Well, here we are, at the end of yet another year. 

 

Reflecting back on it, not sure if I can count this as a good year or not.  When I think about how I was able to fly up to see my kids twice this year, it seems it would be a great year!

 

I bought a new car that when I think about it, I get all nauseated because of how much I'm in debt now.  And the fact it's a 2001 and has over 100,000 miles on it!  They had to see me coming.  Or I'm just that stupid.  Take your pick.

 

Tomorrow night my honey will shoot off fireworks from the end of our driveway and put on a show for the neighborhood children.  It's his lot in life to entertain the young ones.  The littlest girl across the street really likes him for sure. 

 

I like to watch fireworks but I don't like the noise that comes from it.  I'm a quiet type person and therefore, do not relish in the loud bangs that come from the show.  I do need to be socialable with my neighbors so I will work on having a good time.

 

My tummy is a little upset right now.  Tis the reason I'm a bit blue I guess.  That and wondering what this next year will have in store for me, for the plans I really want to start putting into place.  No, no, no, not telling right now.  You will just have to wait and see if I actually do anything about it.

It seems to be my habit to want to write when I'm barely awake.  I have had a few sips of java and am working on my 2nd Marlboro (gawd I need to quit).  The eyes though are still heavy with sleep.

 

I had a difficult time going to sleep last night.  I'm thinking about my trip that is scheduled for tomorrow.  I fly to OKC to see my kids and grandson.  I'll be staying with my son and although he tells me not to worry, I do.  I've talked with his girlfriend's mother only once on the phone and although she said it's ok for me to come up there to spend time with my son and stay in her home, there is something inside of me that says different.  A gut feeling?  Or nerves?

 

I so wanted to be able to rent a car so I won't feel so trapped while I'm there.  I tried to sell this tennis braclet I have but the pawn shop would only buy it for $20 and I said "Hell No!"  I have a ring that I know I can pawn for up to $200.  I have another ring that sparkles too and had them see what they would loan me for it.  Only $10.  This second ring has 4 small rubies and what I thought was 6 diamonds.  Turns out they are cubic zarconias.  I decided I don't need to get myself involved in the pawn shop again.  My freedom is not worth the money I'd loose trying to keep from loosing my ring(s).

 

So, instead I find myself just being grateful that my son is willing to pay me back with this flight up there.  Grateful that I'll get to spend a few hours here and there with my son, daughters, and grandson.  I can't wait.

 

On that note, I have a ton of things to get done before my flight tomorrow morning.

 

Good day

Now there's a title!  *Snicker, snicker*

 

If you can't tell, I'm feeling a bit better then I was this morning.  Now that my car is fixed and running better, I'm really thrilled!  And I just finished cleaning her up too.  She shines so pretty inside and out!

 

Wanted to see if the thought process would lead me to wanting to write, hence the 2nd entry of the day and my glorious title.  I'm not really feeling the words though so this will be short.

 

Good night to my nil readers.

It's unclear to me why we celebrate and/or just flat out get drunk on a Friday night just to be awaken by "The Noise".  You know what noise I'm talking about.  All neighbors do it.  I just for the life of me cannot figure out why in blessed Hell are they using a damn weed eater to cut the entire grass in their backyard!  It's right near the very room in which I'm trying to type out these meager words. 

 

I don't really have the typical hungover headache that comes with too much drinking, per seh.  I am suffering more of the upset stomach, not enough to eat, kind of hangover. 

 

Oh Thank God.  The noise stopped!

 

Well, that was breif, it started again.

 

My honey just left a few ago to run and pay our rent.  I'm such a mean bitch.  I don't like him driving my new car.  I gave him explicit intructions to only go and pay rent and if he is to go anywhere else he is to come back here and get me.  No matter how long it takes me to get ready!  You should have seen the look I got from him!  I am kind of glad that he took my car though.  I have been having trouble with it starting and staying started. 

 

The other day at work I was leaving for the day and climbed into my nice clean 2001 Madza Tribute that even has the "Zoom Zoom" on the back windshield, cranked her up... died.  Cranked her again, died.  Crank once more keeping my foot on the gas to keep those whatever they're called running and turning.  As soon as I put the damn thing in gear to drive, it dies.  I can go from Park to Drive as I always back into the parking space I use everyday.  I want to be able to just shoot right out of the spot as soon as I clock out. 

 

Anyway, so I finally get her running and leaving the back parking lot when I didn't even get to where the garbage bin is when she died on me.  Starting to get pissed now, I slam her into park and wait a beat before restarting.

