Captain's Log # 44 - Holiday Greetings & some lessons

Lesson 1

The best part of my job is going out to the units, or our hospital, and meeting the members to obtain their signatures on required documents. I met a woman who was out on the terrace of the hospital under an awning smoking a cigarette in the light rain. She’s my age and had been in a minor car accident, with only a broken foot (only.) She’s a good story-teller and relayed the experience. She was driving off campus when she was T-boned by a car leaving the champagne business just outside our facility. The police saw it all, she was taken to the local community hospital (they do all the x-rays, surgeries and fancy stuff), then released back here. She said her life flashed before her eyes, then she wondered “did I tell everyone that I love them?” Well, I’m telling you: I love Y-O-U!

For some reason I’m feeling quite content this time of year. Usually I feel that the winter holiday season is imposed upon me, like a burden. I’m supposed to be happy, and I say “Bah, humbug!” But this year I have a glow of thankfulness. Why, I wondered? I am happy that our house didn’t burn down in the local wildfires, again; I have my own roof over my head; I’m surrounded by all of my artsy-fartsy toys; I have a job that I enjoy; food on the table and it’s raining. The best part has been the several weeks of ‘female’ rain: soft and gentle, with warmth. The earth, sky and ocean breathing together.

Lesson 2: Fish-eye

My mother had a facial expression she used infrequently, I call it The Fish-eye. Her eye would look like that of a dead fish and her eyebrows, forehead, mouth, her whole face would cinch up with an expression that said “F-off!” I’m afraid I gave someone a verbal Fish-eye the other day. My job has 3 main components: I do paperwork and meetings with/for prospective or new members; I do data entry for outside medical billing so vendors get paid; lastly, I create paperwork and collect signatures for the members when they move up, and now down, in level of care in our 2 licensed areas: intermediate care and skilled nursing. Licensed, in this case, means these areas are required to employ registered nurses because our whole facility is licensed by at least the State of California and apparently federal Medicare. Until this past week I had been creating paper and getting signatures for people moving up in level of care. Now a ruling has come down, a new interpretation of the law, that I must do this for people moving down in level of care, too. This doubles my workload and I haven’t been able to catch up. The good part is that I’m supposed to do the best I can and if it’s not good enough then the work will be shifted to others. My supervisor has a plan to get Nursing to ‘up their game’ and contribute (I’m in Finance.) The problem is that legally this paperwork has to be signed before the change in level of care, like when a member comes back from an outside hospital (how am I going to be there for that?) or before a member is released from skilled (in our hospital) to intermediate care (also in our facility.) Unless Nursing takes this on it’s impossible for me. It’s been very stressful week. And that’s not the half of it, some high mucky-muck ‘jefe’ in Nursing has determined that they don’t have this paperwork for over 200 historic changes in level of care! So two people in my office have been flogging our poor copier churning out this 83 page document and others in my office have been running down members to get signatures. Fortunately, I’m only responsible for current changes, and that’s hard enough. Anyway, I got a call from someone in Nursing, introducing themselves and trying to be nice, cultivate a friendly relationship, inviting me to their holiday party to meet the team and decision makers. I was not at all feeling friendly but didn’t say “I don’t have time for your stinking party because you’re causing me all this work!” I did say I was swamped and was obviously giving her the verbal Fish-eye to get off the phone. Upon reflection, I think it would behoove me take an hour out of my day to go to the party. If I don’t get my work done, so be it, if it causes us to be written up by ‘licensing’ then some modifications will be made. Relationships are more important in the long run, a lesson I’m only learning now.

As an aside, I’m really impressed with our supervisors, we work hard for them and they work hard for us, and they interface with upper management with grace and even temperament. Great role models.

Another lesson

So I was in the hospital the other day getting this 83 page document signed by a man who’s face looked like it had been beaten to a pulp, well not pulp but very bruised. Instinctively you want to say, “Whoa! What happened to you?!” But I didn’t, it’s none of my business. I needed four signatures and four initials so I was there for a little while explaining what he was signing; I got a good look at his face. Under his eyes he had two rectangular blotches, like football players use only these were a dark blue-red (perylene maroon with Winsor Newton Blue, red shade). A fair amount of his face gradated through a kind of yellow, grayish green (New Gamboge with a little Violet to gray it down, then a touch of blue to green it up, I say this because there are a couple of watercolor artists reading this.) At the end he apologized for how his face looked, he had fallen on it. I said, “Hey, people pay money to look like this.” My neighbor is a makeup artist. He laughed and said how wonderful the staff has been to him. I said, “I bet you get good treatment because you’re appreciative.” He laughed, “You got that right!” He had been an emergency room doctor for twenty years before he went back to school to  become a psychologist. He was the nicest guy, I just wanted to hang out with him, so different from another fellow I saw the day before who complained about everything! Every word out of his mouth was complaint. His most frequent complaint was that the doctor and nursing staff never came to see him. Hmm, is that so? I wonder why. Being a glass-half-full sort of person I countered every one of his complaints until he said, “You can’t change my mind.” Ok, alright; I got it. I could be written up for harassing a member, LOL! Every fiber in his being was complaint. It was an integral component of his identity. He can’t help himself. It could be genetic. When I see him around campus I always smile broadly and say, “Good to see you!” I can’t help myself.

Hope you’re enjoying this season. It’s going to start getting lighter! Welcome Sun!

Let me know what’s up with you.

Many blessings,

Karla, mom, k.j.