Doc's Progress Notes
Week of March 6, 2000
Last Updated: 3/10/2000 at 10:39 PM PST
Monday Tuesday
Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
Most Recent Update
No update.
No update.
I'm back! Where should I begin to tell you about the last two days? We have had e-mail problems and not enough hours in a day. First, Outlook 98 decided to crash after I had added Delanae's e-mail as an e-mail address to check since her computer is still inoperable. For those of you who have Outlook 98, you know that to check a new address, you simply add a new service for the program to check. I have done this several times before without problems and, sure enough, Sunday everything worked fine. Outlook 98 grabbed the e-mail off the three addresses we checked. Sometime Monday morning it started crashing at intermittent intervals, sometimes after checking one e-mail address, sometimes after checking two addresses but it would never make it to all three. The program was blaming outlmime which is a DLL file, saying it caused a page error that was unrecoverable. I tried restoring the DLL file from my backup done before the error began, but that did not work. I did not have time to reinstall the entire program until today so we suffered through the problems until this afternoon. Finally, today I had enough time to reinstall Outlook 98 and reconfigure all the services which has eliminated the problem, at least for the time being. E-mail is now back to normal in our house, other than we all have to use the same computer to check it.
I found an external CD-ROM drive today that I can borrow to use to reinstall Windows 95 on Delanae's computer. I will attempt to do that Saturday and also plan to order another 32Mb DIMM to put into her computer so I will have matching memory in the two banks to see if that will solve the problem with her computer not recognizing all the installed memory. The friend who is loaning me the drive said he might want to buy the old 16Mb modules that I take out of her computer. On the other hand, I may just keep the memory for possible use later.
Monday was spent in meetings from 7:30 AM until 6 PM. It was mentally exhausting and by the time I got home after 9:30 I was too exhausted to insist on using the computer to post an update. We discussed strategy and budgets and strange abbreviations and terms that administrators use and understand but which we physicians were not acquainted. We did decide that one meeting a year to discuss all this is not enough, so we will another one in the fall then a group retreat for a weekend sometime later this year. I began my day about 6:15 when I arrived at the hospital to complete rounds before the meetings began.
Tuesday was less exhausting both mentally and physically because I was doing what I am accustomed to, namely seeing patients all day. When I got home at 10 PM however, I felt I did not have time to post an update and get some sleep, especially since it would have meant that I had to run Delanae off this computer. I therefore chose not post an update last night also.
We still do not have a new septic tank. The company who will install the new tank still has not been able to get a definite day when the crane can be here to lift the new tank into position. As of now, the toilets and tubs are draining so we are getting by. We are still also waiting on the new carpet to come in. Actually, we hope the new septic tank is in before the new carpet is installed so we don't have to fear another back-up.
Finally, the tax data is done and will go out to the accountant tomorrow. This is the earliest I have gotten it out in years. Normally we have to file an extension on April 15 and the returns actually get mailed in by August 15. For those of you who don't know, according to my accountant this is perfectly legal and you are less likely to be audited if you don't file until after July 30th since the IRS makes their decision on who to audit in June and July. You do have to have paid all the taxes you owe by April 15, however. See you tomorrow.
I had a patient walk out of the office this afternoon before I could see him. That is the first time that had happened in some time. He was a patient who had been treated in the hospital for pneumonia then an appointment was made with me for follow-up. Evidently, his wife got tired of waiting for me to come into the room because I was running about 30 minutes late due to a patient with acute back pain that needed to be worked in between scheduled patients and seen. My medical assistant explained to the wife that I would be 20-30 minutes late and the reason why. She at first wanted to wait with him, it did not make him any difference, but she evidently decided that she couldn't wait any longer so wheeled him out just as I was finishing up dictating the patient before him and would have walked into that exam room in about two minutes, literally. I'm sorry it happened but there was nothing I could have done differently to make her happy, I'm sure.
Otherwise, it was a pretty standard day in the office. I was asked to work in our urgent care clinic Saturday to cover for one of my associates who had an emergency come up and needs to be gone this weekend rather than take call. I will be working for her Saturday but cannot take call for her since Delanae and I are leaving for Reno Sunday morning. You can read about our trip plans on Delanae's page. We are both looking forward to a couple of days alone in a city I lived in more than ten years ago. I will show her around Reno and we will drive up to Lake Tahoe so I can show it to her.
With me working Saturday I won't be getting Delanae's computer fixed until after we get back from Reno. It doesn't look like we will get the carpet in and the septic system fixed until then either. Another week with the house all torn up and cluttered. It is starting to wear on my nerves after this long. Must go feed my nerves now and get the tax data in an envelope ready to send off tomorrow.
Today went kinda' crazy. Actually this afternoon went kind of nutso. That's a very technical word isn't it? No, this morning was rather steady and at noon I had to go see two patients in the hospital, one of which I was not told about until 11 AM and the other one who was gone when I made rounds earlier(he had gone to make arrangements for admission to a residential treatment center for alcohol and drugs). Then I had to go mail the tax records to our accountant back in Arkansas and grab some lunch on the way back to the office. Then, it went nutso! I was dealing with someone having an asthma attack that needed to be admitted to the hospital, a person addicted to narcotics who I was decreasing his dose slowly as an outpatient against his will (either that or go find another doctor, or be admitted for detoxification as an inpatient; he chose to have his dose decreased and we will see if he comes back), and a new patient who was having chest pain. All this and a patient waiting in the waiting room for a routine physical. I finally got the other three dealt with then was only about thirty minutes late for the physical that turned out to be anything but routine, but that is another story.
I sent the lady with the asthma attack, who continues to smoke by the way, to the Emergency Department for closely supervised treatment and probable admission. The man addicted to narcotics marched out of the office and I probably won't see him again but he has only a very limited supply of narcotics left now. The man with chest pain is on a new medication now which should reduce his chest pain and if it does not he will be going to the cardiologist next week. The man for the routine physical turned out to have carpal tunnel syndrome also and will be having appropriate testing after he files his workers' compensation claim so the testing is covered. If he does not do this, his private insurance will refuse to cover this condition because of the possibility of it being work related.
I finally got out of the office a little before 7 PM and went up to see the man I had not gotten to see earlier. Then, it was home to relax a little with Delanae. We watched a movie called "Double Jeopardy". It turned out to be a good movie, especially since the first half was set near Seattle on the Puget Sound. If you like a suspenseful movie without too much violence, you will like this movie. Now, I need to go to bed so I can get up early in the morning and go help make rounds then work in the urgent care clinic at our office until 5 PM. After that, it is time to pack for our trip to Reno Sunday morning. I will try and post something tomorrow but there will be no more posts after that until Wednesday.
No update yet.
We leave for Reno!