 

They quit!  Yea!  The noise level is back to tollerable.  *Sigh*  I'm in heaven.  I'd much prefer the soft hum of my computer tower and gentle breeze coming in through my back door that it is now scented with the strong odor of cut grass. 

 

I don't even know why I'm trying to type or get any thoughts out of this jummbled up brain of mine that is clearly still in it's drunken fog. 

 

Shit, there it goes again.  They must have had to fill it with gas or something.  I didn't think their damn back yard was that big!  Yes, they are still using the weed wacker and I must admit, it does take a very long time to mow anything down just using this item.  They generally send over one of their kids (probably the one doing the weed eating now----there's only 7 kids living in that trailor next door with a mom and dad on the outs with each other) to borrow our lawn mower.  I think I know why they don't ask anymore.  Both him (the boyfriend, lover, whatever label you wanna place on him) and I are fed up with them (the kids) borrowing our shit and never ever bringing it back.  One of their young kids took our broom right out of our screen room and then lied that they took it!  It was clearly a blue broom.  The only one of its kind.  And I not only had it since I lived directly across the street from these people but before we ever moved into this neighborhood.

 

The noise has stopped again.  I wonder for how long this time....

 

My honey just arrived without breakfast and I think I have woke up enough to drive us to Denny's this morning.  I think I can eat now anyway.  So, till later..............

With that being said, I cannot believe it has been over a year since I have felt the need to express myself via words.  I read daily while at work on my breaks and lunch hour.  I TRULY have a boring life.  Here lately; however, I have had this incredible need to start expressing myself with the words I'm so fond of reading. 

 

I am my own worse enemy and therefore don't feel I have the capacity to write like the ones that actually get paid to write their minds, ideas, fantasies, etc., etc.  I do I have a certain flare with painting a picture by being very detailed when I speak.  I do so much documentation on-the-job, that my tech-lead supervisor states, "I know she documented! Be prepared for a book!"

 

Sometimes I just don't know how to keep it simple ya know?

 

I know part of the problem is grammar.  I think I do fairly well, but I know there are times I drop a comma or should add a semi-colon or a misspelled word or two, or some such thing like that.  Another problem I have in my writing that I am very aware of are my run on sentences.  I can recall writing my mother a letter once and she said she ran out of breath when she read it out loud to herself to understand what I wrote!

 

The biggest problem in writing is the idea.  I get them.  I just don't always know how to put it into words or once I get started, I lose interest in it if it doesn't come out the way I want it to right away. 

 

So far, I'm pleased with how this is going, even if you the reader is not.

 

At least my keyboard hasn't stopped talking to me yet.  And I haven't had the need to go back and proof read, just yet.  LOL

 

I do have a story I want to tell, a book actually.  Not here, and not tonight, obviously.  I have often wondered if I could get the book out in this forum.  I mean, to tell the story I want to tell with the entries as my chapters.  Do I dare?

 

I'm always questioning myself in this area, hell every area of my life I question.  I never just do, until the urge hits me so strong that if I don't I feel like I will bust wide open if I don't.  I have so many ideas running around in this mixed up thing I sometimes call a brain.  I should probably buy myself a tape recorder and just say the words before I attempt to write them out.  I'd feel silly talking into a machine though so that idea is not a good one.

 

Ever have an idea that sounds really good in your head?  I get them all the time.  Until I actually voice it; however, then it doesn't sound so great.

 

See, there I go again!  Mocking oneself really should be a full-time job.  I could retire quite comfortably.

 

Not all ideas are bad.  I do have good ones and I know it. 

 

And yet again, here I go!  I was just thinking to myself.  Should that really be a paragraph all on it's own like that?  Am I paragraphing correctly?  Here, let's go back and reread to check and be sure of it.  LMAO, just kidding.  NOT. 

 

Maybe I should become a politician...

 

After all, I'm getting the whole thing down about saying stuff without really saying anything.

 

I crack myself up sometimes.

 

So, I have fulfilled my urge to do some writing.  Trying it on like a well worn hat just to see if it fits.  Sigh. 

Yet, who on this earth would?  I know I'm no different than anyone else in this area as fas as NOT enjoying it!  I would like to shove these germs down a certain person's throat for spreading them around.

 

If only I had the strength.

