took us (Casey) a while to be adjusted, because Dr. M’s. office was redecorated. He’s got a new couch, chairs, and desk. Rather abrupt to loose the couch you’ve taken to as your second home, even if we did have warning! The decision on this change was positive. The new couch is comfortable and Dr. M’s choice in colors is very good.

There was one problem in that during his moving things about, he’d inadvertently covered up Casey’s picture of Dog ... That didn’t go over so well. But, alas ... Casey’s not one to hold a grudge!

Older parts had a chance out after not too long, though we’re thinking its pretty hard on Casey to be giving up her time with Dr. M. She knows more about sharing than most her age, but it’s difficult for her nonetheless. We’ve seen that also in her relationship with our friend. Nothing to do, but encourage her in the part that people don’t go away for too long and there’s always help around the next corner. And, yes ... it’s ok to have favorites!

Not too sure what all was talked about. I know a good part of it was centered on our friend. I think the system has been feeling neglected by him and has been having feelings about this. Basically, he is only seen about 2-3 hours a week and sometimes that doesn’t seem enough to keep a friendship up to date. There really is not alot of other personal contact.Wouldn’t be so bad, but we have so few relationships ... we put a lot of stock in just this one. We’re trying to tame our ambition.

We’ll get a chance to go out to dinner tonight. Although, we’ve known our friend about 10 years, we’ve only turned him down for a night out 2-3 times. We did that on Saturday night. We were pretty indignant. We’ll have to work through what that experience entailed. Or not, maybe water under the dam? Hmm, probably not :) We’re like that you know? There are still hurt feelings involved. We won’t accept becoming a casual friend without a fight!

There was one other part of the conversation that is being somewhat held this morning. I’m doubting that we will be able to convey it here any better than we did with the good Dr. I don’t know ... maybe it is a general form of the process of taking stock in one’s life. But, we’ve been having some pretty strong feelings in the relationship to Dr. M. of late. We fell just short of thinking of him as the "perfect" person. Maybe this is common in a lot of therapeutic relationships. It doesn’t feel common.

We admitted that in all the years with him ... We’re coming up to the fifth ... the worse complaint we’ve ever had with him, is that sometimes he’s just too happy! Yeah, I know ... a far from critical response of the man. Hehe. One of the aspects noted was that the boundaries between us are so well established. I think this is centered around his ability and ours to be respectful of the other. I don’t think this happens between people as often as it should.

When I’m with him ... and now days, even when we’re not ... we feel like we are an important person. Not more so than others, but definitely, not less so. We have the impression that he’s highly sought after as a counselor from most his patients. The time is spent with each would be undividedly. He’s set the bar high for many of our other relationships. Think this is part of the problem between our relationship to our friend. It’s not fair to him to be comparing the two relationships, but if you’ve ever really been listened too and understood, you know the feeling and never want to go back to anything less.

We’re trying to get past the gushing part of our feelings. We’re guessing that you all must get tired of hearing about our relationships ... as limited as they are in number. I don’t think though, that I was ever interested in knowing a great number of people. We’re far more likely to be concentrating on the few great relationships that are out there. Pretty much for now, we’re focused on only Dr. M., our oldest son, Sr. Tess, our friend, and you all. Pretty chummy group ... I think besides Dr. M., that you all know us "persona grata" better than most.

There are of course other relationships ... like the other two sons, co-workers, clients, service providers and such, it’s just that these others don’t feel as intricately woven into our immediate attention as do you all. Maybe one day ... but, maybe it will never happen. It’s hard to tell. I think its important we feel good about the relationships that do connect. And, its not that we’re not connecting. Each of these other people I come in contact with each day something happens ... most changes are so incrementally small, that one would need a microscope to capture their essences. Think this is the way life happens in general.

The relationship we hold as a provider of roles, services and attention just can’t be compared to the sharing that must exist in a relationship of some equality of thought. Although the roles between Doctor and patient, cannot be considered equal ... the quality of thought provoked is uniquely inspired. We’re hoping in that same matter to be of value to those we work with and/or nurture. Sometimes we’re able to match up thought with others that aren’t so direct and that is grand too.

Yesterday, we were with a client soon toward the end of her lunch period. I may have mentioned her already. She is considered to have severe mental retardation. Our general "lunch time" experience with her is to have her respond to a routine that is in a manner of her taking care of self. We have to start with put down your fork, pick up the container top, push it down, open your lunch bag, put the containers in, zipper the bag closed, etc. The commands then continue as we teach her to stand up, push in chair, follow us into the other room, put lunch bag in closet, and shut the closet door. Each command is followed by a pause as she processes the request one small step at a time.

The client doesn’t speak, except to say the phrase, "Come here." She is a big pretty girl with a friendly personality. She watches her audience intently and is always just 2 centimeters away from giving you a big friendly smile or giggle. If you didn’t tell the individual what to do, she would most likely stand in one place and look confused as to taking just a simple step. Sort of like the big Indian in Jack Nicholson’s movie, "The Cuckoo’s Nest."

Well to make a long story short ... yesterday for the first time, this individual played a joke on us which shows an interactive relationship to another degree or platform! Can’t tell you what a deep feeling of personal satisfaction that was. It was simple really ... it took place during the part of her training (we’re hoping one day, she performs these tasks independently) where we ask her to "zipper the bag closed." She was zippering it, albeit very slowly as is her style, but she got to the last 2 ½ inches and stopped. We are used to holding our breath when she does this and we’re apt to say, and sometimes help her hand-over-hand to "go all the way."

