Week of December 24, 2001
Monday
Tuesday Wednesday
Thursday Friday
Saturday Sunday
Most Recent Update
Today at the office was not as slow as I thought it might be. We all ended up staying until almost 5 rather than all but one clinician leaving at noon. I was seeing patients until 4 then I had to go discharge a patient from the hospital. I finally ended up leaving a little after 5 then got to run on the way home which meant I got home a little after 6 which is very early for me lately. My last patient was the most difficult as expected. I was a little unsure at first if he was going to have to be admitted to the hospital but in the end he did not have to be.
Christmas present wrapping is almost over. That is one advantage to having older kids, we do not have to wait until they are in bed asleep to wrap their presents and put them under the tree. One year Stacey camped out under the tree in her sleeping bag so she would be sure to be awakened by Santa. She also set up the video camera to catch him if she fell asleep. That was a long Christmas Eve night for us that year or should I say a very early morning. In the end, she did not catch him on the video tape but the tape showed the tree and room all night. We do miss the cookies, however.
Stacey has promised to wake us up early in the morning but, as I recall, we had to wake her up last year on Christmas morning. I know we had to wake up Stephen finally. Somehow the Christmas magic is lost on the seventeen year old. Maybe he will recapture it one day when he has children of his own.
Internet Connection Sharing is mysteriously working again. As you may recall, ICS had stopped working between my Win 2K box and the kids' Win 98SE box a week or so ago during the time when I was trying to get first WinProxy then Norton Personal Firewall to work. I finally uninstalled both as I could not get the ICS working with either of them and then ICS did not work with them uninstalled. Stephen had turned off the kids computer as they were not using it and I installed a new CD-ROM drive on it then started it up to install their Intel PC Camera software that they each received for Christmas. When I had it running again ICS was working and continues to work. Plus, both machines can see each other on the network. Next, I will try and get a firewall installed again since everything is working and hope I can get it configured correctly to allow everything to continue working correctly.
I spoke too soon as the above was written last night. ICS still works but I am still unable to access a shared folder on my Windows 2000 box from the Windows 98SE box on my network. I am trying to use the shared folder to add files to for the kids to burn to CD's on the Plextor PlexWriter installed in the Windows 2000 box. I want to add files across the network rather than trying to sneakernet them using Zip disks which could take all day going back and forth. Unfortunately, the Win 98SE box cannot see that folder although it is configured just like another shared folder on the Win 2K box which the Win 98SE box can see (confused yet?). Anyway, I have reset the permissions on the folder, rebooted both boxes, and done everything else I can think of without success but I will keep trying.
I had to work today although it was Wednesday which is ordinarily my day off. During the Christmas and New Year's weeks one half of our group's family practice department works each week and cannot take time off. That way we are guaranteed the chance to have one or the other week off and we always know there is enough coverage. With that, we work on our usual day off since we are getting the holiday itself off. Last year I worked the New Years week and could take time off during Christmas week, this year it is the reverse. Fortunately, I did not have to work on Christmas Day this year or New Year's last year but my time is coming in the future.
Today was busy but not exceptionally so. I actually thought it would be busier at the office. I got done early for me and this was after making all my phone calls and doing all the refills. Tomorrow will probably be busier as there are two fewer of us clinicians there tomorrow. It is very liable to get very busy very soon as this usually happens sometime just after Christmas. I can remember some of my busiest weeks in my former practice being the week after Christmas.
Today was not as busy at the office as I had feared. All my appointment slots were still full but no one had to be double booked in. Advanced or open access still seems to be working well for most of us. The staff is hearing no complaints from the patients. One of my patients asked me today if this new way of scheduling was going to work me to death. I told her not after I have had a chance to work down the backlog of scheduled appointments over the next month or so, then I would be wide open every day just like all my partners will be. I have already been able to see some people that told me they had never been able to get in to see me before and wondered if I really existed.
Not much more to say today. Sorry for the short post but I cannot think of anything else to talk about. Sunday is my last call day and night for this year which is good. Tomorrow looks busy now and we will see tomorrow. I will be off for three days next week so I can recover from tomorrow and Sunday. See you tomorrow.
No update.
Last night just did not get done. An update that is. My next to the last patient of the day yesterday needed to be admitted with possible appendicitis. This took quite a while as bloodwork and x-rays needed to be done. As a consequence I got done later than I had expected so I went straight home without running. We watched "Pearl Harbor" on DVD last night which kept us up extremely late and squelched any notion of doing an update.
This morning I got up and did a long run, the longest I have done in several years. It just seemed the right time to do that which meant I was running for almost 90 minutes. I have paid for that the rest of the day but it was good to know I can still do it and will plan more of those for the future.
I had several errands to run today and those got accomplished. I now have a picture ID card for our local Y which has a horrible picture of me on it. It is worse than a drivers license picture. No way that it was going to get redone either so I will just have to live with it.
Tomorrow I have to work and be on call tomorrow night. I need to round on a lot of patients in the hospital during the day tomorrow as our hospital census has gone up dramatically since Christmas. This is not unusual and in my experience is normal for this time of the year. It sounds like I will be very busy tomorrow so I had better go get some sleep as I do not expect to get much tomorrow night.
No update yet.
