Dear little white cells of mine -

Listen, if you could step it up in there, that'd be great. Because frankly, I've had enough of this.

I'm so done with being sick.

I think I have bronchitis. I made Peng listen to my lungs today at work. And then emailed my doctor, "Peng says my lungs are clear. She's a real doctor and everything."

And then Peng declared that I need to quit dying, dammit. And, as she noted, since she said "dammit" I have to obey.

Then again, as Matt was quick to point out (helpful man that he is), physical exam alone will miss a pneumonia 50% 0f the time.

Matt also looked through my clinic files today and declared that he does think I'm more anal than he is. And let me tell you, my friends, that is a high-set bar. He then mocked my lung-hocking cough. So I punched him in the arm. So then he pulled my pigtails.

No, wait, that was second grade...that was something else entirely...

Meanwhile, Ruthie was running around the office today in a tizzy. She was behind in clinic, she was on call tonight, it was a day of chaos for her. I felt bad. Apparently not bad enough, though, to not point out her inefficient habits when she complained about clinic running late (I wasn't as blunt as all that, and in fact, was pointing out that she needs to hold her boundaries and respect her own needs over those of the clinic, the patients who show up forty minutes late and are super demanding, our supervisors who are also making demands, her office mates who label her compulsive need for completeness as "inefficiency"....). But then, I always was a bitch.

Heh. I love how our patients think we're all "normal" and shit...

So I rescheduled my day tomorrow and am staying in bed and mainlining orange juice and trying for the life of me to stop being sick (dammit). So maybe I'll have something less stream of consciousness and more insightful to say then. Meanwhile, I'm going to bed.

Oh, but, my dad's knee culture didn't grow anything, so they're probably throwing him out tomorrow after PT. No surgery, no antibiotics, but with closer ortho follow up. So that's a good thing.

Oh, and PS -

Lest the Night Float Gods think I don't appreciate all this down time I've had the last two nights...I'm so lovin' it. I know it can't last the whole week, but...well, a girl could hope...

More please!

Okay, I'm going to do a couple more laps and then maybe some knitting....

Babbling the midnight oil

Night float, day 2...

I've seen exactly one patient, who was here when I got here, but you know what? I feel good about that patient. It was an adolescent that I took a long time with and I think I managed to get the situation to work in her best interest. It helped that there was a Pedes ER attending on who was just incredibly helpful and interested and invested in this kid.

You know...I have this soft little place in my heart for adolescents that I didn't have any sort of awareness of until this year. Previously, I mostly found them annoying and juvenile and always felt like they were making fun of me. I forget, though, what a complicated and tumultuous time adolescence is by its very nature. Add in screwy social circumstances or caretakers with limited parenting skills, and gosh, these kids just have so much trying to coalesce on them. And, you know, maybe it's the population of kids that I deal with, but I see so much...I don't know what it is. Energy, color, potential, intensity...so much raw possibility, this sort of effervescence of conflict and recombination, this complexity that's simultaneously developing and concluding... It's fascinating. And when you're underneath it, it's overwhelming.

I just don't see it in a lot of my adults. I mean, sometimes I see vestiges of it. Sometimes I see outright mature correlates, these peculiar and disorganized qualities come to fruition. But honestly, a lot of adults seem to have just lost this ineffable, diaphanous quality. Sometimes it seems like it's been sublimated into the unconscious, sometimes it seems like it's been partitioned off and redirected...but sometimes...in others...it just seems like it's gone. Like they've gone flat.

I don't know what that is. I don't know what it means. I obviously can't even describe whatever this is that I'm talking about with any degree of significant eloquence, but, well, it's 3 in the morning.

Does this make sense to anyone who lives outside my head?

Anyhow.

So the other interesting thing about my night has been this - when I got here and read my email, I discovered that I'm being audited for inappropriately accessing a patient's confidential medical records without a release of information on file. Which, I wasn't too concerned about, because, I figured it was one I opened on accident who had the same name as my patient, or, a patient I treated a while ago whom I was checking up on for continuity of care and, you know, silly things like learning. Until...until I got to the patient's name.

It's my record.

From the email conversation that's ensued, apparently, I'm being brought up for disciplinary action for - wait for it - violating my own privacy. And when I explained why I went in, that I added my medications which are prescribed by an outside provider, she told me that was a grave misuse of my access to the system.

Oh, come on.