So after having done this (helped her to complete zippering the bag), I let go of our gentle touch and she unzippered the bag about 4-5 inches. We must have looked confused. So, we repeated, "no the bag needs to be zippered." We guided her hand toward the closure again. She was compliant. But, just two seconds after we’d "completed" the task, she repeated the unzippering of the bag. By now our forehead must have contained a wrinkle. We’re thinking, "Hmm, this isn't going so well today..." So again, we helped her to zipper the bag. The difference was in the last time when she again, repeated "the trick," was that I heard her roar with laughter and a grin as I looked up into her face!

We were just beside ourselves ... we bumbled out, " **** you’ve been playing a game with us!??" Oh, if you could only see her sunny cherub face! The look said ten times over, "I got you! Aren't I just so very smart!" Man-o-man what a wondrous world!

Monday, May 24, 2004

A Relaxed Day

Mornin... Mornin... Not much time today to write ... We woke up late, because we stayed up a whole 3 hours past our bedtime. Shoot, felt like a school kid on the first night of her vacation :)

*Sigh* But, we finally did wake up and low and behold ... we’ve got another working day... Hmm... It just seems to work like that.

I had a very nice day yesterday ... I never got to the work. Instead, I stayed on the computer with the journals all day and just read to my heart’s content! What a way to relax and enjoy the day!!

Hehe, well maybe not to all you. From what I read, a lot of you have full-motion lives that include being with people and going outside to see the world, or at least as far as to do some gardening and such. We are settling on the part that we can look into all that vicariously. For someone who spends as much time alone with as little allowance ... it is quite the life. :) It is like hearing the stories of Mom’s and Dad’s, grandparents and even a few of the kids. Not everyone is married of course, but we only found one story in a couple of hundred read where the journalist was pretty miserable.

I kind of cheated in my selections. I went through all of Scalzi’s weekend assignment providers, so I know a whole lot about people in the second grade. There were some very good stories in the bunch, so I read a little more on some of the people I visited. Then, because I was really caught up with journals, I picked quite a few of my favorite journalists and went through their favorite lists to see how many new people I could meet. But, it was definitely a lurking day ... I only left a few comments for the people I knew.

I found myself thinking, "Oh, so this is who that is!" Mostly because I recognized a lot of commenting people from the other sites. My favorite thing to do is just to read the last ten stories. A few times I went back in the history file, but not often. I figure this way I can get a lot of people "sense" and a whole lot more life varieties. It may sound a little goofy, but I only found one or two that I didn’t complete all ten first entries. Usually after I read the about me section and one entry I’m hooked and curious. It’s like ... well, they did leave the key under the front door mat!

Most of the people I was reading were people who have already seemed to have gathered a journal presence. They know what interests them in writing and have been around the block. Most were consistent journalwriters who write often and there was a huge variety of speaking styles. I do have to admit that I like the general commonality of form. In that I mean, I know that when I open a journal most likely there will be an introduction and a list of people that the journalist connect to.

One thing that surprised me was that most of the people who had families would definitely write about their children, but more often they’d write from their own heart and had established their own adult interests. That was pretty cool. I’m also surprised by the number of married people's journals out there where love is the rule and very little spouse complaining is done. It’s kind of cool really. And, of course, because this is the journal world loved by many, there is like not gossip of each other.

It seems that many of the people use the journals to sort out what’s going on in their lives. So many wonderful stories that include people (characters) that are most central to their day in day out lives. Suppose this would be kind of natural. But, it is different from journals where most the talk is about world events or such. I know I could find those journals to, but it’s not my general interest.

So, that’s about it for the weekend! Now it’s time to think ahead. Today is a Dr. M Day. :) It’s a little chillier than it has been of late. It’s only 57 degrees out there and we still have wind here in Chicago. Hmm, ‘tell we’re thinking ahead of what to wear? Just think millions of people around the world could be having that same thought right now as us! Not sure of what we’ll talk about today. I s’pose some of the negative reactions I had last week would be in order. Never know what will come to mind after we get there. Or, who’s mind for that matter. We’ve had some time to be not thinking of work for a day, so chances are maybe not so much from that direction.

One of the stray weekend thoughts was how much we liked Dr. M. We’re more apt to carry a sense of him, than not. One of the curiosities of late is how direct and immediate his umm, what would you call it? It’s the part where he’s listening intently and can go from relaxed and chuckling to terribly serious and in command all in about a second flat. It’s like we know when we’ve stepped out there on that ledge. He’s always there no matter how much we push and pull through life trying to make sense of it and how we are going to relate.

Maybe we could call it trust. Yeah ... maybe focus on that some more. Yeeks. Gots to be goin! Take care the day!!

Sunday, May 23, 2004

Good Attention versus Bad Attention

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Hey Bill ... this one is especially for you ... you were right in that there were feelings about the preliminary test results. We talked to Dr. M., but it was only a half hour over the phone on Friday afternoon. He summarized the tests for us, then emailed them for us to look over after we’d gotten off the phone.

I have to admit that our first reaction wasn’t a positive one ... that part came later after two hours of thinking things over and more Internet reading that was done trying to understand the test terminology for ourselves.

