Such a weird day

So today, I come around the corner, after my daily tennis ball routine (that's the joy of covering both units - back and forth, back and forth), and there's one of the care management guys - we'll call him John - standing in the doorway to where the elevators are, drinking a cup of coffee. And he sees me, and he says, "Kate. I've been waiting all morning for you, where ya been?" I'm actually not sure why, particularly, he was, well, loitering, but I'm reasonably sure he wasn't waiting for me. Nevertheless, I sassed him back a little, told him I'd spent the morning avoiding him (John and my interactions are usually feisty and border on gratuitously flirtatious, but we're not quite at the point of "Honey, you've been waiting for me a lot longer than that." Give us a week). But in case he actually had been looking for me I said, what's up, man? And he looks at me, cocks his head a little, and says, "You know, it's been a weird, weird day."

He really wasn't kidding.

There was a lot of parental weirdness going on today. No, not my parents. The parents of our patients. The other resident's parents are heavy duty. My kids' parents are mostly well-intentioned if a little neurotic (oh, the foreshadowing of that statement!!). Well, except for Monkey's mom, who doesn't really seem to care (Monkey, by the way, I adore that kid. I inherited him from Mike, who thought he was scary. But then again...I was relating to Mike the other day how Monkey had a tantrum and all I did was sit down next to him and he scooted over on the floor next to me and snuggled up, and then, tantrum over. He stopped crying, he went back to group, all was well. Mike shakes his head, says, "Yeah, well, he threw a piece of hard plastic moulding at me, so..." Honestly? Mike's a little less maternal. Which means, really, he lacks the soft snugly boobs. Nurse Ana and I think that's really what the story is).

I do have this one newly acquired mother, on the Adol unit, who is a little past neurotic. Now, let me state before I say anything else, I am not an opponent of homeschooling. I think you have to be like the smartest person in the world to home school your kids well. I know a lot of very bright, well socialized, well adjusted home schooled kids, and I think it's easier these days than ever before to be well supported in that endeavor. Truth be told? I have a little piece of me that really, really wishes that, were I to have any children, I could have the opportunity to home school them. But let's face it. High school geometry and I didn't get along so well the first time around. Plus, you know, that whole "doctoring" thing gets in the way, and I think that's an important example to set, too. But, I digress. The point is, I'm so not against home schooling your kids. What I am against is neurotic - wholly well-intentioned - MORONS home schooling their kids (this mom, and I know she's under stress, misused no less than six words in our half-hour conversation. And she be teaching the vocab?). I have this girl, on my service now, and okay, so she's fat. She's also apparently funny and very smart and a sweet kid, not to mention actually quite a pretty girl when she's not caterwauling. Anyway, when they moved here two years ago from Colorado, she went to her first day of school, and the kid who had the locker next to her kept kicking her between periods and telling her to move her fat ass. So what do her parents do? Withdraw her from school. Right away.

Great message to send.

Um, news flash, folks. High school, on the majority of occasions, sucks. There is not enough money in the world to get me to go back to being that age. Blech. But maybe there were other alternatives. Like, talking to her about it. Going to the principle. Et cetera (I told her today she should've kicked him back. Not the most shrink-y advice, maybe, but, well, then maybe he'd learn not to kick the fat girl!). Oh, but she's so sensitive. Um, maybe because you've never let her face a problem and win and her self-esteem is in the toilet. Maybe.

This is also the mother who brought Cold Stone for her daughter at visiting hours, and then turned around and asked me if our hospital had a weight loss program for children. And I kept trying to say, you know, maybe some of the somatizing she's doing is about her body hatred, how about we just teach her to make healthy decisions and love the body she has? And her mom, like, didn't even acknowledge that I'd said anything. Instead, she started talking (through her own bowl of ice cream) about her own gastric bypass surgery and how she's put on weight with the stress of the last couple of months, but it's going to be gone soon, mark her words.

Ah. I'm starting to see more of the problem.

Then, I go back into the workroom, and I run into Suzie (one of the nurses) and John, who are debating what to do with this letter Suzie received from an ex-patient. Who says she still wants to kill herself and goes on for two pages about how she's obsessively in love with this other patient on our unit, who, incidentally, is catatonic. We'll call him....Tomato. Now, Tomato seems like he's a nice kid in there somewhere, but right now he's still not speaking. And she's been trying and trying to get readmitted so she can be near him and with Suzie, who's the only one who understands her. Attending doc had suggested that maybe we call the therapist, but, well, she wasn't going to be upstairs for a while, she was busy. John and Suzie thought a doctor really should call. So, I did. And talked to her psych, and faxed him a copy of the letter, and felt a little bad about breaking her confidentiality (although it's totally allowed in cases like this, particularly when she's threatening to harm herself, or say, stalk other people, and I called her doc, which is sort of generally permitted anyway). It was so one of those letters you write to get all the crazy out and then never send them, except, she did send it. And not directly to the recipient, but instead, she addressed it to the social worker. So she clearly wanted it read. Oy, kiddo...so messed up. I only knew her briefly, but, I ache for her a little bit.

You know, the longer I'm here, the more I'm discovering, I actually sort of like the little people. I'm actually sort of good at this. And it would be great training to have, given that I want to work with trauma victims. I wouldn't have to restrict my practice to kids, but having that board certification in Child and Adolescent (not to mention the stuff I'd learn in those two years) would be really helpful. It's unfortunate, because everyone in my damn class wants to do C&A, and we only have five spots. And the people I'd be competing against are, generally, my really good friends in the class. And that sort of sucks. And I'd really want to stay, if I did a fellowship. Because I like it here. I don't know...it's just a preliminary thought right now...I'll be back to wanting to do forensics before you know it...