Jerry and Kit Ling

…are living long-term in Turkey.  Tonight they were going to speak to us at FBCC (8 to 10 pm), but HCC called them over as well so Kitling is speaking there while Jerry is speaking here.  He gave an extremely brief autobiography of himself (he kept saying “But that story is for another time”).  You can just tell how much he adores his wife Kitling (he’s white, she’s Chinese), but that’s a story for another time; all he said is they met in school and married in Hong Kong and then they came from their respective placements to Turkey.  He went into detail about the history of Turkey, and how two-thirds of the locales mentioned in the New Testament is in fact in Turkey (e.g. Antioch).  He told us of current demographics (e.g. 99.8% are Muslim), cultural facts (e.g. they have a very special tea that is superb - I thought of the Lins haha), and their goal (e.g. their greatest obstacle is not Islam but Turkish nationalism).  He says that he is glad that Turkey finally pulled out of the Iraqi War because of the chaos it was bringing to the country.  Just a week ago it was signed into law that allowed women with head coverings to enter university.  He’s not sure when they return how sort of effects they will see.  Most people accept through 1:1 teaching or through a certain advertisement, which eventually leads them, by the fourth step if they follow through, an individual they can talk to in person.  So much to say, but I don’t want to hinder what they’re doing.  But do pray for the court proceedings of three guys who were apparently tortured and murdered.  We don’t know how just or corrupt they will be.  Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

BTPC: Week 5

New medical students arrived this week, so I guess subconsciously I’ve taken it as a new start (i.e. more collaborative with them, asking about family meetings (and since they know I want to know, when they have one they invite me, etc).  There’s James ?, Adam Myer, and Matt McCurdy?  Adam went to HISD then A&M, worked for three years, then went to Baylor Medical School.  He prefers acute care over mental health because it’s “so frustrating.”  He reminds me of Josh Winata not because of looks but because of some of his mannerisms, voice, and sense of style.  Anyway, collaborating with the treatment team outside of our morning rounds definitely makes a big difference.  This setting is really helping me develop skills that will help me anywhere in life besides occupational therapy.  I guess students in the past had my same difficulty because according to the weekly objectives I stayed with six patients this week–good thing. 

Monday, March 3, 2008.  We had rounds in the morning, so Rick reminded me to delegate the evaluation’s questionnaires to the COTAs (on the back of the evaluation are a few questions for the patient to fill out).  One patient I evaluated and then discharged as she went down the elevator with her fiancee.  We felt she needed just a couple of more days but since she is voluntary we couldn’t keep her.  Turned out that over the weekend Vickie had asked me about some funding for children and I had helped her with finding a couple of sites and so this lady had kids who needed the same services and so since that was fresh on my mind I printed out the information.  Yay, help more than one person (while initially I was telling myself, why am I giving myself more work by taking on someone else’s work?).  Apparently ECI is part of DARS, which Rick didn’t know either.  At home I was on the phone with Vickie for three hours - talking about I don’t remember now.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008.  Since shiaw goo-goo had to take her long-awaited nervous-inducing cititizenship test at the immigration office this morning, she dropped me off at the Westwood Park&Ride (she drove pretty fast and uptightly; she must’ve been worried about both studying and also not to make me late or something).  Thus I got to work a bit earlier and finished up the discharges and evaluation writeups.  I had task group in the morning (wow, it’s been awhile).  Rick ended up playing dominoes with one of the patients in group.  After lunch I tried to evaluation a new patient, this time with Daryl the LCDC (licensed chemical dependency counselor), with non success yet again.  LOL, in the afternoon I wanted to learn dominoes so one of the patients taught me and two others joined, making it a TPG/Leisure.  Elderine called it poaching (since it was her patient who was teaching me), accummulating more RVUs for Rick.  I felt bad, though, because one of Rick’s long-term patients (and he finally left today because he refused the rest of his ECT) had asked to play with me last week.   I asked him to join, but we were all beginners and he is pretty good.  Friday? I had said maybe later (since I was swamped with paperwork), and here I am playing (because I finally caught up! hallelujah!). 