A negative part of us was out with Dr. M. I think basically she’d hoped that the results had gone the other way. She was angry as if tricked out of an inward goal to not be having a longstanding life. There were validations such as feeling as a bother to the kids. The logic went that if we’d died earlier, they wouldn’t have to worry about us developing more illnesses or helping us financially through a life apt to be spent alone in nursing homes. There was also the thought that we’d prefer to have died by a quick heart attack than, an accident, a difficult cancer or prolonged senility.

I think also there was a kind of order that people like us could appreciate. We wanted a number. A calculation of how many years we had left. We wanted things "nice and neat." We had done a lot of preparing ourselves for the thought that we wouldn’t be here and to reverse those thoughts was difficult for us.

I also think we felt sorry for ourselves from the more negative perspective that life is a burden. We’d fairly adjusted to all the physical problems we have and thought, "good," then we won’t deal with it, then later .... well, we would deal with it and make the best out of our last years. So upon hearing "positive" news we were more like, "fine," then there is no reason to get all excited about diabetes, arthritis, weight, smoking, and such because it turns out we’re fairly healthy as far as our heart is concerned and we can get by with the direction we’d been headed.  We seem always to be looking for an angle, or easy way out...

I think also we were caught up in a childhood reality that stretched through our adulthood through my father and mother and their family. There seems to be a fascination with being ill and especially to be hospitalized. It is like people connect to each other and ask, "Hi, how are you?" "Fine" "How’s the weather?" "Fine" "So, how is your health treating you?" "Oh Well ... I’m glad you asked, let me talk about that some!"

I haven’t figured out all the ramifications of that. For most of our years, we avoided telling anyone that anything was wrong with us, because I think there is a part that wants the "sympathy" of others ... Because bad attention is better than no attention. This is a far cry different then wanting an empathetic response from someone who loves you and cares deeply. The family we grew up with was very shallow and seemed to except pity over real relationing (Think we just created this word. :) They also used other people’s "problems" as an opportunity to vent their own troubles. I hated that ... always the one where "You think that was bad, I can do that one better!" I think it is a form of minimalizing others.

I think there is a part also in the family that I grew up in hoards calamity and disaster as if it makes you a stronger and better person. Who knows ... maybe this is part of my backward German genes. Shoot, way out here now ... we rarely ever, ever admit to being German! Yeeks and Creepercrum. Nuf of that!!

Now, don’t get excited here. We know that all of this is lousy thinking. But, maybe part of what we were going through too is like shock. We were afraid that someone was just fooling us, as if to tease us that we were actually going to get a life, then suddenly snap it away again. Two and a half hours after we’d hung up from Dr. M. we sent him another email asking if we "Really weren’t going to die?" He responded back in about three minutes saying, "Not from your heart.  :)"  He used our favorite powder blue to respond from note to note!  Thanks Dr. M. even if it were just a coincidence  :)

We stared at that message ‘til we felt a ‘smidgeon of relief and also that it became real clear we weren’t going back to work and might as well go home. We "treated" ourselves with going out to eat Linguini, shrimp and vegetables. We also contacted the few external people we knew such as Sr. Tess, our son, and our friend to tell them the "good" results of the test. I’m afraid none of them heard much more than our first entry response to you all. It has taken us awhile before we could handle and have time for thoughts and feelings that were more positive.

We’re thinking now the subtle message Dr. M. sent in that we could still die from something other than our heart ... most likely due to our bad habits. We’ve started the first effort toward all that. We downloaded a health program that is supportive and would help to calculate what is happening with our food intake, exercise and medical issues and we’ve been reading from their program. We’ve got to be honest here ... we’re real close to thinking of what to do right, but we just washed down that thought with another donut.  :( There is going to be resistence.

I think in general ... it is a good thing to have a heart that seems to be working ... we just have to try harder to fathom it out. I think our strongest point is that of work. We love what we are doing, and had still looked forward to retiring at 60 to be doing personal work with our reading and writing. We’d even come up with a back up plan to have someone read to us, or write for us if we’re not able to function in that direction. I don’t know what will happen if our thoughts get stranger than they already are. But, then I remember back in college when we were in human development and the people in our major had reputations for hugging trees. *Grin* We loved everything! I hope it will always be like that, even if I can’t remember the name of the attendant who wheeled us over to the big maple and smuggled us that Milky Way bar.

We talked in IM to John G. a little last night before going to bed. The both of us had come to basically the same conclusion as crosses our mind now. We’re all in God’s hands, and we should be trusting that he is going to take care of us. It really doesn’t get much more complicated than that. I really am grateful that he’s blessed us with my life.

So that said, maybe we’ll take a walk around the J-neighborhood, before dedicating ourselves back to that problem we’d gotten a handle on yesterday at work. I may be halfway to old and feeble, but at least Jamie's mind is still capable of figuring out the normal distribution of a bell-shaped curve. That ‘ol Performance Analysis is coming along smoothly. Just she takes some time and attention!

Just wanted to say one more thing. I appreciate all of you who’ve shown concern over the last week or two in regard to our health and sanity. Hehe ... Good attention is really better than bad attention, right??!  No sense to go backward ... we're having a really fine and wonderful life!

