Order Please

Good morning. Just me. We’re up pretty early this morning. It’s almost 2 am. Maybe we’ll be able to go back to bed for a while. Most likely it is extra sugar in our system from having a couple of lemonades. Maybe a little bit of nerves. Not sure.

Yesterday, we went to our regular doctor’s visit. We’ve been cleared so that we don’t have to go back now for three months. Pretty good! There was a lot to talk about. We told her that we’d gone through surgery and that we’d had a couple of small problems, but the kind that clear up by themselves given time. We don’t need to go back to the surgeon unless something else comes up.

We talked about the last appointments with the eye doctor, physical therapy and the nutrition clinic. We admitted not getting the cholesterol check and so got that assignment again. We told her that next week we would take the lung test. She checked out a couple of general aches and pains and we caught her up with general depression and what comes with that. We also discussed our back and thyroid conditions. There just seems to be so many problems that we find ourselves overwhelmed by them.

A good part of the discussion went to our eating habits. She decided that we should have more at breakfast and lunch so that we didn’t get so hungry by dinner time. She’s pretty sure that we should have a lot more salad to fill ourselves up and vegetables in general. She also outlined how we could work on cutting our dinners in half. She also thought we could be drinking more water. The doctor suggested for the sugar cravings that we allow something, but in much smaller quantities. So that for now six mini donuts were better than a whole box. Hmm, go figure.

We also talked about our breathing improving which seemed to be helping our sleep patterns. Well, at least most nights. The medicines were checked out and our vital stuff was checked. Exercise in general was encouraged. And, she’s still in favor of us taking the glucose readings. She suggested that we might do at least one first thing in the morning before eating breakfast. That way, we would cut down on the problem we had of carrying or remembering to check the levels throughout the day.

I think that is about it. I still have quite a few appointments left between physical therapy, lung, eye doctor and psychiatry appointments. But, I feel good in all that I was able to get done over the last couple of months. So, I suppose it’s business as normal now. The next physical therapy appointment is today, but I don’t have to see another doctor, until next Wednesday.

So, all that’s done and I’m going to try resting it for a bit. A lot will depend on this next grocery shopping trip. I’ll have to study it. My friend dropped by last night just for a half hour to help get the clean clothes upstairs. He talked of helping by making big batches of his rice vegetable dinner that he uses. He’s encouraging that I try it for awhile. He’s saying that all I have to do is put it in the microwave and heat up. Maybe we can get a couple sets of those plastic bowls so that I’m cutting down on the quantities. Doctor says I should get a nutrition bar for 3 pm breaks. Yahoo!

So this is starting to look like a plan. Be even better yet if Dr. M. would come back. He’s being very missed and it’s only Wednesday. We’re still going to be missing three appointments. We had some problems with the multiplicity during the doctor appt. last night. Different parts come out to complain of certain things. Especially about getting angry at some of the doctors we’d visited, cutting down on food, and having to draw blood every day. There’s a lot of opinions within the system about all that. It be a nice goal to have lost like 15-20 pounds over the next three months before going back again. Hmm. Aha ... a goal.

Ok, ok ... enough ... we’re starting to intimidate parts. It’s ok ... it’s ok shhh

Work ok went ok, but there wasn’t enough time to get much done because we had to leave by 1:15 pm. Yesterday was better than the first day back. There were sooo many people coming in to complain about personal problems. Total, it took a couple hours out of regular work time. At work, they don’t usually hear me complain unless Sr. Tess is having a bad time with me. That’s our biggest hardship at work. Beside our friend, no one there really knows about my medical situation. They know I’ve been taking off from work for doctor appointments, they knew I had surgery, and they know about our multiplicity. But, they don’t know many details. It’s at a level they ask how I’m doing. And, I say something like fine getting better, or hard week.

I think the long weekend was hard on staff because of the issues they are dealing with. There are a couple that are taking care of sick and aging parents. A couple that have relationship issues of either just married, or soon getting married. One was sick and another is having a hard time with unwanted phone calls. Almost all are having some kind of diet issues. I guess we all need someone to talk about at some time. I’m pretty lucky that I’ve got good support with some of my issues or even talking here through this medium, so that when I go to work, I can put them aside to be listening.

