Long and quite unruly (1 of 2)

 

Dear Dr. M.,

    I'm just writing, because I like to talk to you and its the middle of the night and I have toooooo much energy!  I think we fell asleep around 6:30 and its now about 1 pm.  We fed the kitties the good stuff, but Chief is saying ... Go to bed woman!  He is sitting on the table with me with his back turned.  That did it ... gave him a petting, then got up for my coffee and he lead me back to his food container, but we'd already fed him!  Ahh, but I found a grapefruit out there!  Good friend brought them!  Mmmm :)

    I suppose I should consider going back to bed, but its like found time :)

    V was on when we signed on and we talked for about 10-12 minutes.  He had one of those need to go to a couple meetings to stay certified as clinical psychologist things.  He seemed kind of tired.  Before he said he was only going to eat a tasty pie.  We frowned.  Then later when I'd asked him what he would do if he met a beautiful Dr. psychology woman at the meeting, he said he'd offer to share his pie :)   So, you see he's a pretty nice guy!

    Our friend stopped by for just a half hour yesterday, but it was nice.  He was on his way to a poker game and figured he had a little extra time.  It was kind of funny, because it hadn't been discussed he'd come over.  He was at the center yesterday afternoon and said he was going to stay until 5 pm and I asked him if I could stay too then and he said yes.  Then we both went our separate ways, I had thought, but just after getting off the expressway, he pulled his car next to me and about scared me to death!  Just didn't expect it. 

    I must have been a good person to talk to because it happened all yesterday.  Sister came back to my office to discuss insurance, then of course, DSP #1A came in, then we had the staffing for MM, and then G., the state person came back and we talked for about an hour (some time to work), then I was going for a smoke, and then I noticed J. the other state person had come back to talk to JK (client), so he stopped in for about an hour.  It was really kind of strange, because we also passed an afternoon staffing for the other Q and so E. CSO person was there too.  What are the odds of them all in one day, when they each have caseloads of 80-100 people and we only serve 50 total?

    Some of the talk was about work related stuff, but more from a personal point of view.  The first one is probly in his early 50's.  I was busy moving around in the office when he was going over files, and then I said something about being obsessive and he seemed to understand that  Was like Wow!  Cool!  I had told him last time that I was a multiple.  He had then asked about a friend of his that seemed multiple that had concerned him.  He's kind of a serious person with a sneaky daring smile.  He's real nice and very good looking, but kinda ticked at his work.  J. complained too.  J. wants to be a pastry chef!  G. said he would stay for a while.  I sure do hope so at least.  He has a Masters degree, so I figured that was pretty cool.  :)

    I like that they talk to me, so I'm feeling kinda important.  I worry a little, because I am conscious that it is a good idea to stay on their better side, but it is much more than that.  It really seems that it is different talking to people with higher degrees.  I don't know if that means I'm getting to be more snobbish, but the conversations are different.  DSP's have a job, where the more educated the more apparent career.  When they talk about personal stuff, I feel like at the time I am sitting there, it is about the most important stuff.  I like getting to know them.  I feel like I have an open guest chair policy.  I was glad my friend was in a serious work mode though, because then I could work while still feeling he was around.  Sister came back to talk to him too, and I'm always happy when she comes back, and real work is getting done.   She caught us doing good!

    Yesterday's meeting went pretty good.  This is a client who is being treated for Leukemia, which had been in remission from 1999 until this last month.  The mother is mostly blind now.  She can see face shapes and colors, but not much detail and like has to be guided with fingers to sign the right places on paper.  She is very much in love with her son and he's her baby.  I had to scold her afterward for trying to pick up the garbage left from his lunch.  She needed to know he was ok, and that while here, he was able to pick up his own garbage.  G. and I had both sat for an extra15 minutes after the meeting to let her continue talking.  I think she needed to talk.  I felt bad during the meeting, because we were discussing some behavioral problems, and I'd forgotten to remember the mother thinks of her son as an angel.  But, she let me slide.  Sr. was a little confrontive and concerned that G. wouldn't like the goal, but I was happy when G. said he was ok. and DSP #3 also agreed that it had been  good and that she didn't mind doing it.  Sister had fretted that it had been too long.  Not saying it isn't, but ... *Sigh*  While sister and I were going on, the mother fell asleep.  Kinda strange.  That's never happened before.  We just gently shook her and then we made sure she was ok.  She was a little cloudy afterward, and during the meeting she was evasive of Sr.'s questions.  I had opened up a discussion on where MM was going to live, because the mother had at one point during the summer been told there was an opening for CILA.  But, after the cancer came back now, she has decided that she should keep him at home.  She is afraid that no one else will recognize the signs when he is sick, because he isn't able to speak well.  Mostly he makes sounds similar to speech and gestures.  About a month ago, she didn't know he had pneumonia, except he was crying and she went to the doctor and he said MM needed to be hospitalized.  She has some respite care for him, so that's a good situation. 