Picture - http://www.terragalleria.com/america/north-west/wyoming/picture.uswy8377.html

Saturday, May 22, 2004

Best Friends in the Second Grade

Our best friend in the second grade went by the name of Carol Ann. We’d met when both our families moved into the brand new houses on 6th Street. It was a new "affordable" subdivision. She lived right next store in the smaller white house. Carol Ann and us were 1 ½ years old that first year.

We’d share lives back out on her backyard picnic table, create homes under the summer linen her mom hung to dry, and build snow forts in the front yards come winter. We even had overnights up in the treeless treehouse (stilts) that my father and his friend built for my brothers cub scout troop. We’d been growing and changing since back when the yards were nothing but sand and dirt and no one had real fences. Carol Ann and us both went on to the same nursery school and began our elementary "career" together. We always saved seats on the bus for each other.

She had the nicer mom, who baked and talked to kids. By second grade, my mom took a full-time day job and turned us into latch key kids. After my older sadistic brother had tormented us enough in all this newfound "freedom and boy power," we’d go running for Carol Ann’s Mom, athough we were supposed to stay in the house until one of the parents got home. She was our safety. Carol Ann and us each had siblings older and younger and nastier than us. She seemed to understand and shared her mom.

Carol Ann and us were the only girls that age on a very kid friendly block.  There were nine boys in the same grade as Carol Ann and us.  She was allowed out more and had fewer chores, but we could still join in because sometimes it was the numbers for the different teams that mattered and were sought.  There were 61 kids on that block all within ten years of each other, plus or minus. There were a lot of games like bike riding, hide and seek, soccer, baseball, basketball, tennis, tag, red rover and such. Some of the kids we would babysit for as we reached the age of ten.  Six of us our age went on to become varsity athletes in high school.  Although, we were enrolled in different sports, most of us became leaders in our own field.

Coming into second grade, Carol Ann and us had a falling out by proxy. A new girl, Michelle, moved in across the street from her house. I remember playing one last game of Barbies over at Michelle’s, but I could see Carol Ann going over more frequently than I was asked. I remember being in awe of Michelle, but she thought we were "strange." She seemed rich because she had parents who gave her matching white furniture with ruffled curtains, a big thick white shag rug and a Barbie Doll Dream House with a lot of beautiful store bought clothes. Ours were only "homemade."  She was also the only girl and oldest of four kids. Michelle was in the fourth grade and didn’t have the heart for two friends. She was very blunt. She said, "Carol Ann doesn’t want to play with you anymore." So we stopped.

We were second year Brownies in the second grade so that took up some of our attention. There was a transitional friend named Judy, but the real love of our life was Sarah. We were both 8 when we met. We became inseparable. In third grade Carol Ann was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes. She stayed in the house more. Her father was a truck driver who used to drink a lot of beer, fight with his family and do a bunch of swearing. It wasn't that my father was any different, but we had been growing different than Carol Ann. 

None of that mattered as long as we had Sarah.  She and us specialized in imaginary games that included play school, stuffed animals, and invisible red motorcycles.  When we reached 10 ... our new best friend died. She was in a bike accident coming over to our house on a busy street.

We became loners with the exception that with the loss of Sarah, the part who played and knew her best became our "Sarah" part.  Sarah remains happy and bridges our world to God and heaven.  She is also the keeper of our health and safety.  I was the new personality created to take over the role of sadness, grief, and loneliness.  My name is Corey.  I had the greatest amount of "time out," but didn't talk much to external people for about three years.  By that time there were one core and ten parts. In the external world, we became "bus kids" shipped to different schools to accommodate the neighborhood over crowding. I stopped saving Carol Ann seats in 7th grade, when she started smoking in the back of the bus. We became a "jock" and she became a "freak." Those world’s never mix, except Carol made sure no one ever bothered us. We stayed in scouting and paid a lot of attention to leader "mother figures."

When I was 17 our parents divorced, but my father and his new wife stayed in the same small Minneapolis suburb of Blaine as Carol Ann and her family. The families remained friends. I moved away that same summer to southern Minnesota for college, then soon after to Chicago to raise a family. I’d hear things aboutCarol Ann, but we’d soon forget the details. Seem to remember she'd gotten married and had kids.

  When our father and his wife died last year, she came to the funerals. I was looking at someone very important to my life and we couldn’t respond properly.  The part who stutters was out.  Carol Ann seemed friendly and outspoken just like her Mom. But, we regressed into someone who was small, hurt and confused. We made no long standing connecting ties.  Carol Ann became just another part of a past we didn’t want to return to. 

Hmm, sorry John ... It had started happier ...  Oh yeah, I growed into me and that's all just fine and dandy!!  That's truly the happiest of endings!!  I still worry over things, but my feelings and thoughts that I have and collect from the others has given me a reality surpassed by none other.  Most of my part now days has to do with the ability and desire to write.  :)

Preliminary Results in :)

Morning ... We were up 3 times, but kept going back to bed. I only have a few moments now before going back to work, but I wanted to get in a quick update.

I talked to Dr. M. yesterday afternoon. There were two preliminary reports in the University’s computer system. Basically the reports indicated that my heart is categorized as Level I meaning that the tests showed, "no symptoms and no limitation in ordinary physical activity."

Although the reports indicate that I exercised for only a total of 5 ½ minutes at 2.5 mph/12% grade, they say that we earned 7 METS which is supposed to be pretty good. I had to end the test because of fatigue. That doesn’t seem so good, but then again, we knew 5-6 minutes of exercise would be a limit for us.