The actual work portion is still being concentrated on Staff Training. Yesterday, there was a communications exercise, a section on admission, progress reports, and exit and lastly, we went through time on abuse and neglect. The DSP spent some of her vacation time writing up the weekly reports. She saved two weeks to do all together so was a little overwhelmed with all the writing. She didn’t have time to work on her lesson plans, so we’ve been starting each morning by writing up plans for the day. It takes about a half hour if you are on top of it. Sometimes, there is a little extra preparation like yesterday, we made a clock for her with the Printshop. We had lines connecting to all the numbers so she could have the clients fill in the hours that she was presenting.

We thought we were doing ok, with all that ... had it ready about the time they were getting back from chapel. But, then within a few minutes we were learning that there’d been an accident with three of the clients on the way to the center. There are ADA Paratransit vehicles and cabs that bring in the majority of the clients. The one car with three were going to pick up the fourth and were broadsided in an intersection. I knew the other Q wasn’t in and I got a response from the secretary that made me cringe. She just said, well the driver who brought them in said it wasn’t anything. Yeah, right. I’m sure that’s what the parents want to hear when their sons and daughters go home and start complaining at the end of the day.

So, we figured it was going to be up to us. We checked on each of them and got their stories, wrote up three separate reports, contacted the manager of the transportation company, then got a hold of parents. Police report is to be coming in today and we’ll distribute them too. That took up almost a couple of hours. Fortunately, both clients and transportation company had said it was a light hit. We gave the reports in the end to the Sr. who was "in charge." We presented in a package from start to finish. We knew that she wouldn’t have the faintest clue and it was frustrating to hear at the end of the day that she was telling everyone she knew of the accident. It was pure gossip at her end and at that she was elevating what had happened in a way that I knew Sr. Tess would cringe. She was like, those poor dollies. That kind of language and thought make ME cringe. My friend had been in the office and was using Sr. Tess’s computer as she was passing along the message on the phone to the people she is in contact with. Blah!

The last portion of the day was with one my client who I have so much problem with. Monday, we’d help to finalize his housing deal. Under emergency conditions, he was being given housing other than his family. He is the first of our clients to do so. We’ve been working on this since last September. Yesterday, was his first day back in the center after hearing there was a move date on Sunday. So we asked him to come in to the office and we went through about two pages of conversation as to all the things that he would need to expect such as safety, pocket money, not placing a chair in front of his door and sharing responsibilities like cooking, cleaning and getting his bed made. I had taken notes, so the last half hour, we typed it up and distributed copies to his DSP and father. We knew that both would need to know more of what the change was going to mean to the client.

Left the day feeling pretty good. It felt like everyone was taken care of. Oh yeah, there was one not so good communication with the sister of one of the clients. Sr. Tess had placed her under a funding deadline and the sister had skipped the deadline and then complained about why she should be under a deadline. She couldn’t understand that her situation had been fought for at a Senator level down in Springfield. Strings had been pulled and the compensation was a special condition. It was very frustrating that she decided to complain instead of act. It was like ... well, here is the situation, I was told the deadline, we can’t guarantee the funding at this point without you having followed up your requirements. It’s pretty frustrating in general. She claims not to be getting funding for her sister, but sister has proof higher up with SSI stating she’s getting a double income for her sister. In the last 3/4 year, she’s taken four trips though including Hawaii. WITHOUT our client. In consideration of her sister, she’s not even paid the bill for over 6 months. Terrible care taking.

So, that’s been our week so far. Today, is our one day of the week without staff training so there will be a lot to take care of. I thinkwe’re going to start by going through some of the client chronological notes to make sure that everything has been taken care of with them. We’d like to finish up some work with the Thursday meeting of all the staff for their general training. There hasn’t been a session due to special programming or vacations over the last couple of weeks, but before I’d done some research and pulled together a session, so that will need to be reviewed. I’d like to advance the cause of getting a few more psychologicals through to the local university and, of course, there will be CARF work that has been neglected the past couple of days.

There is a little on my conscious about the nun that was left in Sr.’s place. She’s got a couple of responsibilities while sister is gone. BUT, we’ve heard for two days now her saying things like ... well, I talked to [the other Q] and she said ... Not sure what to do with that. She and the other Q have worked out situations where the nun has left earlier than she is supposed to be and has released herself from lunch duty one day. The other Q is encouraging this by saying, I will cover for you. But, the truth of the matter is that if Sr. Tess had wanted the other Q to be "taking over" she would have set it up that way. The deal is that when Sr. leaves, she very specifically wants each of the staff to be covering ONLY the tasks that are her responsibility. Both of these people are "cheating" the system.

