Situational Authority

Authority does not cover a person in all places. A person in power is not in power everywhere. I have seen that clearly in the past few days. My father has been lucky and has very nice roommates. The children of the roommates are people who are in authority in their workplace. They have limited to no authority in the hospital. I hear their parents reprimanding them. Even though the children are in their 60's, their 90 year old parent is still in charge. Yesterday the roommate was scheduled for a test. He waited all day. His son, who has a very high powered job, had no say in the hospital schedule. He was at the mercy of someone else's authority. A person's level of importance changes according to the situation.

New Holiday

There should be a new national holiday. It should be named "iPhone Day". The day after you buy a new iPhone, you need to take the day off. It is like being in a new world. So much to do. So much to learn. I got a new phone yesterday and I am exhausted.

Becoming Modern

Later this afternoon I will be pushed into the modern age and get an iPhone. Since I share a plan with my family, a new offer was too good to pass up. The charge for 2 new phones would be minimal if one person in the plan got a new telephone number and I got a hand me down, practically new, iPhone. I never wanted one of those "new fangled, city slicker whatchmacallits" but sometimes you just need to move on.

CSDM

I want to create a new job title. It would be Common Sense Decision Maker. Every family and workplace would have one. The job duty would be to hear all of the facts of any given situation, weigh the pros and cons and come up with a solid common sense decision. The more I spend time in the hospital visiting my father, the more I see a need for a CSDM. The hospital is wonderful and have the patients care as a priority, but they are looking through different eyes than a CSDM would. I will give you two scenarios. First, the doctors needed to locate where my father's infection was coming from. There were two places that were suspect. One was the arm and the other the heart. They did an isotope test and the arm was ruled out. They then wanted to do an endoscopic test under anesthesia to confirm that it was the heart. Here is where the CSDM comes in (me). I asked what the treatment would be if it was the heart and they said antibiotics. I asked what the treatment would be if it was not confirmed that it was the heart. They said antibiotics. Common sense would dictate that placing a 95 year old under anesthesia to have the same treatment either way, is not necessary. I refused the test and he is getting antibiotics. The next scenario is my father's roommate. He is 93 and came in to the hospital for a fall. After many tests, the doctors are saying he needs a heart valve repair. He has diabetes and is weak. He is now becoming agitated. The doctors are telling the family to take him home for three days to calm him down and bring him back for the surgery. A CSDM would look at the situation and say that a 93 year old diabetic should be left alone and go home with constant care to live out the time he has peacefully. The strain of open heart surgery will be a long hard road to recover from and might shorten his life. What is the benefit of such a radical operation for a man who at best has a few years to live? It is hard to make common sense decisions when emotions are high, so an unbiased person might just be the way to go.

Facts and Plans

In order to have a solid plan, you need good facts. I spent my day yesterday gathering information to form a plan for my father. The more calls I made, the more facts I gathered. By the end of the day I had enough information to make a solid plan. Time will tell if the plan goes through as anticipated, but at least we have a starting point.

Shared Understanding

My father is still in the hospital. Yesterday was a good day for him. He regained his speech but still has his medical issues. Many tests are being ordered. The care and professionalism at the hospital are top notch but there is one thing lacking. They are being clinical and ordering diagnostic tests. I am not being informed about the tests prior to them being done. Yesterday my father refused to go for a test and I was called. I immediately came to the hospital and discussed the benefits of the test with him and I okayed it with the staff. Last night he was told that this morning he was going for another test, this one under anesthesia,  and he called me right away. I called the hospital and told them that no tests are to be ordered without my consent or complete knowledge of why they need to be done. After I fully understand we can proceed. The test was put on hold until I get to the hospital this morning. This is where the concept of shared understanding comes it. Picture two circles. One circle is the doctor who is clinical. One circle is the family who is emotional. Move the circles together until they overlap a bit. That common area is shared understanding. It is when both parties are on common ground. Without shared understanding, there cannot be good communication. Today I will make sure that there is.

One Hour

My father had a bad day yesterday. One condition got better but a new one appeared. We were blindsided. By the time we left the hospital we saw an improvement. We were still upset. A very nice doctor spoke with us. She said to take life one hour at a time. Not one day. One hour. That is what we will do.