 

Stopped up nose, runny nose, itchy watery eyes, headache, and the chills.  I have barely been awake today and this go around I have only been awake for just a few moments, I feel like I could sleep another 2, or 3 hours easily.  I must go to the store and get medicine.  I cannot afford another day off although I have plenty of PTO time availible.  It will no shorten my trip back home for Thanksgiving to see the kids, my grandson, my mom and my sister as well as his family's.

 

Must feel better, must feel better...

 

Ya think if I say that over and over again it will work?

I'm wondering with all the time I am spending here lately writing my book if I'll be able to keep up with this site.  I was able to sit and vent with a co-worker Friday night after work so that helped and now have no need to write about it.  I'm sure I'll find reason to write about the job again.  Just so I can bore the no reader's I have at this website.  I don't have any reader's at the other site either but it will be my private site.  Meaning only people I know will have access to it. 

 

So, with nothing else to say....I'm outta here!

Sleep.  I can hardly keep my eyes open because I just woke up.  I lay down to take a short nap yesterday around 4pm and slept till 12:30 am.  I got up, got me some water, read some in my book, got online, went to my chat rooms, no one was there, played a game, got me something to eat, and was back in bed by nearly 2.  What has woke me up at 8 am and at 12:30 am is my back.  The pain just wouldn’t let me lay there any longer.

 

I’ve taken my pill for my thyroid and with the newly cup of java I have just poured for myself I’m hoping I’ll feel more refreshed then what I do.  You would think with all the sleep I have just had I would feel rested but I don’t.  The lower part of my back is killing me and so is my head.  That’s what I need, aspirin…

 

Sitting here trying to wake up for a day of laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning, and all I want to do is close my eyes.  I can hear a small bird outside my window chirping over the loud fan I have next to me.  I can feel the weight of my glasses on my nose (sometimes I wish I had contacts).  I can feel the tightness in the back of my neck as well as my lower back, and all I want to do is close my eyes. 

 

I don’t know why I don’t.  I mean, I can type with my eyes close I know the keys that well.  I know when I make a mistake don’t think twice hitting the backspace key.  It’s as if my pinkie finger has a mind of it’s own.  But I have to watch the words growing across the screen.  As if I’ll miss something if I don’t. 

 

A stretch of the muscles…a bathroom break…refill the coffee…

 

Becoming more awake now but still has sleepiness in my eyes I return to my writing.  Not sure of where I want this entry to go, just tapping on the keys to attempt to make some sense out of my sentences.  Wishing I could write like the author’s I read, I have an idea for a book.  I’m thinking to myself I have two websites.  I should use one for the fiction, one for the personal.  I don’t have a lot of time now to write and when I do it is always about work or something trivial and these are things that I really don’t want to write about.  However, having the weblog for these things has been a blessing, a release.

 

Venting is good.  I’m the type of person who cannot keep such things locked up or I’ll explode or even worse, “act out”.  I have been threatening to quit my job all week and that is the worse kind of acting out I just don’t want to do.  I have too many things coming up that depend on my keeping my job.  I just get so tired of being yelled out nearly every other day.  They truly do not pay me enough to put up with it.  And the worse part of being yelled at is the threat of court.  My job entails such actions when the patient I’m staffing for gets injured on the job and there is a lawyer involved.  In this case it was only a threat and once I did my follow-up call the patient’s sister was pleased with the agency I hired to do the home health.  *Wipes sweat off my brow* And really she had me in tears listening to the sad story of what her family has been through.  Hence the other reason I don’t like my job, it is turning me into a person I don’t like, one without feeling or compassion.    I should not have spent that much time on the phone with her that day but I felt she needed to get it out, to release the tensions of how things had gone terribly wrong with not only her mentally retarded sister (the injured worker) but with the loss of their mother.  In a world where no one listens and allows it to be all about the money, I listened.  I paid attention.  Who knows?  It could be me next time.

 

Ok, so I have compassion for my fellow man.  I’m not supposed to.  I’m suppose to get on the phone, find out if services where rendered, if they are happy with said services, find out if there is any problems, deal with said problems and move on.  That is what I’m supposed to.  Half the time; however, I just don’t make those follow up calls.  I almost used the company abbreviation but those oh so few reader’s I have here would not know what is meant save for one. 

