I Should Write a Book

I'm really thinking about it. Writing a book that is. A book about all of my experiences with patients in the hospital where I work. "That's funny," you're probably thinking. "You work in the Administration office; why would you ever even come in contact with patients?"

See, I was young and naive once too and thought that working in the office meant I'd be effectively hidden away from the human side of this job. Ha. Ha. Hahaha! That's just funny to me now. I've learned over the past couple months that in fact, working in the Admin part of the hospital makes one a target for patients actually. At least once a week or so we get some random crazy person who will wonder into our office and "Need to file a complaint with the CEO." Obviously, that's not exactly how we handle patient complaints here. You can't just walk in and demand and audience with the top execs. More often than not these are psych patients who have escaped from their rooms and found their way into our office...that or they're people who are drugged out of their minds and looking for someone to write them another prescription.

Some of these people are pretty funny (in a crazy, talking-out-of-their-head kind of way) some are kinda scary, and others are just very sad. My patience for dealing with these people is directly correlated to my mood and how busy I am at that particular moment. If it's a slow day I'll sometimes sit and listen to their ramblings for awhile. It's amazing what kinds of stories people come up with. If I'm super busy I'll just politely direct them to our Patient Relations Department, or in some cases, call Security to come haul them off.

I also get lots of phone calls. Lots and lots of calls. Sometimes two or three a day from people who either want me to give them drugs, cancel their bill (one guy told me that; he thought he just shouldn't be held responsible for the billfor his treatment), or let them in to talk to the CEO. None of which I can do.

I got a call yesterday from a lady who had "lost" her prescription and wanted me to call the pharmacy and get them to give her another bottle of pills. Are you kidding me? Now, I know I'm still pretty new to this but I didn't fall off the old apple cart yesterday! I'd say the odds that this woman truly lost her prescription and needed another one are oh...1 in 4769603746585. Give or take. Maybe she did and I'm judging her unfairly but based on the slur in her voice and the "seemingly" drug-induced, borderline incoherent rant she went on...I'm gonna go ahead and say she was already hopped up on something.

The fact that they've called the Administration Office means nothing to these people either. I'm amazed at how many people out there truly believe that as long as they call a hospital number, any hospital number, anyone who answers the phone is going to be a doctor and thus capable of answering all of their questions. Our conversation went something like this (just imagine her voice with a thick Cajun accent):

Her: I'm calling cause I done lost my prescription and I'm trying to tell these people at the pharmacy and they tellin' me they can't give me another one without the doctor's approval and I just don't understand that cause don't they know I NEED these pills? I've got fluid and breathing problems and fluid and fluid on my heart and I lost my prescription and I need to get another one. I done talked to the nurse and she said she gon' investigate and talk to the doctor about what he want to do about it but I done told her I NEED this prescription and I don't understand this.
Me: Ma'am, you've already spoken to the nurse? What's the Doctor's name who wrote the prescription for you?
Her: Yeah I done spoke to the nurse and she said she gon' investigate but I don't understand why you can't just call me in another replacement cause I already told them I lost mine and I need these pills. You just gotta go get my chart and look at it and see what pills I have and call them and tell the people at the pharmacy that I need some more cause I done told them I already lost my prescription and I need some more. That's all. I don't understand this. I don't understand why you can't just look at my chart and see what that doctor gave me and give me more.
Me: Well ma'am, I'm really sorry but only doctors can write prescriptions. A nurse can't write a new prescription and I certainly can't. This is the Administration Office. I don't have access to any patient records so I can't go pull your chart. What's the Doctor's name?
Her: I don't know no doctor's name I just done told that nurse that I need this prescription and she said she gon' investigate it but I done never heard back from her and the pharmacy say they can't give me no pills without investigating. That doctor's name was Paul maybe I think.
Me: Ok, so you saw Dr. Paul? Do you know a first name? Or do you know the name of the nurse you already spoke to?
Her: Well I don't know if Paul was a first name or a last name but the nurse's name is Terry.
Me: Terry? I'm really sorry ma'am, but if you can't give me a name for the doctor who saw you I don't know exactly what you want me to do. If you've already spoken to his nurse then you need to call and follow up with her.
Her: But I done told you his name was Paul. And I was there on the 19th. All you have to do is go look at my chart and see that I was there on the 19th and what doctor I saw and then you can call in that same prescription.
Me: But ma'am, we have several hundred doctors here; I don't have any way of tracking down someone who either has a first or last name Paul. And like I said, I'm not a doctor and I don't have access to your records. Now if you can give the name of someone who treated you I'd be happy to try to track that person down for you. But otherwise I'm not sure I can help you.
Her: Well I saw a Dr. Lisa Craft once.
Me: Dr. Craft? Is she the one who wrote you the prescription?
Her: No.
Me: Did she treat you for the condition you have this prescription for?
Her: No.
Me: Did you even see this doctor at this hospital?
Her: I don't remember.
Me: *Bam bam bam. (This is where I started banging my head on my desk).
Me: Ma'am, I'm very sorry but unless you can call me back and give me the name of the person you actually saw I don't think I can help you. You need to follow up with that nurse you already spoke to.