My blood pressure is very low (95/57) and the tests indicated that we raised it with exercise 74% (139/79). Our heart rate went form 86 to 131. I still have questions if the blood pressure is too low, because the cut-off seems to be 90/60. But, for now ... low seems good.

The test showed that my left ventricle is of regular size and function and that the EKG I started with was not significantly changed from what I’d ended with.

We were disappointed that the tests read, "technically limited study, difficult images, systolic pressure, not fully seen, and low voltage precordial lead, but Dr. M. says this is a normal range of things to happen during this kind of test and that it doesn’t invalidate the test.

And, were a little concerned with a line that reads, "indication: IHD or ischemic heart disease," but we’re not sure if that was an indicator to take the test, or was a result of the test. Same kind of question with the line that read, "negative for inducible ischemia" I didn’t know then if we were cleared for ischemia that wasn’t induced.

When we asked Dr. M. He said that the test didn’t prove or disprove the previous test results indicating a possible heart attack. We’re of the impression now that there was one, but for the time being our heart looks pretty good. Dr. M. says that we are going to need to have a regular medical person read the test results and that maybe because they were preliminary a heart specialist might look them over too.

Shoot, really need to go right now ... maybe later I can write about our first reaction and our current reaction toward all this. We’ve still got a lot on our mind. Be taking care of the day. :)

Friday, May 21, 2004

The Suspense Continues

Mornin. Just a short journal entry today. We were up a few times during the night, but kept returning to bed. Just tired. And, we had forgotten to take the medicine again. We took it the first time we were up.

I don’t know what to do with our memory. We forgot Dr. M.’s appointment. I know really dumb stuff. I know that at 3 pm, we looked at our clock and thought ... we’ve finally got some time to work on our critical CARF project. We figured we’d have 3 to 3 ½ hours. We should have thought at that time, Dr. M’s today ... we have about 45 minutes. But, that didn’t happen.

I don’t know what it is that makes us forget. We’ve had so many problems with it that it seems hardly unfair to use it as an excuse. We should have written it into the schedule, or maybe set our timer or something, but I guess we’re not this smart. We think I guess in our mind, of course we’re going to remember ... it was a very important session. But, that didn’t happen.

We had been caught up in the project and although we checked the email at 3:00 pm, didn’t go back to it until 6 pm. when we were tired and frustrated with the progress of our work. That’s when we saw Dr. M’s email. We felt terrible. We put a call in, then thought to email, and then we went home. By then Dr. M. had emailed back. He said, we could talk this morning, because he had some extra time. I won’t hope for as much as it would be a full hour, but we’ll take what we can get.

Part of our problem was that we’d been off work a day and a half. So, we hadn’t been able to in our mind capture and hold onto what day it was. I’m thinking though that Dr. M. will say something like somewhere in our mind, we really didn’t want to be there. We thought of that on the way home and wondered if somehow we really didn’t want to be at that meeting. I would hope our mind wasn’t thinking in this direction. I know consciously we hadn’t had thoughts of missing an important meeting, but I’m not sure how the mind works in this regard.

I do know that after we’d started to think about it, we had to ask ourselves, "How much does anyone really want to know IF their heart is diseased?" Seems we’ve put in quite a bit of time in trying to understand what might have happened for the report to be reading possible infarct. We’re almost consciously able now to associate the word, "infarct," with heart attack.

We’re still working at it. After we got home there was another email in our box from the heart place. So, we followed it and found some short video diagrams of all kinds of things to do with the heart. It seems we understand better. We can understand everything they are saying, but we aren’t able to remember the names of the things we are watching. We know that Dr. M. had last time talked about heart stuff that we weren’t able to hold in our mind. We know for example, he said something about heart surgery, but we weren’t able to recall why he’d mentioned it.

We’re guessing it was an alternative of what may be found, but we’re thinking usually he doesn’t tell us stuff much in advance, or to scare us or anything. We read last night that about 25% of heart attacks are silent, in that people don’t recognize them as such. And, women in general don’t have always the classic signs of deep chest pains, etc. They said though that women have more actual heart attacks then men, but I don’t remember the number ... it wasn’t by much though like if 2 million men had heart attacks, the female number would be like 2.3 million.

Another thing I sorta remember them saying that was that more women die by heart attack each year than breast cancer, accidents, and diabetes combined. That was kind of a threatening number. It seems that if your black, the numbers are higher. I’ve got most of the higher risk factors with the exception of high blood pressure. A slight relief.

In general, we’re in preparation for the worse case scenario ... let’s now hope for the best?

Shoot, gotta go ... it’ll be ok, right?

Thursday, May 20, 2004

Stumbling Along

Mornin ... feeling a little better today. We know we have to be stronger today. Can’t stay in those other places long. Figure its kinda of an unfair thing to do ... don’t want to be worrying people.

There was a point in talking to Dr. M. yesterday when he repeated something to the effect of "This is something we can work out through talking." I remember having heard him say that one of the last times we were in trouble and we had gone the other way. This time we figured that we need to be listening and understand that he is serious.