 

Ok, so I have compassion and I believe I saved the company and myself a trip up north and a long drawn out legal battle.  And all because I listened it helped me to get up and go back to work the rest of the week.  Sometimes, when it is times like this I realize my job makes a difference to the world at large.  And that is an awesome feeling.  My job is very stressful and I repeat the words, they don’t pay me enough to do what I do.  But it is most likely more than I’ll get doing any thing else.  So, I have (at the suggestion of a friend), placed the company on a 90-day probation.  They don’t know that, of course, but it does give me time to look elsewhere while I refine myself in the process. 

 

Having the highest caseload of the entire specialist’s we have thus far, (I know this because of a recent chart count at 112 files) I was able to discharge 9 of them.  When I walk into work tomorrow my desk is the cleanest it has been in weeks.  I feel good about the work I was able to accomplish on Friday even though I wasn’t able to get to everybody. 

 

It amazes me sometimes, when I sit at this computer intent on writing about something other than my job, I inevitably write about it.  How am I to learn about what I really want to write about it if I can’t learn to separate it from the story that is burning inside me to get out?  The story that needs to be written in all its grotesqueness and sadness, a work of fiction it will become with some truth to it.  

 

A blank moment while starring at the cursor blinking madly on my screen, I have no answer to the question.  A question I don’t want answered by anyone else but myself because I am the only one that knows the answer to the question.  The blinking doesn’t help.  The blinking of the crazy horizontal black line is driving me mad to find the answer, when it must be simple.  Simple in the way of just taking the “Nike” approach and “Just doing”!  There, possibly I have answered my own question and instead of trying to figure it out, I simply must make the time to fulfill my own dreams of becoming a writer.  Writing the story that must be told in hopes of saving just one.

 

And so I put it off again by ending this ranting of an entry and climbing out of my night ware and into my grungiest clothes for a day of cleaning and sweating.   

I’ve been playing around with new blogging software over the weekend when I should have been writing.  I have had so much on my mind to write about I keep telling myself I’d come here and yet I put it off.

 

The first things I want to talk about are the life decisions I have made for myself.  It has been difficult to follow through on one of them but I have been putting forth my best effort.  With all my recent medical problems I decided to start helping my doctor and myself by stopping all the soda.  You heard me, all the soda.  On a good day I can drink a two-liter of Dr. Pepper and most of the time I keep it just under that.  A lot of soda I know, I know.  I’m hoping to drop just a couple of pounds by not drinking it, cause everyone says I should.  I’ve replaced what I have called my life’s blood with water which is a feat in and of it’s self.  I don’t like water.  Never really have.  There have been the rare occasions that it has tasted good and has been the only thing that has quenched my thirst but for the most part, my thirst has always been quenched by my soda. 

 

It started on a Sunday (a week ago today), for some reason the soda really wasn’t fulfilling me and hasn’t for a while.  So, yes, I have been thinking about this for sometime.   When my other half and I went to the grocery store I told him I wasn’t going to buy any more soda and wanted to double up on our water supply.  I asked him for his help on this when he brought over a one-liter Dr. Pepper to go with his liquor and insisted he get himself Coke.  I didn’t want to be tempted and so he honored my request.  I’ve been backing off the booze too just because I think it may have something to do with how I feel the next morning regardless of how much I drink the night before.  For the most part that isn’t much because I simply just don’t have a whole lot of time to get soused from the time I get home till I go to bed.  But that is for another complaint a bit further in this discussion.  I don’t want to get started on my job just yet.  And you thought I’d talk about the booze…

 

Ok, so I didn’t have any soda on Sunday last week and did nothing but suck on ice-cubes all day.  A feat difficult in itself because of how bad my teeth are; however I kill two birds with one stone by doing this here in my hot box of a trailer. 

 

On Monday I felt I was doing pretty well until I felt this twinge of pain start at the base of my neck on the left side and shoot up to my temple of the same side.  My newest med for blood pressure tells me my Ibuprophen interacts with it so I have backed off in taking so much of it and just making do with my headaches until this.  And instead of my normal 4 I only took 2.  It wasn’t helping so by lunchtime I was buying me a 16-ounce DP to go with my fat free, low cholesterol diet of tuna and crackers.  I had forgot about experiencing a caffeine headache by stopping cold turkey like this and struggled the rest of the day at work.  Between the hours of when I first arrived and that twinge I spoke of, I downed two cups of coffee.  So between the coffees, the two pills I would allow myself, and the soda at lunch I was hoping to feel a bit better.  The headache subsided some but not much. 