It went on from there for quite some time more (luckily it was a slow day so I let her stay on the line and talk for awhile) before I finally transferred her. She then proceeded to call me back not once but twice, with the exact same story to which I gave her the exact same answers.

I guess when I think about it its really very sad. Its sad that people get so addicted to drugs that they get to this level of desperation. It's sad that there are still people in our society who are so ignorant of how the "system" works, and its sad that in a lot of times, these people are all alone and have no one to help guide them through it. So yes, I sometimes laugh about some of the calls I get because hey, you gotta admit some of it is pretty comical. But a lot of it is also pretty heartbreaking too.

Almost Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is now only three days away and I'm pretty pumped, lemme tell ya. We are going to be able to go home to Kentucky for the long weekend and I can't wait. I can't wait to see Leah. I can't wait to see Mom and Dad and my grandparents. I can't wait to see my dog. I can't wait to eat until I'm in pain and then lay around and relax and take long naps and generally do nothing. Aaaaaahhhh. I'm not looking forward to the drive (10-11 hrs each way) but otherwise I'm going to be in hog Heaven.

Mom has already promised to fix whatever I want for dinner while we're home, I'm HOPING HOPING HOPING I'll get to see whatever of my Kentucky friends are in town, and we're going to the UK vs. UT football game Saturday. Could it get much better than that? I don't hardly see how.

Just so everyone knows, I am fully expecting to freeze to death at the game Saturday. I'm not exaggerating. I'm barely able to stay warm enough as it is; I'd imagine that living in the tropics for the past five months hasn't done anything to thicken my blood. I'll most likely be a Lauren-Popsicle by halftime. It'll be ok though. It's going to be worth it to see one Kentucky football game this season...especially if we can pull out a win against Tennessee. Funny story. The people who have lived down here in New Orleans are seriously messed up when it comes to their body temperatures. This summer when it was sweltering and I thought I was dying on a daily basis, our landlords made fun of us for keeping our house so cold. Every time they came in they commented on how cold it was, and how they didn't see how we could stand it. Yeah...our house wasn't cold by any stretch of the imagination. It was barely cool enough to keep from breaking a sweat just sitting on the couch. Well, now that its finally cooled off and the temperature has started to approach what I would consider pleasant, our landlords are freezing to death! They've had their heat running since the beginning of October (at which time we still had our A/C going, if that tells you anything). Every time they see us out they ask if we've turned our heat on yet. This confounds me. It gets kinda chilly at night I guess but its still in the high 60s to 70s here during the day. Heat? Really?? At this rate I'm planning not to turn the heat on all year.

What Have I Gotten Myself Into?

I may or may not have done something totally stupid.