Sometimes we get so angry we don’t know what to do about it, except to hurt ourselves. I figure that’s what we do with our eating. I think we need to somehow trust Dr. M. a little more. And, we gotta be not so crabby that we have to give up time in our therapy sessions to be taking care of things that are more difficult for us. Figure we’ve gotten sloppy. I think we heard both Dr. M. And our friend say yesterday, that there are just some things we have to do. We put up all kinds of fights with this one, because inside we’re yelling, "NO, NO! We don’t have to do whatever you say!"

Maybe this is too a part of growing up and having so many adults tell us wrong things of what was expected of us. At this point of our life, our rebelliousness was a saving grace. They could manipulate the body, but they couldn’t take away our minds. Maybe this has something to do with our divorce from our own body. We aren’t tolerating well at all. We’ve taken to hating most things physical about us with the exception of maybe the action of our fingers on a keyboard. This has to be wrong thinking.

Been lookin at the picture of Dr. M. that sits by our computer for a few moments. It seems like a process of weighing things out. I don’t know if either of us really know the issues, though maybe he has in better mind what is happening to us the last couple of weeks. I don’t know so much how we’re trusting ourselves, but we know that he is stable. Always has been. Maybe if we can’t trust ourselves, we can at least trust him? He’s pretty smart and reasonable. I wish it were already late in the day. I feel like I need to be able to figure this stuff out.

Hmm, maybe the dizzy/weakness is due to lack of food. We’ve felt this buzzing before. Hmm, last time eaten? Maybe at least 12 hours ago. S’pose that’s kinda long. Maybe we’ll take a break here to have a couple pieces of peanut butter bread. We can do that much for ourselves thismorning. Hmm, ok that is better. Lotsa water too. Trying to believe that our body isn’t the enemy. :(

Ok ... let’s have a clear thought now. "Listen to Dr. M." Yesterday he said to do something productive, but all we could do is drag ourselves in and out of bed. It was too hard to be productive. But, we can do this today, right? You’re never behind, just jump in where you’re at. When we get to work, there will be plenty to do. Just need to choose one of them and go forward. If there weren’t too many surprises, we would be concentrating on either CARF or Qnotes. That’ll make us feel better.

But, here and now? We’ve got an hour yet to be on our own. There’s three choices really. We could continue to write, we could be reading more of the diet program, or we could skip all that and go to work early. Hmm. Think we should be paying more attention to self than going into work early. Keep everything so we’re not afraid of skipping ahead. We figure that we should concentrate on the diet reading during the evenings after getting home from work. I think if we took up our writing time there might be a rebellion.

Anything, we NEED to write about? Hmm, we’ve already gone through the part where we are going to try today not to be defeating ourselves. We know that one of the things we have to do is to continue talking to Dr. M. What’s next then? Is there anything we can try to figure out before starting the day?

Maybe we should think a little more reasonably with the results of the heart test. First they either may be there, or they may not. So, we have to steady ourselves a bit in case we need to wait a while longer. Pretty much we expect though after we know they are here ... is to say that either our heart is healthy, or it is sick. Either way, we should be figuring that we want to live as long as possible. That means the dieting part. Don’t think anyone expects us to quit bad eating and bad smoking at the same time. Maybe we could set a goal. After we lose the first 50 pounds, we do something about the smoking?

We’ve lost weight two times now and gained it back. Each time we were down about 30 pounds. Not much for all told, but significant. Represents the 20% mark. Dr. M. Says we can work on that again as it happens next. So that is ok for now.

Shoot, feeling tired again. Maybe a little more rest?

Wednesday, May 19, 2004

Not so sparkly

Hi ... This is probably not going to be a sparkly entry. We want you to know that right up front. We’re feeling pretty down. Though better now then through the day. Most of the day we spent sleeping. Umm, we didn’t go to work today.

I need to be up for a while now, so we figured we’d work things through with our writing.

There were a couple of stop points through the day. We talked to Dr. M. twice and our friend came over to get us out of the house. We had sub-sandwiches at a local park. Both of them seemed to be saying the same kind of thing ... that we need a plan and that both are willing to work with us. The plans that came to our own mind were pretty devastatingly negative. We need to be able to stop that whole line of thinking.

I think the hard part is that we within the system fight over life and death matters. There’s a small minority that get overwhelmed with the whole consequence of being alive. We have to be responsible, to at least call out for help if we feel we cannot be. We have to be that responsible, plus some. We have a regular Dr. M. Appointment tomorrow ... just gotta keep things safe between now and then.

So, enough of all that said ... we need to be working on a healthy plan. We’re hoping that the results of the heart test are in by tomorrow, so we can go through them with Dr. M. Most likely, we are thinking of the worst scenarios. It’s part of the negative thinking. Chances are we are going to have a long time here on Earth, and am going to have to manage to come up with physical safeties. We’re talking of the weight, smoking, cholesterol, and diabetes again. Nothing we can do about the heredity, or arthritis for that matter.

Shoot, shoot ... we’ve been out of it again. It’s like ... our mind get heavy, cloggy, and confused. We close our eyes and sleep overcomes us where ever we are at. Clock says 20 minutes this time. Our mailbox reminder has dragged us awake again.

Shoot, then again ... maybe we need a new approach. Going to go sit on the balcony for a few. Maybe an ice slushy? Ahh, that’s the stuff.