New Friends

My mother used to call everyone her friend. If she spoke on the phone to a solicitor or a person from an insurance company or credit card company, they became her friend. She used to tell me, "My new friend Debbie said...". No one ever annoyed her. She never answered a solicitor call and spoke nasty or condescending. She never fought with a representative if they did not give her what she was asking for. She was always kind and even tempered. I never realized what a wonderful quality that was. To her, every human being deserved respect. We used to joke about it with her. We would say that those people were not her friends, that they were just doing their job. Looking back, I wish that I did not say that. I guess for a few minutes in time, they were her friends, because friends treat each other kindly.

Deja Vu Again

I spent most of the day in the ER with my father. He had not been feeling well for the past few days and we were being conservative about going to the ER. He was seen by a few doctors and getting treatment, but you just know in your heart when the treatment needs to be on a higher level. After 8 hours in the ER, he was admitted. The course of treatment will be the same, but it will be in a controlled environment. I am exhausted today, both mentally and physically.

The Haircut

For some reason, my mother hated when I got a haircut. I think she would have wanted me to be like Rapunzel and have long blonde curls falling down to the ground. Whenever I told her I was getting a haircut she would say, "Why are you cutting your hair? Leave it alone. It looks beautiful. Let it grow". My father never said a word about my hair. The other day my sister and I were talking and I said that I would miss my mother telling me not to get my haircut. I spent the weekend with my father and when it was time to leave him at my sister's house yesterday, I said that I was going to get a haircut. Out of nowhere my father immediately said, "Why are you cutting your hair? Leave it alone. It looks beautiful. Let it grow". My sister and I looked at each other. It was as if my mother's words were coming out of my father's mouth. It made me feel happy to hear them.

On Duty

I am at my sister's house with my father. As Murphy's Law would have it, he got a virus the day she left. We are at her house because he is more comfortable there. She will be home this afternoon and we will decide if we will take him back home or keep him hostage one more day.

Late Entry

I try not to miss a day writing. Today the entry is very late. I have been taking care of my father and was not near a computer. The first chance I got to be on one I am writing. That's consistency.

Lobster Bisque

I have a wonderful recipe for lobster bisque. It takes 15 minutes but tastes like it took hours. It is restaurant quality. This morning I am making it to take to my father. I am sleeping at his house tonight and taking him to Long Island tomorrow. I wanted him to have a special dinner tonight. I got up early and the soup is all ready to be cooked. Sometimes a small thing like a special soup can make someone's day happy.

Forced Charity

The charity event this Tuesday, at the upscale mall, went well. It went well for one reason. My boss and her staff bought the items that resulted in the 20% donation from the store. What was the purpose of that? My boss bought a small clutch bag for $458. Another doctor bought the smallest useful thing she could find for $300. Other family and friends were also shamed into buying items they did not need or really want. The 20% donation probably added up to $500 or so. If each person that attended the event gave a $50 donation to the charity, the amount would have been higher and they would not have an expensive needless item in their closet.

Trip Booked

Yesterday I booked my trip to Florida. It is a trip that I have been putting off but knew it was inevitable. The trip is to clean out my parent's apartment so it can be sold. I spent 16 wonderful years vacationing there so I hate to spend the 17th year on a somber note. The apartment is filled with wonderful memories and happy times. I will have to make the decision of what gets donated, what comes home and what gets carted away. I am sure that I will relive each memory as I do it. It is too hard to take my father with me and i know that upsets him. He is better off remembering how it was rather than how it will be.

The Event

Today is a special event in my office. A store at the Americana Mall has agreed to partner with us for a charity event. They will donate 20% of their purchases to our non profit charity. Sounds great, right? Now here is the catch. The event time is from 5pm - 7pm only. The consumer does not get any discount and the items are very expensive. The store did not want any flyers on their premises to let the public know when the event was. We are not allowed to hand out flyers at the mall as there is a no solicitation policy. Do the math. It is dinnertime on a Tuesday and no one knows about it other than my office and our patients, who can barely afford our fees, much less have extra cash for a $300 pair of shoes. I am curious what the final donation total will be.