    Whoops, seems we're into a kind of over talkative mood here.  Just seems we're a little wound up with all the extra meetings of the day.  We got nice affirming messages throughout.  The state still comes in and says our center is comparatively good next to other agencies and that staff out there aren't getting to know their clients and how they write nothing personal about them.  The parents and clients all keep telling them the same thing.  They love the center.  So, that makes me feel real good.  We must be ok.  Still have to work harder at keeping the paperwork up to date.

    That was the other ongoing concern during the day.  I am still spending a little more time on the new work journal, but it is keeping me feeling that I can handle it, no matter how far behind I am.  Kind of an odd thing, but it is allowing me to admit somewhere in our mind of our responsibilities.  I get frustrated if I can't be stamping completed on things.  I had some trouble yesterday with so many people in and out concentrating on marking time down.  It is unbelievable now that I am paying attention as to how much time I lose during the day.  I'll look up one moment and realize another 40 minutes has gone and I'm barely aware of what's just happened.  Now, the long part seems to be in checking the lists in the journal and making sure things get processed properly.  Some of the time seems to be spent in clearing small obstacles that could get in the way of concentration to be sitting down for the bigger projects.  Like I was supposed to have a meeting with DSP #2 about MD's goals, but she came in right before G. left and begged off, because she had so much work from the workshop.  We did the best we could in that we looked into the goals, and made some decisions without her, so that we could come back today and give her the easy version.  I think she is overwhelmed enough so that it is better just to put something in front of her she could handle.  But, basically that took another 20-30 minutes to process and the major projects weren't started again. 

    There are a couple of overriding projects right now.  Well, one smaller one.  I need to get DSP 1C on the Nurses register.  The other ones are trying to find some good client files, which means getting annuals and Qnotes processed and I have to take care of paperwork (signatures and schedules) for staff training.  All of it is involving of time and concentration.  There seems to be so many of the little problems.  We're up to page 9 in the journal after only 3 days.  According to schedule, I am going to go through the half dozen journals I ordered in about 100 days.  Pshwoo.  I think there is more at the start though, because you are getting all the backed-up work in there.  Yesterday, I finished entering everything I know that has to be done ... at least, with the normal work.  I didn't really include much on staff training, and nothing of CARF.  Hopefully, we'll get to the part where annuals and Qnotes are being processed on time.  That will take a lot of pressure off, so that I can schedule CARF again. 

    Asst. M worked exceptionally well with the new system on Tuesday.  I told her that over the weekend I'd decided to structure her day more.  So, the first half hour, she will work on QChrononotes, then the next hour, she will work on entering data into Tiger, then the next two hours, she will help me with any rush projects, then beside the hour for staff training, the last 3 1/2 hours will be going into writing Qnotes.  So, we began to process all that with her on Tuesday.  Unfortunately, we ran into a couple of problems with computers.  First, was that we had to figure out how to correct the problem with her Word program, showing an expiration period.  Which basically came down to taking out the Professional program, and reloading a Microsoft works program that still had word.  Means that she is going to need doing Qnotes from my main computer.  It will be a little crowded, but it should be ok.  We had to also move all the Chrononotes over to her computer.  They were only on Word, so that was just a few emails over to her.  She entered after all that the few cards, I had at that time.  I like the part of the system that I handwrite out the notecard, she types it in and then files card to my box.  The next part, we told her about the Tiger program and then we worked together on getting one long client file into it.  It isn't going to be a real time consuming thing after they are all entered, but this time we had to spend time testing out the system.  It is great.  It is set-up so that if a document in the client file has expired, we enter a keyword "update" in it, then we can pull that list at any given time.  We have also entered under the autodate thing dates one month before a document expires.  So, hopefully, we will learn to pull reports per day, so that we can catch everything ahead of time.  If we can't catch it on the day it is due, I'll have to be responsible and mark it "update," so it remains on the "to-do" list.  I noticed we can also pull by time period, so what I might do is pull a list or the week on either the Friday before, or on Monday morning, then we can better schedule in the week.  Beside meetings I'm not able to schedule much more than that in and for the present, I am just working on getting the day scheduled.  The dots work great in that, during the scheduling period we're trying to arrange time for red dots, and yesterday we looked into some orange dots as well.  If anything HAS to be done on a day, it is scheduled right away into the calendar.  We are going to be working by the hair on our chiney-chin-chin for a bit yet.