Do any of you get up before dawn on Black Friday to go Christmas shopping? See, I've never done it before because well, in principle (with the exception of getting really, really wicked-good deals) I hate everything about what I imagine that experience to be. Even under the best of conditions, I hate waiting in line. I hate shopping in over-crowded places. I super-hate sitting in traffic and I super super-hate feeling rushed and stressed when I'm trying to do something important. Yes, the sales are enticing but up until this point I've never even remotely desired all of the downsides that go with shopping on the day after Thanksgiving.

Until this year. This year I have somehow managed to find myself slated in to do this whole pre-dawn frenzied shopping spree with Zack's mom. Gulp.

It really started innocently enough I guess. Then again, doesn't it seem like any story that starts out that way does not usually end well? I think this is a tradition his mom has had for years and being the new daughter in the family, this year I got invited. "Sure!" I agreed, when she asked if I wanted to go. "Sounds like fun."

And it did.

At first, I was actually looking forward to it. Maybe I've been wrong about this whole shopping thing and it will be really great; it will definitely be a new experience if nothing else. That's what I told myself. I love to shop and I'm always up for a new experience, so why not? The more I think about it though, the more I'm starting to get really scared. Probably this is an overreaction on my part but I have this mental imagine of getting mauled or maybe trampled to death trying to get in the door at Macy's. How cut-throat do people get about their 50% off big screen TVs and $7 jeans?? Am I in any physical danger here? In my mind I see women fighting over the last of an item on the shelf, beating each other with their purses until one or both lay unconscious on the floor. (You know the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, Jingle All the Way? I'm picturing a scene like that). I see crazed shoppers dashing madly (and blindly) around the mall, knocking over displays and mowing down anyone dumb enough to get in their way. I see myself waiting in line for approximately 47 days to get out of the store once our purchases are made...you know, assuming we survive to that point.

Its scary I tell you! I've committed to go and I'm gonna do it but not without apprehension and not, I've decided, without some sort of full body suit for protection.

This Should Not Be This hard

There are some days where I look at myself and am appalled by my own laziness. Granted, there aren't many of these days but every once in a great while I just hit a wall and I feel like if I have to exert one more iota of effort I'm going to just wither up and die.

I had a moment like this yesterday.

I was trying to login to one of the Accounting programs we use here at work so that I could run a report for my boss. When I typed in my password I got a pop-up box informing me that my current password will expire in 15 days and would I like to change it now? Sure. Why not? So I clicked on the Change Password link which lead me to a screen where I had to type in my old password, a new password, and then a confirmation of the new password. Standard stuff. This should not be hard.

(As an aside, I have a real problem with password setup boxes that don't explicitly list the restrictions on the password; don't make my try to guess the exact number/letter/symbol combination you want. Good grief! Just tell me what it needs to be)! This was one of those boxes. I swear I tried no fewer than half a dozen new passwords and every single time I got a different error message. My password must be longer than 7 characters. It must contain at least one capital letter. It cannot exceed 9 characters. It must contain at least one number. It must contain at least one non-numeric symbol. It cannot be a real word. Blah, blah, blah. See, if I had known these were all the restrictions I could have easily enough started out with a password that matched. But no. Whatever genius decided to write this program apparently didn't have the foresight to include any actual instructions so instead, I just got to blindly type in combinations of stuff and hope to get a match.

So here's where I got lazy. After trying all these different password combinations with no success I just gave up. I sat fuming, looking at my computer screen and I just couldn't muster the mental energy to to to come up with another password right then. Couldn't do it. So I just stopped. I told myself its all cool cause I still have 14 more days to think of something.

Yes, today my computer won.

KENTUCKY BASKETBALL

Let's talk about Kentucky basketball for a moment, shall we? The season is just getting underway (the CATS are 2-0 so far in exhibition with another game coming up tonight) and let me just say this is the most excited I've been for the start of basketball season in oh...about ten years.