The Eyes

Do you know what color people's eyes are? Have you ever looked into your family or friends eyes and focused on the color? Yesterday as we were at the pumpkin patch we started to discuss eye colors. My baby granddaughter has blue grey eyes. My immediate family has blue eyes but in various shades. We have light blue, grey blue and sky blue outlined with black. Since a baby's eye color can change, we were looking into each other's eyes to see which color they most resembled. When my son looked into my eyes, he commented that he never noticed how blue they were. He has been looking at me for almost 35 years but never took a good look. I realized that most of us do not.

Pumpkin Patch

Today is the annual pumpkin patch day. Every year since my grandson was born, both sides of the family get together and go to the pumpkin patch. This year my baby granddaughter will join us. It is a day of fun looking through a child's eyes. There will be a hayride, good food, apple cider and other fun games. Since my grandson is now 5 years old, he can join in on everything. I am dressing warm as we will be out all day. Thank goodness the weather is beautiful.

Faith

The definition of faith is believing in something you cannot see or touch. You know it is there even if it is not tangible. If you ask most people if they believe in G-d, they say yes. They worship in many ways at many places but they do believe. If you ask people if they believe in angels or spirits, there is a split decision. Some people will and some people won't. G-d has angels, so if you believe in him shouldn't it just go down the line that you believe in them? Certain circumstances this week have reinforced my beliefs in angels and spirits. The circumstances were not by faith but by tangible means. I am more comforted than ever.

State of Being

My sister has been researching tombstones. It has been a few months since my mother died and we will need to place a stone at her grave. Since there are different sizes and thicknesses, she went to the cemetery to see what the other family members had. For some people a cemetery is an eerie place. For us it is a peaceful one. When she came home she called me to discuss the measurements and in the course of the conversation she said something enlightening. She said that the people in the cemetery were "at rest" but the people still alive were "at stressed". How profound.

Perfumed Lady

Perfumes are nice when they are not overpowering. For some reason my boss and some of her patients wear the worst scents you can imagine. My boss buys her perfumes in Turkey as does one of her patients. They have the weirdest smell. If I had to describe it, it would be a mix of incense, smelly cheese and insecticide. The scent lingers in the air for hours. Yesterday one of her patients gave her a check that should have come to the office. The check smelled. It sat on my desk stinking up the area. I posted it quickly so I could move it to someone else's desk. Right now it is in a lock box smelling up other paperwork.

A System

Things work better when you have a system in place. A system is like a puzzle. You have many pieces to a problem and they need to fit together to get the perfect picture. Some people will look at the pieces and randomly try to place one piece after another together, getting nowhere. Occasionally two pieces fit and the person thinks that things are going well. Then there are the people that look at the pieces and realize that you need to start with the edges, build the frame and then continue to build in an orderly fashion. I am the edger. My boss is the random builder. Over the years I have tried to tell her that the edges must go first, but she just can't see that. Once again, her pieces are in a mess. Yesterday, I just ignored the problem and kept on typing a report as other workers tried to help.

News Worthy

I stopped reading the newspaper years ago. Nothing in it was ever good. I keep up with current events through the internet. That way I only read what appeals to me by the titles. I always read current events first. Then I move on to human interest stories only if they look like happy ones. I bypass sports and sad toned articles. Yahoo news usually has a good mix. This morning the mix was on such opposite ends of the spectrum it was almost laughable. One article was about people killed in a limo crash. Another article was about a lawsuit against a soda brand. It was a light day for politics. I guess the Democrats were still laying in bed with cold compresses on their foreheads. Then came the article that put everything into perspective. Kim Kardashian was upset at the outfits her sisters wore in Japan. People in the real world were grieving death and people in Kim's world were grieving fashion. I just might have to give up news altogether and retreat to a cave.

Post Cards

I still find treasures at my parent's house. Yesterday I was looking through some desk drawers when I came across three postcards. They were postmarked December 1917. They were from my grandfather to my grandmother. It was before they were married. She lived in Brooklyn and he lived on the lower east side of Manhattan. I have no idea what the cards said as they were written in Yiddish. I would like to find someone who reads Yiddish to have it translated. My father used to read Yiddish but I am not sure if he remembers it. If he did, he would have read them to me yesterday when I showed them to him. The cards made me wonder about what was happening in my grandparent's lives at that time. Where did they meet? How often did they see each other? The cards were full of words, so many that my grandfather wrote on the side of one like a frame. I put the cards into my family album, added to the rest of my history.

