Ayn's Multiple World

We've been to Dr. Marvin's mountain and back to the valley

Good morning. This is me reporting in. The time is now 8:30 am. We’ve been here for about an hour and a half. There was some time talking to Brandi, but the majority of the time was spent talking to Candice. We’ve given each other the next 1 ½ hours to be doing something productive … her think will to be working on a client’s annual report. There is to be scheduled a break in between … she said she will take a 5 minute break when given a choice between 5, 10, and 15 minutes. After that we will be meeting for an administration meeting.

Prior to now … I think we had left off where we’d been working on our self-evaluation for Sr. Theresa. We printed it out and left it in her kitchen, because when we got up front, Holly was looking over things on her desk, and had appeared to look at the calendar when we came in as if she belonged there. Like right. She made no move to go … So we went into the kitchen and laid our paper on the counter. When we came out she was looking through the mail boxes. I will tell Sr. Theresa later (after the administration meeting) that Holly was at her desk when I’d come in to put the paper on it.

There was no incidents going to Dr. Marvin. I did try a new route where I went from Western to Archer to Damen to Roosevelt – that seemed to work fine … I might have saved a moment or two … it wasn’t substantial, but the ride was more relaxed. The walk getting to his office seems to be taking longer. I’m not a very fast wheel chair pusher. I’m still switching from walking to pushing, or vice-versus. The last two meetings … Dr. Marvin has been standing at the door talking to someone and/or waiting for us. We’ve been using the washroom here to save time there.

Dr. Marvin is always in a good mood. We couldn’t look at him very much last night. We talked to him the first 10 minutes about all the nice things that happened at Christmas – well, at least the very condensed version … we felt guilty talking about it, because we had other more serious topics on our agenda, but he said to be fair we could talk about both … In general we talked about Christmas morning, New Years at the Zoo … funny Simon and Garfunkel just started singing “At the Zoo.” That’s soooo cool! Remember to play that later – its song 133 on our playlist – “Something is happening at the zoo – I do believe it – I do believe it’s true.” Wow! Ok, so anyway … we told him that we met with both Thom and Joe and that it had worked really nice shopping with Joe for Rich’s gifts. We talked about how wild sex has been and a half a dozen other things. It was all good.

Then we went into the planned events … basically, we had wanted to talk about the forlorn subjects of bills, medical, and work – with the addition of specific dieting problems if there was time. Most of this stuff you already know and so it was just bringing our mind to a summary of where things were so we could better understand it and go on with it. It seems that Dr. Marvin adds some kind of understanding of things that helps in an analytical or synthetical manner. It’s not at a level that I can understand, but someone important within us understands. I’m not sure exactly how it works, but I feel close to it now. We talked of the bills as first being paid – talking of rent and car, then that we went through all the school loan stuff again and made arrangements through Rich’s money coming in to make sure that was being covered, and then we saw to it that there was enough money to make it to the next paycheck and that no other spending was occurring. We hadn’t been able to look at the bank account prior to getting back to work, but we had an inkling toward spending money and thought we shouldn’t and looked instead at the count and got confirmation and a tickle toward paying the bills, which hadn’t occurred to us naturally, so all that was good. Dr. Marvin seemed to think we were making forward strides.

The next was medical. We went through the four appointments with Dr. Marvin … we talked about our feelings toward each that included frustrations with the heart center for all the missed calls and also with the psychologist for the daily log that we weren’t keeping. He had agreed with us that we could hand him over to the information from the OH site. That helped us a lot. We also talked to him of the crudeness of three of the staff. We had sat next to them (heard there were chocolate potato chips in the staff dining room) for 15 minutes prior to our needing to be at a meeting. Because of all the chocolate dieting had come up and somebody had asked how we were doing and then Stephanie said something about gastro bypass and that I couldn’t do it because she knew 2 people who had died from it. Then Sue said she knew one person … and then one more staff person knew one person. That was pretty overwhelming. It was like they had jumped me. I felt that they had talked about it prior to this point.

I could see Dr. Marvin shaking his head no already as if perceiving the questions that were going through my mind. I asked was it right that everyone died that I didn’t think so because why would 5 doctors say it was ok, but … Dr. Marvin said they were absolutely wrong to have been saying what they were saying. He said that they had taken something against the odds and blown it out of proportion – like 4 out of 4 people we know died of this surgery. Uh huh, right. Great work girls.

What they were doing wasn’t helpful, it wasn’t kind, and it was manipulative and mean … it’s like saying that these people are coming right out to my face and are going to be betting against my life. How is that expected to be helpful. It seems to match that face of stephanie’s when I took that parking spot the other day. I think she’s an angry person. We just have to say we don’t want that spreading to us … I don’t want to go into surgery thinking Stephanie is an expert and she knows we’re going to die. That’s just stupid thinking … it’s like its’ own poison. Why would a person do that to another? It’s just gossip garbage? We had asked, but why did these people die and she said they died because they lost weight too fast and their hearts couldn’t keep up with it … we told that to Dr. Marvin and he said that couldn’t be true – though there might have been cholesterol built up in the arteries that lead to heart failure – it would have nothing to do with weight loss – just a matter of time.

