A Little Mourning

My last day of work at the HC is tomorrow. What an oddity to be able to look forward to something so much and at the same time dread it equally as much. It’s been almost five months since I gave my notice at the beginning of May. We have had such a lot of crises at work in the last six months, I feel exhausted mentally, physically, and emotionally. I firmly believe that it is time I move into a new chapter, but when I think of all the hard work and energy that’s been poured into that place over the last five years, it is hard to just hand the baton over to someone else without mourning at least a little.

On Thursdays, I have a full day of classes, so I don’t get to the office until about 3:30. I was a little later than normal today because of some errands I had to run. On my drive to the office, I was mentally noting the last-minute things I still need to do. When I walked in the back door, however, I was taken by complete surprise to find the room full of people shouting, “Surprise!” I had a flashback to my 18th birthday party when my friends pulled a similar stunt. I handled the whole thing with about the same amount of grace I had then (which was none).
My colleagues have been very gracious over the past several months, putting in their little We’ll miss you’s, right on cue. But I’ve said goodbye to so many people over the years as I’ve eased in and out of my many “chapters” that I’ve just been doing what has become automatic for me: reciprocate the sentiment, brush it off, and go on.

I have always been the biggest advocate for separating personal life from professional life, and I have preached many sermons to my coworkers about this very thing. But when Sarah told me good-bye this afternoon and subsequently started crying, the ice around my heart began to melt. For the first time, I realized that there might actually be something behind all the words. To consider that I actually could be missed by someone is kind’ve nice. It was all very humbling and quite touching.

And so, I’ve decided that it’s ok to do a little mourning. And it’s alright if a tear or two is shed.

I can honestly say that my current “crew” of employees is the best combination I’ve had to work with since I’ve been here. Our personalities complement each other, and there just aren’t any major interpersonal conflicts with anyone—any Human Resources Dream Team.

In addition to being my Girl Friday, Dee is my front-line girl. She greets each and every patient as if they were a long-lost friend. Dee is very talented in that she is multi-lingual. She speaks those patients’ languages as if she were a pro. In addition to English, she speaks Hillbilly, Country, and Scrapbook Spanish. And when all other languages fail, she brings out the real weapon: Body Language. In the three years I’ve known her, Dee has had both her patients and her coworkers laughing hysterically at all her shenanigans. Dee is the drop of sunshine in my day.

My three medical assistants, Ann, Sarah, and Angela are a strong team. Ann is my faithful friend. She is the only other employee that has been there longer than I have. And if anything, Ann is dependable. Although many years my senior, Ann has never questioned my authority and has willingly done anything I have ever asked of her. Over the years, Ann has been my rock. When I think of loyalty, I think of Ann.

Angela is my resident Jack-of-all-Trades. She carries the many faces of transcriptionist, medical assistant, and scheduler. Angela is very good at learning and taking on new things. She is especially good in taking care of the little details. No matter how small the task, I know I can always count on Angela to remember to take care of it. Whether it’s filling the copier with paper or printing out daily reports or looking up the obituaries, Angela ALWAYS remembers.

And then there’s Sarah. The last time we went through the hiring process, Sarah was the last in a long row of applicants. Hers was the very last resume I had. I don’t know what it was, but I knew when I met her that I had found a good one. And indeed, my hunch has paid off. Sarah’s work ethic is one of the best I’ve ever seen. If she has any spare moment, she floats around, asking others if there is anything she can do to help them. Sarah always takes the initiative to stay busy, and as hard as she works, Sarah never complains. Additionally, her relaxed, easy-going manner makes Sarah someone who is easy to work alongside.

In a sense, these people have become my second family—my support group, for sure. Only these people can truly understand the tragedy of eating something with partially hydrogenated soybean oil. We know all about being skeptical of smoothies. We know what a Huddle is like. We know the crises that can evolve from negligence in leaving the bathroom fan on, failing to properly lock the hand-towel holder, and spraying air freshener into the very air we breathe. We’ve been properly trained to keep our fives from looking like threes. We know to stack the little plates on the Little Plate Pile and to stack the big plates on the Big Plate Pile. We know not to throw the pickle juice out, and we know that there is no mold bad enough that a little steam can’t fix. We show no surprise when watermelon is served to a lobby full of patients, nor do we flinch when a cattle call demonstration erupts from the kitchen. And if ants are on the daily menu, well… that really is no big deal either.

