Week of April 9, 2001
Monday
Tuesday Wednesday
Thursday Friday
Saturday Sunday
Most Recent Update
No update.
ON CALL!
No update.
I have had problems posting this week. No, not technical problems with my computer or the web hosting service but problems at home and the office taking all my time and sleep. Sunday night we came home from church early to find Stephen and his girl friend here alone when he was supposed to be at a bible study group. So, Sunday night until very early Monday morning was spent discussing the ramifications of his actions with him including confiscating his drivers license.
Monday was the first day without our just retired partner so it was fairly hectic. Some of his patients had not made arrangements for other physicians yet so there was some scrambling to cover their needs until they can change to a new physician. It actually was not as bad as I had expected it to be. Monday night was again spent discussing things with Stephen and laying out some ground rules for the next few months. I do not know how he will win back our trust if he ever can. We have to give him grace however as God expects us to and demonstrates grace toward us all the time. We will just have to take one day at a time with him.
Tuesday started out with the announcement that our group was ending their affiliation with a clinic in Astoria, Oregon. I had alluded to this last Friday when I talked about our meeting with the governing board. We did not know when it would become official but Tuesday it did. Our administration is working with the physicians there to come up with some sort of arrangement for them to be bought by another organization or go back to running their own clinic or some other plan. I do not know if there is a deadline for this other than the end of this fiscal year. We will lose several clinicians which is always tough but I think everyone understands why this is necessary.
Then, Tuesday night I was on call and very busy. I spent a lot of time with an unassigned patient who came in with some of the signs of an infection around her spine. The emergency magnetic resonance imaging study did not reveal one but I had to talk to several colleagues to come up with a plan for treating her. Along with that were the usual patient phone calls and another couple of admissions during the night. I did not get to bed until sometime after 2 and had to be up Wednesday morning at 5 to get ready to head to Vancouver for the biweekly medical advisory committee meeting which I attend.
Wednesday morning I did manage to get up and get to Vancouver for the meeting on time. After that, I had to come back to Longview and take care of some leftover work from the previous night on call and go to my dental appointment. Most of the morning was spent again coordinating care for the patient from Tuesday night. She was continuing to have fever and severe back pain which convinced me and my consultants that she has an infection that has spread to her bloodstream but the source was still unclear as well as the organism responsible.
The most important thing that happened Wednesday was the fact that it was Stacey's 13th birthday. Now, we no longer have a child; officially, we only have teenagers. After evening services was the official opening of birthday presents. We forgot to administer the ritual birthday spanking but we made up for that tonight. No post Wednesday night as I was very sleep deprived by then and, after getting the birthday girl to bed, did not have the energy to try and write something.
Well, I just got a call tonight from someone interested in looking at the BMW this weekend for possible purchase. It would really be nice to get it sold so we would only have two cars and a much lower auto insurance bill. Since Stephen is not driving and will not be for some time, we really don't need three cars around here. Maybe this is the right person who wants this car for the price I want for it. Wish us luck!
I will write this tonight but I do not know when you will read it. My e-mail here has been down now for twenty four hours. I cannot connect to the mail servers either at Earthlink or my web hosting service. Now tonight I cannot connect to any website through Earthlink or my alternate ISP. I also am unable to ftp this update up to my website. A local internet connection must be down.
Today was a hectic climax to a stressful week. The number of patients I see every day keeps climbing which means the number of refills, forms, and other telephone messages also goes up exponentially it seems. I also had three patients to see in the hospital this morning which takes up about ninety minutes before I start seeing patients in the office. Then, this afternoon I needed to see one of them before I left the office for the night. My stacks of paperwork never seemed to get smaller throughout the day and, in fact, I left some undone so I could get out of the office before 7 PM tonight. That means I will need to go by sometime this weekend and do about an hour's work in my office to clean everything out and get it reviewed.
I had to get out tonight to go to Stacey's birthday party. It was held at a local skating rink but only junior high aged kids were allowed on the floor. That meant that Delanae and I could only sit and watch Stacey and her friends skate and dance. Of course, Delanae is the skater, not me. I have not been on roller skates since I was a child and now I would break something if I tried again. I noticed that almost all the kids were wearing inline skates to skate in. Stacey and her friends had pizza and cake after skating for an hour. Afterward, the floor was cleared of skaters and only dancers were allowed. Junior high kids do very little dancing and a lot of running around. It was funny to watch.
This weekend is supposed to be sunny and nice here. That should mean that Stephen gets quite a bit of work done around here tomorrow and Sunday afternoon. Until he is able to get a job elsewhere he will be working around here a certain number of hours a week. Included in that will be washing our cars, mowing the yard, washing windows, and pulling weeds. Needless to say, he is excited about these duties. One day he will thank us for insisting he follow our rules but at the present he is not very thankful. Today he got after school suspension next week for chewing tobacco on school grounds. Now, it is both us and the school watching his every move. It does get frustrating talking to him about his behavior and not seeing him control himself. Maybe next week he will be a different teenager but I doubt it. Hopefully I can get this posted sometime tonight but I am not holding my breath that I can. Have a great Easter weekend!
My e-mail problems have been solved by rebooting my computer. Yes, that was all it took. Now everything is working fine. I can't explain it but for some reason Windows decided it did not want to find any servers on the Web until the computer it is on was rebooted.
Delanae is sick today so I got to take Stacey and her two friends to the mall. Luckily, they only spent a couple of hours there before they ran out of money. They stayed up so late last night that they all three slept on the way home which made for a very quiet car. Stacey fell asleep on the couch tonight after dinner also. I guess she is still tired from staying up most of last night and not getting to sleep as late as she usually does on Saturday morning.
It was a very quiet day around here today with Delanae not feeling well and me taking the girls to the mall in Vancouver, WA. Stephen did yardwork all afternoon so that is done for the weekend. Tomorrow, after church, he has a couple of cars to wash. Speaking of cars, the person interested in our BMW did come by today to look at it but it turns out to be a little out of his price range. I don't know what he thought I would sell it for but whatever it was was a lot lower than the price I quoted him.
Tomorrow is Easter and after morning church we will be eating lunch with our neighbors who also go to the same church. After that, it will be another lazy day for Delanae and I. See you tomorrow.
Happy Easter to all! It was as sunny a day as we get in the spring here today. There was a slight overcast but the temperature made it up into the low 60's. Most importantly, there was no rain. We were invited to our neighbors across the street for lunch after church but when the kids and I got home the electricity was off. Delanae had stayed home as she was sick again today and said the power had been off for about an hour when we got home. We ended up having hamburgers and hot dogs grilled on a propane grill outside while waiting for the power to come back on. Everyone had a good time and we got to know our next door neighbors who have just moved into the house better as they also came. They did not go to church today so maybe we can get them to attend the church we attend, along with our neighbors across the street.
While visiting, we played some games of HORSE with the kids. Unfortunately, Stephen won all the games but the two adults gave him a run for his money. We did not give up the fight easily but it has been too many years since I shot baskets with any consistency. Maybe I need to find an over 45 league to try and play some again. The more I think about it though the worse that idea sounds. Not that it wouldn't be fun but where would I find the time.
I have already been told that I have three people to see in the hospital tomorrow. I also have a two hour meeting of the Leadership Council from 7-9 tomorrow morning. That means it will be an early morning for me again. I had better get to bed as soon as I can so I can get some sleep tonight. See you tomorrow.