The Billy G. era was (thankfully) short-lived but even so I think it forced even the most devout Kentucky fan to struggle for something positive to say. It was just horrible. Painfully horrible. A horrible, horrible two years in the history of Kentucky basketball if you ask me. (Did you get that? Horrible). I wish we could have a do-over. Or an annulment. Like "Hey remember those two seasons where we had that redneck Texan as our Coach? Um, yeah...just kidding! Those don't count." I wish I could erase the past two seasons from my mind completely.

It's not that we weren't winning (although 18-13 and 22-14 are pretty sorry records) or even that we didn't make it into the NCAA tournament last year (but talk about an insulting way for this program to end a season) that made me loathe Billy Clyde so much. Oh no. I could have tolerated a couple rebuilding years, as could I believe, most of the rest of the Big Blue Nation, had he given us any other reason in the world to keep him around. Anything at all. If he had been a super likable guy who played to the media and made us CATS fans feel loved and appreciated, we'd have surely given him another season or two to get his program up and running. Had he been a really stand-up guy who was setting a great example for the community while slowly rebuilding the tradition that is Kentucky basketball, we'd have been more than happy to keep him around then too. But no. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Billy G. was either too arrogant or too busy or straight up too stupid to realize that in Kentucky, basketball is King. As long as you're winning you are a God among men; but the second you stop winning, well, you better have a backup plan in mind. Mocking and belittling fans, earning a reputation for being a womanizer and a drunk, and sacrificing a team victory to prove a point to one player are just not good ideas around here and won't make you very many friends; especially when you're losing. Just horrible.

As much as I disliked Billy G. and kinda wished sometimes that he'd get hit by a car on the way to a game (not mortally wounded, just enough to keep him out for the remainder of the season) it pales in comparison to the absolute disgust I had for our previous coach, Mr. Tubby Smith. If Billy G. was a flash in the pan of Kentucky basketball despair, Tubby's tenure was the equivalent of dying a very slow and painful death. In my mind he literally sucked all of the life right out of Kentucky basketball. He turned our program into one of the most boring, lackluster, almost painful to watch in the whole country. We were big and slow and got repeatedly and handily whipped up and down the court by teams that were smaller and quicker. We played a slowed down style of ball that was so out of touch with reality that it wasn't even funny. We recruited guys based on nothing more than their size (who cares that he's not really capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time?? He's 7'3"! We'll take him) and then seemed stunned when they failed to perform. Uggggggh. I think my blood pressure is rising just thinking about this. It got so bad that I literally just quit going to games altogether; a move that bordered on the sacrilegious (cause when you're a UK student and have access to $5 basketball tickets, you better be on your deathbed if you turn them down). But I couldn't help it. I couldn't stand to watch. It just hurt my heart too much.

So yeah. The Gillespie era was like a gunshot wound; painful and fatal, but mercifully quick and over almost before you even realize its happened. The Tubby era was more like slowly suffocating to death. Or being buried alive. Together they combined to form a very dark and dismal period in the life of Kentucky basketball.

Which brings me to now, and why I'm so fired up about the beginning of this season. I already LOVE Coach Calipari. Love him. I think he's great. I think he's the best thing to happen to maybe the whole state in a very long time and if I have to eat these words later because it comes to light that he used illegal recruiting strategies or was involved in some underhanded dealings, well, so be it. For the time being I'm a big, big, big time supporter of Coach Cal.

He makes it so easy to like him because so far, he's doing everything right. He's doing the things a Kentucky Coach should be doing and technically, the season hasn't really even started yet. This just proves that Kentucky fans are not quite the bloodthirsty win-mongers we're made out to be. Ok fine, we're pretty close but still, we do care about other things too and its possible to be hugely popular here without the Win/Loss record to back you up. For a time anyway.