So...apparently...it's an abuse of power to "alter" my medical record in such a manner. Because, you know, if one day, whilst I'm walking home, I get run over by the Chapel Hill Transit system (God forbid), and I wind up in the ER, all unconscious and bleeding, it's really not important for those doctors to know what goes into my body on a daily basis. Because it won't affect my treatment at all. Thank heavens I was all "ethical" and didn't "alter" anything.

I'm really pissed off about this. I mean, forgetting the fact that my record contains exactly this: the medications I've entered and two test results (a rapid strep and a Flu A aspirate) from when I went to employee health with the flu last year. Oh, and now, it probably shows a pending appointment with a family doc next week (FINALLY I'm going to go get all of this exhaustion and falling down checked out). It has my address wrong. It doesn't have my insurance information. And until said employee health flu visit, it had my name spelled wrong. Forgetting that there's NOTHING THERE, it's my information. It can't tell me anything I don't already know!

So, one of the things I did tonight was fill out a release of information form - to release my own information to myself. For the love of Steve....

Disciplinary action, my fat white ass.

Again I say...anyway.

So, now, I'm hanging out. I finished some paperwork, I disinfected my desk (Ruthie seems to have the plague). I did some laps around the psych department. I read my newly-arrived copy of Franklin Habit's cute new book of knitting cartoons, "It Itches." (SO cute. So Franklin. I love it.) I'd pre-ordered it months ago, so I was excited when I found it on my stoop this evening when I left for work. Last night I watched House and 30 Rock and Doogie Howser reruns on Hulu.

I keep trying to read more important things (like my readings for class tonight), but damn if I can concentrate on anything like that. I concede that I slept well today and thus tonight hate night float a little less, but, considering it's taken me over two hours to write this blog (I keep wandering off to do other very random things and then suddenly thinking, oh! Was I done with my blog?), I don't know that I'm up for great feats of concentration...

Yeah, don't think I'm going to class tonight.

Oh, in related news, I had my last interview for the psychoanalytic society this morning. It was much more pleasant than the one with the intrusive old guy who lived in the country. And I'm relieved that it's all wrapped up and done with.

Alright, I think I'm going to go knit. If anyone's still reading at this point...wow, you're awfully tolerant...

And, as it turns out....

I'm finally catching up on everyone's blogs, and of course, I managed to miss Marie's birthday. Hers was the 21st. She was, um, not 30. Go and check out the lovely pictures of her son and daughter-in-law's wedding, and her three other gorgeous children (her girls look positively stunning in the bridesmaids' dresses, with the flowers and the jewelry and the wraps that all coordinated...way to go, Claire).

Happy belated birthday, Marie. Hope the year gets progressively better and that the ceiling stops falling in on you!

Whew! What a day for birthdays!

Also of note in the blogosphere - go check out the handspun Charlie yarn over on The Daily Coyote. It's completely gorgeous. Makes me want to make a Maggie sweater....

D'Oh!

Little did I know, I missed yet another friend's birthday. Jenn (sometimes known as TinyTyant, although I have yet to find her tyrant-y) turned, well, not 30 yesterday! I had no idea!

A very happy belated birthday, Jenn!!!!!!!

Presents!!

I'm so tired. So tired. Like, whole new levels of tired. Didn't sleep at all last night. Damn night float.

But, I got home tonight, and there were boxes on my front porch. Lots of them. Two, from Amazon, which I assumed carried things I expected (although why they divided my books into two boxes, beats the heck out of me). But then...somebody sent me a faucet?


I read the return address and quickly recognized the package as containing something far more exciting. My sock blockers from Lorna.


Aren't they just fabulous? Lorna's dad, right, he goes out and chops down his own wood, then lathes and cuts and sands and stains it into really freakin' awesome sock blockers. By hand. Amazing.

The Tolerance Socks were in the wash, so I had to make do with the one I've got on the needles.


She also sent me a very cool pattern for felted flip-flops. A nifty Southern alternative to felted clogs.

The other boxes, of course, contained books I'd ordered.


Kinda boring.


There. That's better.

So cool. Thanks, Lorna!! (Just...remind me how much I owe you for them? I'll PayPal it off to you ASAP.)

STOP THE PRESSES!!!

So...I'm posting my previous post...and I think, hmm, it's almost September, what is today, anyway? It's the twenty-sev.....wait....ohhhhhhhh, bad Kate.....

My dear and darling friend Bianca has been thirty for a WEEK now. A week!!!!! And I...well, I'll be honest, I didn't forget your birthday, but I kind of forgot what day it was.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEI!!!!!!

Hope it was awesome. I'm sorry I missed it. Among other things I miss?? You!!!

(Bianca likes orange and green. It's the least I could do.)