 

The next thing that was bothering me was my stomach.  Along with everything else the same med makes me incredibly sick to my stomach so by lunchtime I could barely eat.  I stayed at work to fill my employee duty but my heart wasn’t in it.  I did do my best for the day considering how I felt and trudged on by telling myself, “You can do this”.  The stomach problems though I’m not handling as well as I guess I should.  Everything in my body tells me to lie down and of course I can’t do that on the job.  But I stay.

 

I decided to get one of my favorite meals for breakfast on my way to work the next morning, which is not helping my cause any at all.  I love Burger King’s sausage, egg and cheese croissants, which are the only things in the morning that help me feel full.  The other decision I had made ended up backfiring on me because of who I told.  I decided to not take my blood pressure med that morning.  My justification for it was to allow myself a day away from the incessant nausea that comes with taking this medication.  Everyone keeps telling me to call my doctor about it and I have only been on the med at this time a few days.  The reason for this plan backfiring on me is because of whom I told.  She gave me "what for" about the whole thing and I promised I would take the next day.  And I did.  Right in front of her so she was my witness.

 

The day away from the med and I started feeling better.  My stomach felt so much better and I no longer had the feeling of everything I ate was going to come back up.  Even the leg cramps that are associated with this med seemed to have stopped.  I keep telling myself if I can just get passed these two symptoms from this med I can do this.    So the rest of the week I took it faithfully in the morning right after I finished my meal.  And within an hour or so I was feeling that nausea coming back in full force. 

 

Wednesday wasn’t that bad.  I could handle it.  Thursday was worse.  But by Friday I couldn’t stand it.  By the time I had finished my lunch I thought I would hurl all over the place.  I managed to stay about an hour past my coming back from lunch but between the heat of the place (my fan was not helping), the headache I have kept most of the week from no soda I just couldn’t stand being at work a moment longer.  So I left.

 

I came home and stretched myself out on my couch with the book I just started that morning and managed to get halfway through the book before my other half came home from work.  And actually he had already been home once cause he called me once I returned to my desk from lunch and I had told him I was feeling poorly. 

 

So, the next morning, which is Saturday, I’m due at a tea party.  Yea, you heard (or read me right), a tea party.  I have recently been asked to join a club called “The Red Hat Society” in which I am an honorary “Pink Hat”.  I’m a pink hat because I’ll be forty years old this next year and I’m honorary because I’m not quite pink.  The Red Hat Society is about growing old, something all women try to avoid.  And not always gracefully I might add.  To become a Red Hatter you have to be 50 or over so I got awhile yet.  But it is getting closer and closer…  Ok, so now you know how old I am.

 

For now, I want to talk about my job.  Oh boy, there she goes…

 

I want to quit.  So bad I can taste it.  I have the biggest caseload of all the specialists and I just can’t handle it any further.  I’m on the verge of just not going back or while I’m there, walking out.  I can’t keep up with the new referrals and keep up with all the re-authorizations much less the phone ringing off it’s damn hook and trying to make all my call backs.  Not to mention the faxes.  Fax notes here and fax notes there.  Oh and let’s not forget to do the support person’s job by clearing off the fax machine every time you have to fax something to someone.  We already have one of our specialists doing the job of our support person by logging out the new referrals when she decides her family is more important then her job.  How could she?

 

I know what it is like to try and hold down a job and raise a family like anyone else.  And it is tough when you have a child that is constantly sick.  It is tough to be at work on a daily basis when you are taking said child to the doctor every other week or the child is running a fever and they can’t be taken to daycare.  That is all fine and well because it shows me she is being a mother that cares for her baby but this is a job that requires you to be there everyday regardless of what is happening in your life.  Hence the reason of guilt I had by leaving 3 hours early on Friday, even though I probably worked that in overtime for the week and then some. 

 

We have patients that count on us on a daily basis and when we drop the ball like I have done too many times this past week it gets to you.  I am seriously considering a new job.  I really feel my blood pressure would thank me gratefully if I did make the change.  I do think of the job as a challenge though and that is what keeps me there on a daily basis.  I don’t know what I’m going to do about it.  Guess I didn't want to talk about my job as much as I thought.  That or I'm just tired of typing.  You decided. 

 

Until another time…

I'm a classic rock-n-roller by heart but as some have noticed, I don't just have rock-n-roll listed on my side bar.  For you music buffs, I just added a few more to my list.  It is time consuming to do and I don't feel like doing all of what I have downloaded so far.  Check it out and rate it!

 

Currently listening to American Pie......

