You are currently browsing the daily archive for March 21st, 2008.
This week is spring break for many people, including the social worker. That means the social worker on Team C has to look over both Team B and Team C patients (follow-up appointments, possible placement options, etc.). Obviously she can’t participate in both Teams’ rounds, so Rick reminded me to inform her of who’s being discharged and whatnot when I hear that information.
Monday, March 17, 2008. One patient was discharged on Friday and now he’s back! Man, that sucks. Another patient was “forced” to leave because he started saying (i.e. making up?) symptoms so he could stay here longer (he probably won’t do well if he leaves, functional-level wise). We finally met up with a patient’s significant other (family meeting) to get the other side of the story of one patient who’s quite a mystery to us all (psychosis? depression? schizophrenia? drugs?). One patient left pretty quickly today, so I had to catch him on the elevator. I was sort of on edge because when he came in he was on 2:1, but then I thought, but they’re just letting him go outside, so it should be safe :-) He’s a charmer, haha. Rick also encouraged me to teach another patient how to dress using just one limb. I don’t even think about physical dysfunction anymore wow. But I did remember the steps because we had to pretend to be a patient while I was taking the class in school, so I remember it clearly. Unfortunately, I couldn’t think of anything regarding pulling the hair back into a ponytail with one arm. For dinner, my parents and I ate at Old Place Cafe (although we parked in front of CoCo’s, haha - changed mind). We said hello to Grace Hsiau’s dad, who was there by himself.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008. Today’s Janet’s birthday! Boo, ANOTHER patient returns (yesterday’s guy has schizophrenia most likely, this girl has mania no doubt). I actually evaluated a patient with another patient’s help in translation, hehe. Well, as the patient translator could tell obviously, this new patient was too disorganized to really answer anything, even “do you have pain?”. In the afternoon I showed the patient (my translator haha) a book that Sally gave me to share: [I forgot and can't find if I had written it down, grrr, it's about living with one arm in a two-arm world]. I tried to engage a patient in a game because he’s very distracted, or even in looking through a magazine and tearing out pages he liked, but to no avail. I engaged another patient in a card game, and she was so surprisingly pleasant, even telling me to go eat lunch but also stating that if I had time later she would love to continue playing. I did, this time making a bigger effort to convince her that her delusions are just that, but of course she started getting agitated so I backed off. Afterwards, Tiffany Lin picked me up and we ate dinner at Van Loc with everyone else (excluding me) who was going to the Rockets game.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008. In the morning Rick bought me breakfast (I picked a croissant which actually wasn’t that good but of course I didn’t say anything) as we checked over the patient education materials that were going to be discussed this morning. We chatted a little: turns out intially all he wanted to do was rehab, and he got a job, but during that interval before his first day, he got this psych job, loved it, and stuck with it. The meeting itself was quite long-winded, especially doing all the corrections regarding the rules/regulations for the 3D and 3E nurseries (reminded me of my peds rotation). We just missed the shuttle so we had to wait half an hour for it to return; when it finally came around we hopped on before it made the U-turn because it was so windy cold. The two ladies talked about their weekend. Rick joined in, saying that he went to Kemah over the weekend with his family in town, and he paid $5 for a nasty-tasting hot dog. They were saying how everything is higher priced nowadays. Jokingly, that since Ben Taub has zoo passes that are given to patients for free admission, we could scalp them LOL.
We had lunch at Hungry’s since we could…. They “forced” Jennifer to come, even though she wanted to stay behind, all alone, eating her homemade lunch (she usually buys out) of cooked tilapia, steamed cauliflower, etc. When we came back we played bean bag, then I tried to play cards, dominoes, anything with one Spanish-speaking patient. She just kept saying, “No puedo” for some reason, even for simply pushing the first domino for the subsequent dominoes to fall. I spent downtime trying to call for next Wednesday (field trip). At home I stumbled upon All Over Coffee.
Thursday, March 20, 2008. As I got off 292 this morning in front of the log cabin, there was a couple of light honks, so I turned around to see Sally (with Rick in her passenger seat) shouting to me, “Did you wear red?” LOL. She and Rick did, and Elderine did as well, coincidentally. Basically yesterday afternoon Janet and Sally were saying how it’s nice to have new employees because they volunteer for everything and believe everything, so that if they were to say it was wear-red day, Jennifer would comply. I guess it’s an omen for a good day ;-) eh? Ping Lau came to check up on us, and of course he’s rooting for me to come fill some of their job openings since he’s seen me in peds AND psych. I pulled out the parachute and Rick and Sally found it would be a nice change from their usual games. It really brightened up one of our look-down-on-the-ground patients.
Rick’s car’s steering wheel pulley had problems. He had made a stop in the morning and fortunately a guy came and observed and commented that he could fix it up since it turned out he was a mechanic! So Rick left right before lunch to have it fixed. During lunch, they were talking about gambling (since Dr. Barber’s bachelor party is in Vegas) and timeshares. After lunch I asked a Spanish-speaking patient to point out the date on the calendar in the day area, and she pointed to April 15 (tax day) hehe. I played the football-on-a-string (the one we used in Guatemala) with a patient–a real arm workout for both of us. We were both sleepy afterwards lol. As I was leaving, one patient asked me to bring her information about Madagascar and quantum physics. Okay..sure…. I tried to catch Jennifer for a ride home, but I couldn’t find her. Still, it wasn’t bad, because the bus came at 5:05 so I was home by 5:40.
Friday, March 21, 2008. I tried to research a new leisure activity for our therapeutic activity group, but the system blocks “games” as a search term. We just played basketball again, and then extended bingo in the afternoon. Jocelyn came to visit! with her mom and daughter Ceriana. I showed one patient (who’s name reminds me of an old Stafford classmate) how to play Sudoku, but of course since I’m not exactly a pro myself, she didn’t really catch on that quickly - she returned to her word searches LOL (I don’t blame her). I talked with a patient about his CAH (command auditory hallucinations) and it’s possible link to his lack of social interaction, which he admits to isolating himself (What’s it like hearing voices others can’t hear by Ralph Hoffman). I also stumbled upon how to diffuse grandiose delusions ([had it open on monitor at work but distracted and went away and person using the computer after me closed the website, boo!]). Anyway, yes, I work tomorrow! (That was sarcasm.)
A sunday school teacher asked her class to draw pictures of their favorite Bible stories. She was puzzled by one child’s picture, which showed four people on an airplane, so she asked him which story it was meant to represent. “The flight to Egypt,” was his reply. Pointing at each figure, his teacher said, “That must be Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus. But who’s the fourth perosn?” “Oh, that’s Pontius–the pilot!”
“Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. (Acts 4:27-31)