I feel this the same as I did on Monday with the Sister and the DSPs. The sister had decided that it was a nice day so the clients should go out for the half an hour after lunch. BUT, the fact of the matter is that the schedules are set. It took quite a bit of work between Sr and myself to get them in order and the this extra nun was deciding that an extra half hour of play time would be a good change of schedule. We KNOW sister doesn’t want anything changed while she was gone. It is one thing that the subbing sister has given the staff specific art projects she wants done, it is another thing to change scheduling.

We had walked back into staff training at noon after lunch to find the whole center outside playing ball and chasing each other like kindergartners will do. I told the DSP I was working on it was time to call her people in. She said, well the others are getting free time. We told her in no uncertain terms what we thought of that idea. At that time, one of the other DSPs came through the room, so we asked her very firmly why she had her group outside. She said, "Well Sr. ..." I asked her what she was missing by having her group do play time instead of work and if Sr. Tess would have liked her to change the schedule while she was gone. The DSP backtracked and both of them called in their people. With the other two groups soon following suit.

Thing is by not doing what they are supposed to do, puts me into an "authority" role. BUT, it is not my job to be authority. We got into conflict with one other issue. The DSP in charge of collecting the planning calendars once a month was telling the DSP in training that she didn’t have to hand hers in cuz Sr. had said not to pressure her. We told her that it was no pressure that the DSP had done a very good job of filling in her planner and that she should follow protocol. The DSP claimed, "well Sr. Said." Then she went on to say that she could turn in the planner this next week. It was like DUH, isn’t that what we’re talking about. She’d gotten into her head that there was two months of calanders where the DSP’s first day was February 28th (one day of last month).

It isn’t such a big deal, but she’d decided to take a perch that was just plain silly by converting "pressure" into the act of something that was no pressure, because it had been completed "on time." This was one of the things this DSP in training had been trained by me to do. I guess I felt insulted by something that shouldn’t been. Like this DSPs work and mine had been invalidated. I believe that the DSP is upset, because Sr. Tess had told me to train the DSP with this work rather the DSP "in charge" of collecting. I knew the only reason that DSP was being given that responsibility was because of the difficulty collecting the planners from the DSP who had left. She’s actually not got any respect or authority of "looking over" the reports from the other DSPs. They already know how to do their work, so no the DSP is playing games with it.

In each of these situations, there’s been breaches in protocol by people thinking they are going to "change the rules." But, I know what’s supposed to happen. By contradicting what they are doing, then it puts me in an unwelcomed light of "showing" my authority. The authority doesn’t come from me being the boss. We are each supposed to be doing our jobs, so that no one has to "take over." But, after being there for six years in a position of responsibility it is difficult to just let things slide by people making decisions other than what Sister Tess has established as protocol. I am not going to consent to loosing two and a half hours of staff training, think it’s ok that people are switching responsibilities, or not training a DSP how to write a plan, because people are bucking the establishment. If they want to be this bold ... do it while Sr.s here, not to prove a point when she is not here. I feel very loyal to her in this regard, because without, there is chaos. Not talking like an upcoming Tsunami or anything, but in general.

It’s funny how much I am able to respect Sister’s order when she is not there. Everything has a specific place with or without understanding the rhyme or reason. It’s almost like a piece of art in that for each situation that might come up there is a written or verbal entity that is to occur next and next. When it comes to the safety of the center there needs to be an established order so that it works seamlessly without a specific authority figure in her place. It’s like being drilled over and over again to prepare for emergencies. Except this drill is to cover the normalcy.

I also know that there will be a debriefing when Sr. gets back. I certainly don’t want to be taken down for doing the wrong thing. This is a part of my "little girl" training in that it is better to do what you are supposed to be doing. I’ve always been a rebellious child, so it feels strange of me to be touting authority lines. I will continue to rebel after sister gets back, not under the covers when she is gone. I rebel now in my adulthood against things like people telling me that I am less than I am. By people being disrespectful of me. Throw that in with my sense of perfectionism there are reasons Sr. and I don’t get along all the time. But, while she is gone, I don’t want to be put in being in agreement with staff situations of things being done without her consent. Maybe for no more a good reason than I hate to be yelled at or thought of as not having "common" sense. Sometimes it seems as if we all turn into kids with or without her present. BUT, I KNOW I need ORDER.

Shoot, shoot ... I guess I am feeling more pressure with her being gone than I had thought.

Ahh better, quick chat, nap and we’re about out the door ... BE NICE!