Also, hallelujah! because shiaw goo-goo passed her citizenship exam.  Congratulations!  James Wei called as my mom picked me up to encourage me to come to the rodeo this time, but I didn’t want to go–I felt like last year (03/03/07) was enough.  Although, Elderine goes each year, so maybe I could give it another shot in the future.  My dad convinced me to go shoe shopping since my ballet flats I bought for work were giving me sores on both sides of my feet (due to having wide-ish feet).  We went to the DSW in Sugar Land.  I don’t particularly like shopping because I have to think about price, if I like it, how often I will wear it, is it appropriate, and if it fits (and I’m not even considering cheap labor issues or whatnot).  So thus I especially hate shoe shopping because fitting for that is crazy (it’s fortunate I have a lean body so clothes is easier, except my mosquito-bite-size boob factor ;-) lol).  I was also hungry, which usually means I am more prone to a grouchy mood.  One ray of light was coming across these heels–with the design of my plaid red cap/hat LOL!  I wanted to get them just to match hahaha, but of course I didn’t because it would’ve been useless (I would never wear heels that tall).

I finally gave up and gave the cue to eat.  I didn’t buy anything.  There were a few that seemed pretty good but they would still give me red areas after wearing them for a bit.  At first we went to CoCo’s, although one of my parents was telling the other that the restaurant is closed on Tuesdays.  Turns out, it’s usually not closed on Tuesdays, but it’s closed THIS Tuesday for some special reason.  So we went to Old Place Cafe.  We saw Mr. Sun with his wife there.  Haha, we also saw an Asian lady with her dyed-hair mom there that we had seen browsing DSW with us!  I spent the rest of the evening trying to find a template for my brochure I’m working on with Rick for our project.

Wednesday, March 5, 2008.  Rick was late this morning because the shuttle was late (they park in a lot far from the hospital and then ride the shuttle in).  He came in just as I was sitting down with a medical student interviewing one of the patients (their morning routine).  He let me know that was great, which was nice.  He’s really good at that, giving praises and criticism in a timely manner.  Tiffani’s been repeating an Orbit commercial for awhile, so I had to look it up this afternoon.  One of Elderine’s patients was hypersexual and kissed my hand when I extended it to shake.  The OT tech saved me: ”Amy, I need you to show me something.”  Rick said that I should have confronted him at that moment and let the patient know that that was inappropriate considering our therapist-patient relationship, and then let the doctors and nurses know (Dr. Coverdale took the matter in his hands because I think he was also somewhat aggressive - he ended up being on 1:1 for inappropriateness).  I also learned about trichotillomania, and reality orientation versus reality testing (the former is just who/when/where/what disease, while the latter is referring to delusions).   Yay, I got to leave at 4 pm.  An extra half-hour to rest because tonight, finally, the FBCC Career Ladies Group met to discuss Chapter One of Lies Women Believe.  Cynthia Lay came (she’s always running around you know), and Jennifer Lin prepared us some snickerdoodles (but Janet and Cynthia were supporting each other in not eating sweets).  We need to be careful of hubris because we can’t filter everything and obsess about a lot.  Truth and boundaries give freedom.  Lies accepted as truth influence choices that destroy lives.  We’re more vulnerable to deception if we don’t meditate on God’s Word.

Thursday, March 6, 2008.   Very eventful day (so much for being caught up, right? haha, no, a man’s work is never done).  One patient escalated (initially we thought there was a fight) so she had to be dealt with by security.  We kept the other patients in our craft room (extending the time) until that situation calmed down.  Then, we also had a fire alarm due to someone having burnt toast on the first floor.  This always proves inconvenient because all the doors unlock and thus we have to stand guard at all the exit doors (in the past someone did run down the stairs and someone had to chase after him).  The rule is to evacuate horizontally before vertically (so all the patients were moved into the day area).  A new patient was mute and catatonic, so I tried a couple of times to evaluate her; Rick took the other new patient (thanks!).  He also gave me some feedback over the brochure.  Two patients left:  one was voluntary and I was surprised she decided to leave suddenly since she’s homeless and it was our worst day weather-wise (she was out on the street for a full two hours before she was in the emergency room again).  Rick, Sally, Janet, and Tiffani went out to eat lunch, but Elderine, Jennifer, and I stayed.  Elderine said she really should only eat vegetables, Jennifer wanted to milk her parking money, and I wanted to finish writing my progress notes since we were so busy.

Friday, March 7, 2008.  We were busy and didn’t do the weekly feedback form.  We had two patients scheduled to leave on Monday and a new patient in a wheelchair.  Two more patients left.  Whew!

Daylight Savings Time…*psi* we lose an hour!