Improving

Today my husband seems a bit better than yesterday. After having surgery, most people are fooled into thinking that they are recovering faster than what the reality is. The day after surgery your body is still in a confusion. Things have been done to it that your body was not expecting. It takes another day to realize that an adjustment has to be made. Friday was a good day for my husband, but Saturday was another story. It hit him like a ton of bricks. We thought we would have to go to the emergency room. I called the doctor and monitored him all day. Slowly, he came around. This morning seems to have started off well. Now he is on the road to recovery.

One of a Kind

I like certain things to be unique. No one else has it, only me. I can do that with my jewelry. I want to wear a special pendant that will have meaning to me. I can easily buy it but I won't unless I try to make it first. It needs to be the type of piece that people will stop me and ask about. Then I can explain the meaning. I have been working for two days on something and it is shaping up nicely. I hope the final product is just want I wanted it to be.

The Bee

I believe in signs from the beyond. I believe that a person's soul lives on forever and that they watch over us. Since my mother died, I have had many signs. They are always the same one. Yesterday she switched things up. My husband had surgery and it was a long day. At 2pm I got hungry but the hospital cafe had already closed for the day. I walked down the block for Chinese food. I ordered my lunch and sat down to eat. I had a bottled water in my bag. I ate a few bites of my food and turned away to get the water bottle. When I looked back to begin eating again, I saw a bee sitting in the middle of my plate, looking up at me. I watched it as it walked in a circle on the string bean. The restaurant was full of people eating. The door was closed. It was odd that a bee would find its way onto my plate. Then it dawned on me. A bee was there with me. A Bea was there with me.

Surgery

After months of not knowing what is causing a constant runny nose, the doctors have decided to do surgery on my husband. It is not nasal surgery as one would imagine. It is spinal surgery. There is a rare correlation with the nasal passages and the spine. Too much spinal pressure on the brain causes your nose to run. Who knew? Last night almost every friend and relative called to wish him good luck. Even my granddaughters in New England made their own call to say they loved "Poppy". That made him very happy. It will be a long day at the hospital and I will not return home until later in the day. It is still undecided if there will be an overnight stay. Hopefully things go smoothly.

Office Behavior

We all have things in our personal life that can upset us. Bringing the upset into an office is not a good thing to do. My receptionist has had a 14 year reputation of nastiness. She is abrupt with the patients and doctors. Since her elderly mother moved into her house the nastiness is kicked up a notch. I used to let it slide because she is a wonderful worker but even I have lost patience. I have warned her for years about her attitude and she behaves for a while, but I guess she cannot control herself long term. Yesterday my boss spoke to me about her behavior and for the first time in 14 years I told her that maybe it was time to ask her to leave. I no longer care about coddling her. She is becoming poison to the office and sometimes it is better to cut ties that continue on.

Investigate All

Every day the smear campaign by a political group gets worse. I am ashamed that they are doing this. If we looked into the backgrounds of all of the accusers we would have to start ten more investigations. No one is perfect and the accusers are far from it. They each have things that they have done wrong and I do not condone any wrong doing by anyone, but to throw stones when you live in a glass house is despicable. Television commercials are now being used to fight back and three major players in this scandal are being exposed for what they are. One lied about being in the armed service. What a disgrace to all veterans. One employed an international spy. Could she also be a spy? One was accused of beating his wife. Has he assaulted others? This is just the tip of the iceberg. I used to cross party lines to vote for a certain Democratic senator because I thought he was an upstanding honest man. I will never do that again because he has shown his true colors. I do not know how these people sleep at night knowing the path of destruction they are on.

Sour Patch Kids

 My sister and I are the Sour Patch Kids. Sour Patch candies have the slogan, "First we are sour, then we are sweet". This morning we were remembering how we acted when my mother was in the hospital. We were on top of everything that was going on. If we saw something that needed to be corrected, we jumped into action in a take charge way. We got things done. Once they were back on track we thanked everyone on the staff for their help. The staff loved us. Every day when we arrived at the hospital, they came in to say hello even if my mother was not on their schedule. It is okay to be sour about something, but you need to follow it up by being sweet. The sweet part is what is always remembered as it arrives at the end and remains in your memory.