So anyway … that was the medical side. Dr. Marvin said we are doing well, and we shouldn’t worry about what these people were saying because they weren’t knowledgeable of the situation. I can see now Stephanie picking up her information from her friends at the hair salon. I swear … this is where she’s most likely picking up her information, but each time I have to battle it off as if its real – most likely do to her aggressive nature and our victimology. Some day we’re going to improve. Just haven’t figured it out yet. I can see it … I guess that’s part of it … Just gotta turn the corner. Having the information verified must be an important part too. Ok, Breathe. It’s going to be ok. Grain of salt, right?

Ok, the third part of the needs with Dr. Marvin revolved around work. I asked him if he would read the section that we’d left here yesterday – the thing we wrote Sr. on our job evaluation. I think it looked like too much for him to read yesterday, but we encouraged patiently that we would wait, because we thought it was important. It was a pretty good evaluation of where we were and we had felt it to be very truthful. Dr. Marvin read it all the way through. He looked thoughtful and stopped a few times to point out the things that we hadn’t accomplished yet. We talked about it, but it was at a level that I wasn’t picking up well. I’m not remembering anything, but it was a serious talk. We might ask Dr. Marvin? Ok, I sent him just a two-sentence question asking for a summary.

Hmm, not sure when that last part was written … we’re moving on … it’s way like 2:35 pm … last part was probably … let me check. Hmm, we hadn’t gotten very far … think we were at about 8:30 – 9 am. I think though by 8:50 am I was talking to Candice and that lasted until about 9:30 am. Not sure just can’t keep track of time unless it gets caught in writing. Think that was part of the conversation at Dr. Marvin’s place last night something about how the parts think together when writing and when reading back the material. I guess somehow we are acting more as one by writing then when acting just on our own, because of the many “on being alone.” I don’t want to get into that now though … Just that we can only do a general summary of the morning and most likely the day.

With Candice this morning there was some kind of brief summary of what had happened with her and Holly being here yesterday. I think she was the one that had brought it up or gave it space to smoke out … I was a little steamed. I made 3-4 general statements and she made a couple of responses – more apologetic than anything – there wasn’t any mean intent or anything … thing she was like spent with the stuff. I don’t know. I want to trust Candice somewhat, but I don’t trust all the loose relationships she holds. Like spending 2 hours with Holly with me right here, or just now going in and spending the better part of the last hour with Theresa. It seems one thing with me, but when you add it up with many staff, then it gets to be you aren’t being at your desk productive, but then who am I to talk. I’m at my desk and am non-productive.

That was the tail end of our conversation this morning was turning Candice to work orientation. Between us we were talking out loud her procrastination … to some extent, we were working through our own, but at that point just turning to our regular work of this blog, it was that we had a hard time. We were giving her instructions on something we do with this, should do with that, but don’t often. Ok, ok … there we are going over the same point over and over again … ptooey. ANYWAY!!! Basically, we said ok … (without looking at her desk, but with her looking at her desk) … what do you see? Is there stuff that you have to clear or move around. Do you need to define your task for the day – week, longer? She said she had a list … she named about 3 things before we started. I said let’s start at the first thing. She named doing an annual. We timed out the next hour and a half and then reminded her she could schedule herself for a break – what did she want 5, 10, or 15?

Basically, that was the kind of day it was, but right now we are feeling rushed – so we’ll try to fill in the details tomorrow or later tonight … though might visit the room tonight … maybe there will be too many there for Cat to take so much attention. However, it’s 3:43 pm now and both Candice and us have everything in place to be leaving. I will take her to the L stop. No problems – on the way to the bank … might as well get that school loan money in. I got the bank deposit ready and I made the school loan payment by computer a few moments ago … Good good. Might want to make that an auto payment later, I think it lessons the interests rates. I just don’t know how regularly I can make sure the money is there … I’d like to say that I have my money interests taken care of but I’m not sure.

15 minutes to go.

In the meantime … just a few notes. We had the admin meeting … I went through Candice’s annual and we discussed the goals again. She kept honest most the day, but talked to … think we mentioned that … anyway … we went to the Leadership group and did the 2nd red section for circles. It’s the one with health workers. That went pretty good. A good part of the time was taken up with their experiences of being in doctor need situations. There was only 5 minutes at the end to go through safety first aid. Walked em back to the room – Dahla carried our bag. Then we went to the staff meeting, but Holly came in made a big deal about how it was her turn, but we were sure we had the group last time … Sr. had just said take it out in the hall that was embarrassing. Kathy looked up on the minutes, but it turned out neither of us were there. I remembered that I had the group, but asked if Holly could cover staffing. Sr. asked for a volunteer and I went. Holly was still sputtering .. I don’t like ugliness. More on group later, but it was basically on New years Eve. Great Session.

Then we came back and we’ve typed, finished some work with Candice and we’ve talked with her again. I consider those moments golden .. It takes a long time to build a repoire. One more thing before I go … Rich called to say that he got a sandwich for me AND he wanted to know if I wanted to do a trip south with him on Sunday … It was like YUP YUP!!! Couldn’t say much because of phone privacy, but I am very excited. But, by now … it’s time to get going … so we’ll say goodbye to the week – thanks for being such a short one!

posted by Ann Marie @ 1/05/2008 07:14:00 AM Comments: 0