I just spent the greatest time on the phone!  A person I hadn't talked to in the longest time has reconnected wtih me and I'm so glad she has.  While on the phone her and I had been trying to figure out the last time we actually saw each other and to me it seems like it was two years ago.  She thinks it is sooner than that but I'm not sure.  We always had a connection via internet but to me that doesn't count.  Not in a friendship like we have had.  We have always thought of each other as sister's from the first we met no matter the age difference between us.  I have told her she reminds me of my daughter and even tonite on the phone she sounded just like her.  My daughter is a bit younger than she is now but it doesn't matter.  She is still my friend and I think very highly of her.  I have missed her both in my personal life and here online...ok, ok, So it does count.  It just felt awesome to be able to talk for a couple of hours tonite in a time of my life where I normally don't talk on the phone after spending my whole entire day on one.

 

I just had to take a few moments to share that.  I'm off to bed.  Gotta see the doctor tomorrow to have my blood drawn to check to see if my synthroid is doing it's job, which I can honestly say it isn't.  I still feel so very very tired all the time and I know that isn't good.  I was chatting for a few with the supervisor that has taken the place of my supervisor while she has been off work for the last 6 weeks on medical leave.  This supervisor and I were discussing my medical condition and I expressed how tired, exhausted is more the word, I am on a daily basis.  She stated because of the job we do it might have a bit to do with it and although she does have a point in the way doing a high level stress job on a daily basis can make one tired on a regular basis, I somehow feel there is more than that with me.  I mean, I am the one with an underactive thyroid where the biggest compliant is extreme fatigue!  If you are a doctor reading this...you tell me.  No wait...I'm seeing one tomorrow so never mind.  :-)

 

Good night cyber space.  Sleep well.  I know I won't cause I never do.  But that's another complaint for another day.

 

Shit...this entry wasn't suppose to be about complaints but about reconnecting with a long lost friend.  And I just feel on top of the world about it.  I have missed her.  Welcome back Trinity!  It is wonderful to hear your smiling voice again and I can't wait to see it tomorrow after I get done at my doctor's appointment.  Shhhhh, it's a secret!  Tehehehehehe

I feel like a poem.....

 

Here I sit all broken hearted

Tried to shit but only farted,

Gave myself a second chance

Tried to fart and shit my pants!

 

 

Just about sums up my mood for today.  I had been on a natural high all week.  For those who know me, know how important it has been to have my children back in my life.  The story as to the reason why they have not been with me for the last 7 years (gawd, has it been that long?) is a long one, and one for not sharing tonite.

 

I had found out this past Sunday my youngest daughter now 18 wants to come here to live with me and finish her last year in High School.  I bought the plane ticket two days ago which would make it Tuesday.  Tonight I find out she has changed her mind and doesn't want to come.  All I heard for two days is she didn't want to go to a certain school and she wanted to be with me. 

 

This is the child I have called my special child.  I know, I know, all children are special in their own unique way.  This child of mine; however, is said to never have a mind past a ten year old child and is never to be able to live alone.  Upon my getting clean from drugs I have spent the last 4 years praying and dreaming of her coming to live with me.  I have tried to get my son since he was 15 (now 17) but the state will not overturn a decision I made nearly 5 years ago in the height of my most serious drug abuse.  He has to wait till he is 18 to make that decision to come here. 

 

With my youngest daughter (I have 3 children with the oldest also a young woman) I have told myself I would have to fight the courts to even get her.  All due to her mental slowness and the possiblility of her not being able to make sound decisions for herself.  A fight I have waited to fight until I could financially support it.  I really cannot afford it but as they say, "Where there is a will, there is a way".  They (meaning the state) has talked her out of coming here, convincing her to stay and finish High School where she is at.  I don't want to believe it is the guardian mother that has helped her to change her mind.  I don't want to believe it b/c she is the one that told me what my daughter wanted.  She herself even said she can't stop her b/c of her age and wouldn't if it truly was what she wanted.

 

Hence the feeling I'm feeling.

 

The cruel unwantedness from a child you have protected to the hilt which is why she is in the place she is in.  And the desire to return to places I said I'd nevervisit again.  I'm hurt.  I'm crushed.  Yet again, when I had hope beyond hope and in one fell swoop, dreams dashed, prayers unanswered, and a family (mainly sister and mother) that seem change their minds about this like people change thier socks.

 

I can't write about this anymore.