We know. And more importantly, we understand.

And now… moving on. My replacement has been trained and is ready to go, so let the New Chapter begin.

A Summer Highlight

One of the highlights of my summer was when we kidnapped Julia and Lisa for a weekend in Chattanooga back in August. A lot of planning went into building the suspense. Sharon and Jolene cut out letters and pictures from magazines and subsequently designed a note of instruction for Julia and Lisa. They were told to be ready with bags packed at 6:30 on Friday night. We had pre-approved this with Elwood, of course. We knew they had received it because of the text messages that Jolene and Lisa exchanged. Jolene would pump Lisa for information on this mystery weekend, and Lisa kept downplaying it because she didn’t want to hurt Jolene’s feelings because she hadn’t been included. The original plan had been for Lisa to spend the night with Jolene, and suddenly she wasn’t interested anymore.

It was highly suspenseful, however, as Jolene, Sharon, and I made our way over to Elwoods to pick them up. Their long lane was akin to that of the long lane going back to CBS. We imagined all sorts of reactions when they figured out it was us. “Oh, it’s just the Schmucker girls,” we knew they’d say disappointedly. Thankfully, the actual reaction was a jubilant “It’s the Schmucker girls!!” What a relief!

We made our way down to Sara’s place in Chattanooga. We arrived about the same time Sara got off of work. Unfortunately, a powerful storm had preceded our arrival and had knocked the power out for a good portion of Chattanooga, and so our plans were slightly altered. Instead of relaxing in the cool apartment on the air mattresses we were going to have blown up, we had to improvise. Sara and Julia got the bed, Sharon and I started out on the couch, and Jolene and Lisa lay on the flat, airless mattress. The plan was to leave the light switches on so that we would wake up when the electricity came on. We could then blow the air mattresses up and continue on. Well, eventually half a couch wasn’t enough for me, so I pulled some cushions off the chair and lay down beside the girls on the floor. Oh, but it was hot and uncomfortable.

About 6 am, the lights came on, and there ensued such a state of confusion, it was a wonder we accomplished anything at all. But how good those mattresses felt! And Julia managed to sleep through the whole thing, lights, noise, and all. Amazing.

The rest of the weekend went according to plan. We shopped and shopped and ate at all our favorite restaurants. And talked and talked. What a lot of fun!

Like a Mint

I am longing for the beaches of Navarre, and here is why. The constant barrage of schoolwork for the past year with only a break of two weeks has finally caught up with me, and I have come to realize that I really do need some R & R. This became quite apparent to me this morning when I found that I had just washed my hair with toothpaste instead of my usual shampoo. Yes, that’s right. Crest gel. Tartar control. Believe me, it was the most disgusting feeling to have toothpaste not only all over my hands, but all over my hair too.

And the day disintegrated further when I discovered that my Outlook has decided that, for all intents and purposes, it will no longer be serving as my email client. And I have effectively wasted several hours this afternoon trying to coax it back to life. But alas! It shall not be! So now I have to make several unfriendly decisions that include whether or not to upgrade to a more expensive version of Microsoft Office.

But at least I smelled like a mint all day. And my hair has not even a trace of tartar on it... anywhere.

The Scoop

A new semester has dawned. I am already in the second week and have yet to give the scoop on my professors and their respective classes. So to that end, I submit the following, from most favorite class to least favorite:

1. CIS321: Emerging Information Technology. Wow! I am so excited to be in this class. I get to learn how to use Dreamweaver to create websites. I can’t wait to get started. As usually happens with most classes, we are still in the baby stage, and so it is a little boring at this point. But not for long! The professor is on the brink of retiring. He is fairly laid-back which is something that is quite welcome.

2. HCA346: Ambulatory Care. The practicality of this class is definitely one of the pluses. We will be doing a semester-long group project that includes designing a practice, creating a budget, etc. Fun stuff. I just wish I didn’t mind group projects so much. The professor, however, is really what makes this class number 2 on my list. She is such a bright and cheerful person. She has two biological children, plus she just adopted a little Chinese girl last year. She and her husband will be adopting another little Chinese girl next spring, and it was only by God’s mercy that it worked out for her to be able to teach this class. On top of all she has going on with those four kids, she has taken in two of her three nephews, plus her brother who is in the military. And now, as of July, she has become a self-proclaimed “medical mystery.” There’s something going on with her kidneys, and she will probably have to have surgery before too long. She’s in chronic pain, at this point, and yet she still keeps her husband, her kids, and her students going. She’s a pretty amazing woman, I think, and I’m going to just soak her in for the next three months. She is probably the most popular teacher in the department, and she had almost her entire class in tears when she announced she was going to go to part-time last semester. I heard about it in my Accounting class. At any rate, I think I lucked out to have both a class and a professor I enjoy.