Ok, whatever this plan is going to be ... there will be a nice big ice slushy in the middle of it. Might be the best thinking all day. I can see the word "plan" in my mind, then everything else seems to skirt it. Maybe the first part then will be to plan ice slushies from home and not be buying shakes and store flavored slushies. I think actually, we’ve been talking over this one some during the past week or so. We’d gone that long without, until yesterday. Think we got the milk shake for the wrong reason. Even so ... we’ll leave a loop in there for now that says, one every week or two won’t be too bad ... At least for now until we get a diet worked out.

Maybe a few moments toward that now ... We know we should be getting food from the grocery store and that we can use peapod grocery service so just order it over the computer. But this is going to mean we have to work through washing dishes and having money available, plus cook? I’m terrible with all this. :( Ok, say something positive here ... Umm, we can start small and maybe find something that we don’t have to cook? Shoot, should figure out a diet first so we know what kind of foods we can eat.

I know the low-carb diet can work, because I’ve seen our son on it, but we don’t think its real healthy to be eating all the fats. When it comes down to it ... we’re a calorie counting person. Just the last time, we were eating the same foods over and over ... so we stopped counting, then after a while we were slipping in all kinds of stuff. Maybe this time we’ll have to work with variety?

Ok, couple of hours later now ... and on our way back to bed. We’ve started a plan. We’re going to try using again software and web support called HealthKeeper or Performance Diet. It’s only $30 a year and allows you software that helps track calories and nutrition, and medical stats, and exercise. The support part is on the web. We got to the step where they said we needed a diet-buddy. So we called our friend and he has agreed. *Sigh*

Just one step at a time, right? Feelin tired again... Nitey nite...

http://www.performancediet.com/

Tired

Mornin. Just me. Woke up about earlier again today, but we fell asleep about 4 or 5 o’clock pm. Think we were wakened by 3 phone calls though, so it wasn’t straight sleep. Needless to say ... we did sleep and it was for a pretty long time.

Little slow to start here. We’ve been up for about an hour going through email. Somewhere along the line we’d signed up for some kind of email on "heart" news. This time we settled down to be reading some of it. We feel concerned.

Yesterday, we went to the cardiac unit to have the exercise-echocardiograph test done. I don’t know if anyone thought we were going to do it, but somehow we managed to get through it. Not in flying colors though. The technician knew about our arthritis stopping us within about 5 minutes, so she was sneaky. She brought us from the slow to the fast speed in that amount of time.

At rest our heart beat was 95 and they were able to get me up to 134, before we had to stop. It wasn’t the heart or arthritis that was hurting though. It was our upper arms and shoulders. I know dumb... We’d been gripping so hard to the bar, that the pain became intolerable. We felt scared to death to be on this tread mill. Couldn’t begin to say why, or which parts might have been involved.

We seemed ok enough with our breathing during the test, but as soon as it stopped, we began hyperventilating. That wasn’t so much fun. Maybe it had something to do with the papers they make you sign. They listed out some horrible things that could happen including having a heart attack. Then they tried to reassure us with the knowledge, they would know what to do if we had one. Thought what kind of test is this?!

There was some question too, in that it wasn’t the laying down bike test that had been listed on the paper. She talked about some of the other test options including one that was 5 hours long! It was like please, please let us get this over efficiently!

As it were the test was only about 5 ½ minutes long. I’m hoping that Irun doesn’t read this. We’re in deplorable health. The technician said during the test that I was doing wonderful ... then she prefaced it by saying for a 60 year old. That one stung. A lot. It followed me home and is haunting our head now. I had told her we’d once been a state level cross country skier. She said that if we started now, we could be skiing again by the age of 50. No comment on that one.

We were 130 pounds lighter six years ago, but had problems with a sexual attack that necessitated electric shock treatments. We’ve been fairly divorced from our body ever since. We don’t seem to be helping ourselves. But, until we prioritize this with Dr. M., there is little he can do for us with the mind games that happen in our head.

I don’t know what is going to happen, before we allow it to sink in that we really have to change our lifestyle. This excuse is very old and useless. It’s just that I know at that time our health changed and we’ve never recovered. Just makes me tired to think about it. Going back to bed.

Tuesday, May 18, 2004

Medical Tests Ahead

Mornin ... We slept pretty good last night, though we were up a couple of times. First time, we realized that we hadn’t taken our evening medicines and the second time we figured, eh ... we could use a little more sleep. That be the way it were ...

We had a fairly good day. We were able to maintain adult parts with Dr. M. which is unusual for us of late. We’ve not anything against younger parts out in therapy, but there has to be time to talk about "big people" stuff too. Most of that turned out to be about work and medical. Dr. M. is the only one we can really talk to openly about the things that we are doing. We’ve never done any kind of work, he couldn’t understand. And, the medical part needed some time and attention because the heart test is at 1 pm today.

Part of that deal was that we had to listen to the fears of the younger parts that had already spoken which meant going to the store and buying some shorts. We did that last night too, though I think that the cost was more than we’d expected. It wasn’t a simple trip for shorts, it became a big trip to buy many new dresses and under things. *Sigh* Did we mention before our lack of wardrobe changes? Hehe 

I think there were 6 dresses all told, plus the shorts. We’re pleased with what happened and it was fairly quick. We knew that this store had a great big comfortable chair next to the registers, so we were able to sit after the back started aching. And, the dressing room had a very large bench and chair. It was a nice size room. The other nice part is that we seemed to hit our size right off the bat, so we made our choices all in one trip. *Giggle* we also know our "style" of clothing. If you didn’t make the first cut, you weren’t going to be purchased!