My doctor called me at work today so I now finally have the results of my wound cultures.  They are positive for Staph in which my new doctor called in a script for antibotics.  You would think with all the antibotics I have taken over the last 6 months with this shit it would be over but no.  I'll take the pills cause I'm tired of having the sores and pray this will be the last time to suffer the nasty things.  I should be counting my blessing cause it could have been so many other things so I am greatful.  I just hate the idea of yet another pill to take.  I'm already getting up a half an hour earlier just to take my thyroid meds an hour before I eat.  And because of it I am getting to work a half an hour before I used to.  Hmmmm, I wonder if I really need to get up earlier.  No matter, I want to be put on an earlier schedule anyway so I might as well get used to it.

 

And speaking of work...I know all my fabulous reader's out there are just dying to hear today's entry concerning my job.  Can we say sarcasim? 

 

This week has been per the norm I guess.  I haven't been working as many hours as I have and that's ok, I guess.  I do so love that time and a half tho.  My heart just hadn't been into it really.  I look at the damn clock that sits on top of my monitor like every 15 minutes, counting the minutes before my next break, or lunch, or the last break, just so I can go smoke another nail and get lost in the currant book I'm reading.  I get so tired of these NCM's or DCP's (discharge planner's) calling in an order for home health at or after our cut off time and expexting us to get either the same day or next day service.  These people don't seem to understand the agencies just don't have RN's and aides or P/T's just sitting around waiting for the phone to ring to go to a patient's home.  It gets so frustrating.  And then they expect me to staff it without the orders!  How could they?  I'm exagerating I know, but still. 

 

What's that saying, just because it's your emergancy doesn't mean it's mine?

 

Sometimes I wish I could say that to some of these folks I deal with on a daily basis but I think I'd get written up for something like that.  Don't need a black mark on my empecable record.

 

Oh well, tomorrow is another day and I'll get up and go in and make these calls to staff for home care or get new auth and hear about how someone is on vacation and dream I was with them.  One day, I will have mine and I will be like the others and not give the job a second thought.  Yea right.  Who am I kidding?  I dream about that place. 

 

I need a life.......

A breath of fresh air, if you can call sitting in 90 degree heat with a fan blowing in your face fresh air.  Then baby I have plenty of swamp land here in sunny Florida I'd like to sell ya!

 

Not really, just kidding.

 

It just feels good to have a weekend off for a change.  Even tho I was off last weekend it was not enjoyable as I was still in a lot of pain, which was the reason for going to the doctor this week.  Ok, so here it is in a nut shell as to why I am concerned for my health.  I have been telling people what I have preceived to be a spider bite (brown recluse) as the sores I have been getting.  Officially, I won't have the results till Monday when (hopefully) someone from my new doctor's office will call me at work with the results whether good or bad.  The results, I guess you could say that I'm praying for is that it is directly related to my thyroid which would prove my mother right (@#$-%&*# $%), that I should not have taken myself off my synthroid medication.  Combine my low active thyroid to the abundance of high-level, on-the-job stress, excessive fatigue, and the fact I am prone to boils and you've got something that looks like a brown recluse spider bite.  The down side of things is it could be a staph infection that keeps reacurring or one of many other dreadful diseases.  I'm not going to worry about it though.  It is what it is and after months of family and friends nagging at me to seek medical attention for it, I will do whatever or take whatever my new doctor instructs.  I am tired of feeling run down all the time, not have the energy to even do simple things.  I do the laundry around here and that has been the jist of my homemaker activiites.  My other half (tho we are not married) does everything else.

 

In an attempt to eliviated some of the stress I work hard at not bringing my work home with me.  Sometimes it isn't as easy to do as it is to say so, it is good to be able to have someone to vent to and my b/f is a great sounding board.  He takes nothing personal and does not take on my crap to make it his, something that is difficult for some people to do.  I have always been one to take on everyone else's problems even tho they aren't mine and then make them my problem.  That also causes stress.  Applying that knowledge to my job makes it easier for me to show up everyday because when a NCM (Nurse Case Manager) calls in steaming mad cause someone in the company did something wrong or I didn't get the case staffed fast enough to suit his/her needs, I don't take it personal.  When my department is half empty of it's employees, I say nothing and just buckle down and do the work that needs to be done.  If the people that don't want to be there that don't show up I know they are only hanging their own necks.  Granted it becomes stressful to the rest of us that choose to show up everyday but I also have to take a different look at it to.  If it weren't for them not showing up then I wouldn't be getting as much overtime that I have gotten recently.  Well, that isn't exactly true. 