    After we entered the first client with Asst. M. the second computer problem was trying to figure out why the laptop wasn't printing.  It could connect to the Internet, so within the time spent (especially with different cords and plugs), we narrowed it down to it was having problems with the print set-up.  We really don't know how to fix that, so will have to wait a while on printing out direct.  In the meantime, we figured out we could export the completed reports to PDF, and from there save to disk and transfer over to comp #1 for printing.  It's not perfect, but for the time being until another computer fix-it guy is around ... will have to make due. 

    After lunch was over, we began the work of teaching Asst. M. how to do Qnotes.  We first started with transferring over the data part, which is a consumable difficulty for each client.  I think we are going to need arranging time with all the DSPs to make sure we all are on the same page with our recording.  I will do that after we set up some good files for state with Asst. M, so I can have her record officially how each of the goals are set up and counted.  I'll have her then type it up and keep it with the goal recording book.  That will be a good thing.  The next thing we did is went back over the first client's Qnotes that we thought would be good for the State.  It took us a couple of hours to do four notes, but I figured that was pretty good considering all the training necessary at first.  The program - MS Publisher is easy enough to handle - no problem for Asst. M., but then after explaining how things were listed on the days and month summary, I had to begin to teach how to enter the word summaries in the regular progress, problems noted section, and the real good stuff part.  Hehehe.  Ok, so still working on our professionalism :) 

    I had to explain to Asst. M. that just because the DSPs write-it it doesn't mean, we don't have to think our way through it.  We explained things like we don't record the DSPs redundancies, and we had to be cautious of things like them stating they were working on things that should have been covered 3-4 years ago.  It isn't rocket science, but needs consideration.  I think that within 3-4 weeks Asst. M.  will have it down although will still ask questions about particular client/DSP things.  Since, I will be most often in the office back to back with her, I don't think it will be a problem.  Usually, we are pretty quick about being able to answer, and Asst. M. asks great questions.  I was very happy by the 4th qnote, she was saying, the DSP already said that!  Hehehe thata girl!  After that client's notes were done, she worked on deciphering the stats for another client.  Very, very Good!

    I can't tell you how happy Asst. M makes me feel.  She's just so damned smart and easy to work for.  She's kind of like you in that ... she is a very smiley person by nature.  And, what we learned this last time is that she can think at my speed and has the same kind of concentration abilities when working through problems.  I liked that she was able to make suggestions while we were both problem solving.  What a dream!!!  Our friend said, be careful or you'll train her to replace you.  But, we just laughed and said, "Exactly!"  Because you know ... we would really, really like it if someone replaced me in doing Qnotes!  Maybe it will give me opportunities to really be doing some good work with especially CARF, my neglected baby.  I'd like to think I've moved up with something in the world.  We're pretty sure we've got Qnotes down. 

    Whoops coffee break and time to make some rice.  BUT, my timer battery has gone dead ... will have to rely on my ability to watch time.  Yikes!  My downfall!  Ok, ok we can do this too. 

    I figure Sr. Tess is going to be happy ... pretty much got that idea, because we've been giving Asst. M. such great reports.  If she can do chrononotes, Qnotes, and learn maintenance than she's got a pretty gosh darn good start at being a full-time Q.  I sure hope that she is going to want to continue after she graduates in June.  She seemed suggestive when we suggested her to wait a year to get her masters so that she knows more closely what and whom she wants to work for.  Though in talking to Asst. M's Mama, that's not exactly what the Mama wants.  The Mom is afraid that if she steps away from school, she won't want to go back, because of interest, or time, or stepping away from a fullincome.  I think that Asst. M is smarter than all that and motivated.  And, I'm not sold yet that she wants to work with people who are mentally retarded for the next 5-10 years of her life.  It is a great field and we'll try to convince her that the sky's the limit, but I know she also has an interest in forensics.  We'll have to see.  I know that Mama would be fine, quite well if she stuck to mental retardation, but I'm not sure if Asst. M. wants to pass up the excitement of that other world, or the money for that matter.