Right before we went shopping, we went to the bank. That felt pretty good to get out of the way, plus it was at the grocery store, so we picked up a few things. Our surprise purchase was a mixed bag of two kinds of apples and some oranges. There was one sweet purchase, but it was smaller than normal. Just a half dozen glazed donuts. *Sigh* Always compromises to be made?

There were a variety of chores taken care of at work. Never as much as one would like, especially because after Monday doctor appointments, we come in two hours late. We worked a good part of the day on utilizing our new job descriptions and compiling a new scheduling format. The other one was in the right direction, but this one is very complete. We took care of enough matters to get a good amount of "powder blue" notations. That makes us feel good. Means things are getting done!

We added a new element at the back of each notation in the form of a status line. We were surprised at how many of them are put in a "waiting" category. Not all though, one was marked urgent. And, the neat part? We actually spent time working instead of avoiding it. Wonders never cease! Hard to avoid those Qnotes ...

So, that pretty much wraps up that day. Just on to the new one. We’re thinking that we may take our shower early and go in to work a half hour early to see what might get done. We figure we’ll have to take off at about 11:30-11:45. Maybe we’ll stay long enough to help Sr. with all the microwaving. It’s chore to get all the client lunches heated up even with four machines. We’ll have to see.

It’s going to be a tough afternoon. And, it’s one of those things where you can’t eat or drink for awhile before the tests. I believe it to be three hours which isn’t bad, except that with the diabetes we sometimes get a little warbly without food at regular intervals. We’ll see. Maybe just for today, we might pack a candy bar? Hmm, ok maybe just an orange juice ... tough crowd!

Monday, May 17, 2004

Stray Thoughts

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Morning ... morning ... How are you? We’re pretty good. :) We went to bed late though and slept for a solid six hours. That’s unusual for us. We did something we almost never do ... we turned on the tv and watched a movie. Weird huh? I don’t know what was happening, though I remember being tired ... too wired to just fall asleep, I suppose.

The movie was something called like "Tin Cup." I’m imagining it to have been a "B-type" movie. Eh, not something we’re proud of. It’s done. Over. Not something we have to do real soon again?

This morning we have an appointment with Dr. M. That’s a pretty good way to start out a week. Not sure what we’ll talk about today. Mostly what has happened over the last three days since seeing him was a little response toward the medical procedures and then just work. Hmm, let’s see schedules, Individual-directed Outcomes, and then job description. That’s about it.

Not sure what we’ll think of during the next hour and a half. We’ve got a little time to play here. First thing we did was to review the job description. It still seems pretty solid, though we are imagining Sr. Tess could dismantle it. We’ll just have to wait and see and hope for the best. We’re trying to condition ourselves to it being out of our hand after she receives a piece of our work. She is either going to like it or not. Doesn’t have to be a personal reflection on us or the quality of our thoughts.

Next, we reviewed the "ID outcomes." What we were thinking is that we could make out another kind of chart ... one with Likert Scales and have staff score clients as to progress in each of the areas, such as disposition, motivation, role acceptance, and responsiveness to self, others, and the environment. Then whether the individual goes out to work, or not ... he is developing qualities that are more advantageous to not only others, but self. Hmm, values? Nah ... that should be something the individual defines.

We tested the theory out in our own mind ... We figure that it would be a 10 point scale. That way it would be easy to say 70% here or 40% there. We also figure that the score should be an average of the stakeholders involved. We know it is important for the individual, the DSP and the Q to rank, but not sure ifthe Administrator wants in or if we could include the family. Would be a better "test."

Hmm, we could always send it home a week prior and ask them to send it back before the meeting. Have to do it all in Spanish then too. I’m not sure they would all understand it though without explanation. Might just keep it at the center. I wonder if the individuals served could understand the scale? Hmm... Be worth a shot. If he scores himself all 100%, we know then certainly where they are at.

Hehe - ok ... just added it to job description ... Need to be able to work from the same reference point as Sr. Theresa. Don’t want to be pushing/pulling each other all the time. Might add to the above assessment why we brought our score up or down. That would help too. Give us all something fair to work on.

Now we are testing it with our mind ... this is the tricky stuff. Pshwew ... enough of that ... we’re getting dizzy!

Hey ... looking at our "take-home" homework ... we’re looking pretty good. I think we covered our two objectives plus more. Didn’t figure on doing a job description. When we get back to the Center, we are going to write it out into our schedule. Hmm, maybe we could think of a moment about our formatting.

Daily

2 hrs

Weekly

5 hrs

Hey looking at our "take-home" homework ... we’re looking pretty good. I think we covered our two objectives plus more. Didn’t figure on doing a job description. When we get back to the Center, we are going to write it out into our schedule. Hmm, maybe we could think of a moment about our formatting.

Monthly

20 hrs

Yearly

85 hrs

Hmm, that’s a thought ... I could place little boxes

Client Name

***** doesn’t appear to be thinking through her role as a friend. She may still have hurt feelings. Ask DSP to send her to office as soon as she arrives. 1) What is she sensing? 2)What is she feeling? 3) what is she thinking, 4) what kind of person does she want to be?

Hmm, boxes didn't carry over ... *Sigh*

Sorry ... just thinking ... lookin good!  Gotta run!