And Coach Cal gets that. He understands and appreciates that he's at the pinnacle of men's college basketball coaching jobs. For a man in his profession there is quite simply no better place in the entire world to be than at Kentucky. A coach won't find a more devoted fan base in all of college basketball, or a program/university/state more devoted to the sport. It just won't happen. Calipari knows that and more importantly, he appreciates that. He's playing to the media, he's befriending the fans, and he's making us feel like this is "our" team again. Oh and also, he's recruited one of the best freshman classes in the history of the sport which has lead to a preseason ranking in the Top 5. That doesn't hurt either.

I'm almost sick with knowing I probably won't get to see the CATS play in person this season because based on what the experts are saying, we're going to be one heck of a fun team to watch. We're going to be quick and we're going to push the ball and we're going to be, for the first time in a long time, really really good. I can't wait.

Really???

This picture was taken at an Anti-Gay/Anti-Black protest that took place outside the Sidwell Friends school in Washington D.C. earlier in the week. Sidwell Friends is the private school President Obama's daughters attend. I'm going to ignore the brazen ignorance of protesting an entire race for now (though on another day at another time I may bring this up again) and instead focus on the one detail that first caught my eye when I saw this picture.

That sign. The one that reads "God Hates You."

Really? Really??

What kind of disgusting, hate-filled person do you have to be to justify in your mind carrying a sign like that around? I don't know which is more disturbing; the fact that someone actually believes such a thing and is ok with broadcasting it to the world, or the fact that someone who is clearly an adult is audacious enough to wave that sign at a bunch of elementary school kids. These people call themselves Christians too, which I cannot fathom. Who do they think they are, to speak for God like that? Who are they to tell someone else that God hates them for a lifestyle they've chosen or the color of skin they were born with?

The God I know does not hate anyone and all I've ever learned in Sunday School and Church has taught me that we, as Christians, should practice and cherish love and acceptance above all else. Period. End of story. What happened to Jesus loving all the children (red and yellow, black and white) of the world? We were not put here to condemn each other, or to decide for ourselves who is or is not worthy of God's love. And I'm pretty sure God doesn't need any of us to speak for Him.

I Don't Get It

I wrote about this awhile back but then this morning there was an article about childhood obesity online and I decided it was a topic worth revisiting. The article was about some studies that have been done which concluded that today's kids are astronomically more likely than their parents or grandparents to suffer from heart disease. The article went on to say...

"Our study suggests that more of these young adults will have heart disease when they are 35-50 years old, resulting in more hospitalizations, medical procedures, need for chronic medications, missed work days and shortened life expectancy," said Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, lead author of the study. A study released last November at a Heart Association conference found that the neck arteries in obese and overweight children were similar to those of 45-year-olds. The children in the study also had "abnormal cholesterol" and were said to be at high risk for heart disease in the future."

Isn't that horrible? Overweight children have the arteries of 45-year-olds??? I mean, that just makes me sad. It also makes me kinda sick. Sick because, barring any rare medical conditions that cannot be helped, this is an epidemic (yes, epidemic) that is largely avoidable. Childhood obesity isn't like cancer, or autism, or even H1N1 swine flu. Those are all things people are either born with or may contract/develop at some point later in life for no foreseeable reason and which can't be helped. This isn't like that. Today's kids are getting out-of-control fat simply because they and their parents are too lazy to do anything about it. If you ask me, there's far, far too much of this...

and this...
and this.And there's not nearly enough of these...

or this.

I mean, do kids even play outside anymore? Do they still have bicycles and rollerblades and trampolines like we did when I was growing up? I don't really understand what makes any parent think its ok to feed their kid a continual diet of processed, packaged fast food and then let them spend hours on end sitting on the couch in front of the television. My brain cannot wrap itself around the line of reasoning that goes on there because its just ridiculous!

Whew! Sorry. I got a little fired up there. I just think its a horrible failure on the part of any parent who lets that happen to their kid. Children who struggle with their weight don't have easy childhoods. I know they have to deal with self-esteem issues, getting made fun of by other kids, and just a general inability to participate in the physical activities they should be able to participate in at that age. What part of that sounds good, or like something you would want for your child? Why as a parent would you ever let that happen if you could prevent it? I just don't understand.