::The remaining classes are on my Not So Fond Of list.

3. HCA383: Biostatistics Lab. This class is the lab that goes with the biostatistics class I just completed during the summer semester. How this made it to number three out of five is merely a reflection of how terrible the remaining two are. At any rate, it meets only once a week, although at a most inconvenient time. There are no exams in it—only labs—so that is probably its one redeeming factor. That… and the fact that it is essentially a computer class. The class wouldn’t be so bad if it just weren’t for the content.

The first time we met for this lab, I ran into my nice little friend Natalie, who is also taking it this semester. Natalie sat across the aisle from me in Community Health last semester; she’s from the same town I am from, so we’ve had some mini-bonding moments. I was still a little surprised to see her gesturing wildly to me in the hall outside the classroom. She apparently wanted to talk to me desperately, so I walked down the hall to a little out-of-the-way spot. She said, “Did you see who is in the class?!?” And then she proceeded to tell me that the girl she had been in a group project with in our last class was now in this class, much to her chagrin. “Kathy” had been nothing but trouble in that particular project, and so when she was reviewed by her peers and given a grade by the rest of the group, it reflected in the grade she was given by the professor. Apparently, she had sent their group a highly inflammatory email and had traumatized poor Natalie. After she got off her cell phone to report this disturbing development to her mother, I calmed her down and told her to just stick close to me, and I would “protect” her. This problem girl happens to be in my HCA346 class as well, and I'm hoping not to end up in her group.

4. PH384: Introduction to Epidemiology. My professor in this class is from Nigeria. He is an interesting person, but he is a little hard to understand most of the time. The content of this class, unfortunately, is what bores me to tears. Epidemiology is basically the study of the causes of diseases. Yawn, yawn, yawn.

After our first HCA383 class, we clambered into this class; some of the students were all abuzz with the fact that our groups in HCA383 were going to be assigned. The girl in front of me and the girl across from me were stating emphatically that they did not want to be with “Kathy.” I questioned them out just a little bit, and they expounded for the next five minutes on how terrible a partner this girl is. Apparently, she had performed just as poorly in their group as she had in Natalie’s. Her reputation certainly does precede her. And then I began to draw on my newly-acquired knowledge of statistics and began calculating the probability that she would end up in my group. I dislike group projects enough the way it is. Dear Lord, please at least give me some good people to work with.

5. HCA343: Healthcare Quality Management. This class is just a disaster from beginning to end. This is the second time I’ve had this professor, and I struggle every day to drag myself in there.

The good thing is that my friend Faith from Uganda sits beside me back in the corner. And we fight sleep together on a daily basis. Oh, it’s a miserable hour and twenty minutes.

We did have a good chuckle in it the other day, however. The professor is Russian, and on her Power Point presentation she had the phrase “Damps and Rail Transportation” as one of her bullets. One student finally was brave enough to ask what in the world “damps” were. “Uh, you know… when you block the water in a river…” she said.

“OHH. Dams!” he said. And everyone got it then. She was really embarrassed and apologized profusely, but it didn’t keep us from laughing. “Well, just don’t laugh at me behind my back,” she said. And so we laughed harder.

When I went into this class on Tuesday, I sat down beside Faith and said, “We really need to get us some cappuccino so we can stay awake!”

“You know what happened to me this weekend?” she asked. And she proceeded to tell me how she had burned her hand by spilling some hot cappuccino on it.

“How did you do that?” I asked.

“Well, I had gone to McDonald’s to get my boyfriend some breakfast,” she said. “Then I stopped at the Shell station to get me some cappuccino. I had the largest cup they had, and it was at that point where you just can’t accept that it is full…you know?”

I laughed merrily at that. How well I know where that point is. Poor Faith. As her boyfriend so aptly put it later, “You see? You like things BIG. And that’s what you get for being so greedy!” He apparently knew good and well why she hadn’t just gotten coffee at McDonald’s. Their cups are too small, of course.