 

The job itself in my opinion really is a 10 to 12 hour a day job just because of what it entails.  Our "acting" supervisor (my real one just got out of the hospital and won't be back for a few weeks) has decided to turn our department upside down.  She helped me out yesterday with not letting our support staff (when they decide to show up) not log any new referrals to me just so I can get my files cleaned up.  Cleaning up means to get the signed agreements, signed price quotes, discharge dates, and all notes so the file can be stored and accessiblie to our billers (another issue for another day)  I was offered a 12 hour day to do this and left after 11 hours on-the-job because I still have a stack that is probably 8 to 12 inches high sitting on my desk, waiting for god knows what.  The problem is with as short staffed as we are and the amount of referrals that come in on a daily basis and the re-auth's that need to be done, there just isn't enough time in the world to get it all done.  If the insurance carrier's kept hours as we do (so we can get authorization for continued care--better yet, get them to call you back!), then maybe, just maybe we could get the necessary work done.  Then there is the phone.  Group line calls, personal line calls where the agencies call to let me know a patient has refused a visit, needs supplies for dressing changes, needs DME equipment, or just plain more time to see the patient, it can all be a bit overwhelming.  Which is why we don't keep half the staff we need to do the job right.  My case load right now is about 100 patients, with new ones coming in everyday.  The average is about 2-4 a day.  If we were fully staffed it should be about one a day.  And sometimes it can take hours to get a case staffed for home care.  So if you are spending all your time on staffing new cases when does one have time to discharge a patient or get auth for continued care?  A question my department or the higher ups have been trying to get answered.  My answer,  is that we need more people then what we should even when we are considered fully staffed.

 

Another part of the problem is training.  I have worked for this company for almost 2 years and I started off in the billing department.  Billing for what I'm doing now, nursing.  All I did all day long was key in figures to bill the carrier for payment of services rendered.  An easy enough job.  Then I wanted to learn how to pay the vendor.  Once I learned how to pay I was doing both because one of our payers quit and we didn't have anyone to bill except me.  Then they wanted us to bill and pay our own stuff which slowed down the process.  Then the company got a new system put in place and you had no choice but to pay and bill  your own stuff.  Then came research to make sure the claim you have in front of you wasn't a duplicate claim so that slowed the process even further.  I think it was about 2 months after the new system went "live" before A/P actually sent out checks, or at least in bundles anyway.  Then I quit the company and moved half way across the states to be closer to my family.  Of course it didn't work out so I was able to come back to this company but of course all the billing positions were full.  I wanted to stay in the nursing deptment so I accepted the position of staffing.  I knew it would be tough but I had no idea.  At the time the tech-lead we had (she is no longer with the company) idea of training was to give me a peice of paper with the patient's name and address and personal info on it, what the needs where (kinda) and told me to start making calls in their area to find care for them.  She didn't tell me I had to first call and make sure the care was authorized by the carrier, nor did she tell me to call and get the script for said services.  I was hired back strickly because I know both the programs my company uses inside and out and therefore didn't need training.  I had no clue as to what I was doing as far as staffing was concerned.  But put a bill in front of me and I'm good to go.

 

I can't believe I have gone into this much detail about my job.  I need to just shut the hell up and go fix some dinner.  Oh wait!  Cant do that, I didn't lay anything out to thaw.  Stupid me.  So now you know a bit more about what I do for a living.  Confused as to what I do?  That's ok, most of the people on the job are confused about what needs to be done.  Typical for ****. 

It is the day after my doctor appointment and I wish I could say all is well.  I feel better knowing it may not be as bad as I thought but yet the results from the test are not complete just yet.  I'll get those on Monday and maybe I'll share more about it then.  One thing is for sure, my new doctor restarted me on my thyroid medicine something I stopped taking over a year ago.  The only reason he called it the script was because of my telling him about the previous doctor drawing blood and calling me at work wanting to call in the script then and then to follow up with her in 2 months even though her office will no longer be taking my insurance at the end of August.  And she wanted me to come back, I don't think so!  'Tis finding a new doctor, one recommended by my friend and fellow co-worker. 

 

Well, because I have been in an IM chat with her for the past hour I'm tired and don't want to write as much as I did when I first sat down here at the computer.  Now all I want to do is go to bed.  What I should do is go spend a few more minutes with my other half before retiring for the night, not that I get to see much of him now as it is cause I work so damn much. 

 

I can't hardly think....Good night!