Month: July 2021

Still play?

8:49am in my office. The referral from last night fell through. I am jaded. I knew something would go wrong. The patient had been put on palliative care with another hospice and the family chose to go with them. We went from an immediate need imminently dying patient to the admission being put off. Now it is gone altogether. Frustrating. Another set back in an already rough month. The question I have been pondering all morning is how long to still play the game? I think about the scenario of being a chaplain and my wife cutting hair. Find a small town, build a quiet life. Live simple. Her work is just as stressful. She does marketing for a pest control company. We both are beholden to numbers and financial results. Should we stop playing the game or keep going?

Journey man redux

5:47am in the apartment. Took the dog for a long walk this morning. We are both tired. I know I mentioned before that my post chaplain career has felt like being a “journeyman” professional athlete. I bounce from team to team. I seldom stay for more than a season. I am never settled, never at home. I have a particular set of skills that are valuable to a team. I fill a needed position. I show up, work hard and get paid. After a while the team management decides to go in a different direction or try something new. I update my resume, look for a new opportunity, get a new job and the cycle repeats. It hasn’t been terrible. I get to travel. I make decent money. But it is tiring not having a permanent job. I miss stability. I miss having peace of mind. I want to wake up and not feel like I am about to be fired every single day I go to work. How long can I continue to do this? Will I miss it when it is over? And most importantly, what is the alternative? What will I do if I am not doing this?

On call

10:52pm I’m in chandler. Sleeping in the couch. Girls are in my daughters bedroom. Wife and dog are in the master bedroom. I am administrator on call for work. We got a call around 8pm from a nurse practitioner for a STAT hospice admission. I spent the last two hours talking with my triage nurse and clinical director trying to get everything in place to take care of the patient. now the family wants to wait until morning. Frustrating from a care team perspective. Worrisome for the need of the patient. Luckily The patient appears to be comfortable and managed. We will do the admission in the morning. I appreciate the experience. I have to learn how to enter new referrals in the system and run eligibility. Skills I haven’t developed yet. This is a good life lesson. It is only when I am put in a moment of urgency do I realize what I don’t know but need to know. I will grow personally and professionally from this.

Sunday evening

8:12pm. Took the girls swimming at 5:30pm then they came home so they could change clothes. They wanted to the gym so they could workout. We just got back. It was fun to be out of the apartment and do something different on a Sunday night. They want to go with me to workout in the morning. If they don’t make it we can go at night. beats sitting around eating and watching videos.

Clarification

It is 6:10am in chandler. Still overcast and raining. I wanted to clarify one thing in regards to the WIL. I have let go. I let her live her life. the part of us that had the “affair” is gone. It no longer exists. But I still love her. I will always love her and am here for her when she needs me. What I am trying to say is we kept our love hidden. At first it was because we were young, sneaking around, having fun. As our relationship grew into something deeper it remained hidden so as not to hurt her husband and my wife. Now it is out in the open. Everyone knows. That is the way it should be. I don’t want to sneak around to be with the woman I love ever again. If we are together I want to be her boyfriend, her husband. I want to be the man she is proud to be with for eternity. I am not sure how she feels about me. I realize I will probably never see or hear from her again. But in my mind it is important to clarify where I stand. What my point of view is and how I approach our relationship going forward.

Midnight

12:05am Saturday night/Sunday morning. I am in my apartment. I can’t sleep. I was awakened by a strange noise. an intermittent plastic clicking sound. I assumed it was the blinds hitting each other in the dining room because I had left the fans on to circulate the air. That had to be it. the blinds were swaying in the draft made by the fans. They were knocking against each other and making a noise. I got up and turned off all the fans. But the noise continued. I was perplexed and a annoyed. What was making that noise? I walked around the apartment trying to locate the source. I went into the living room, the dining room and the kitchen but couldn’t identify what was causing it. I wanted to give up but it was nagging me. Finally I realized The sound wasn’t coming from outside the bedroom. It was coming from inside the bedroom. Something in my room was making the sound. I followed the noise until I found the source. It was in the hallway/closet area leading to the master bath. A distinct clicking sound. Once I discovered the source I realized that wasn’t the only sound. there was another noise. The sound of an animal scurrying. My adrenaline started to flow. What was it? Did I have mice, rats or something else in my closet? What should I do? Should I call an exterminator? Should I take care of it myself? Was it dangerous? Rabid? Did I have the means to kill it? My mind raced. I couldn’t formulate a plan or figure out what to do. Then I heard the noise again. It wasn’t coming from the closet. It was coming from the light fixture in the hallway. The clicking sound followed by the scurrying. I stared at the light for a minute or two. What was it? Something trapped in the ceiling? In the wall? I couldn’t decide what to do. Finally I flipped the light switch on to see better. When I did that I could see the problem. It wasn’t an animal caught in my ceiling. It was a bug. A giant bug. A giant bug trapped in the fixture trying to get out. It looks like a cockroach. It is big enough to make a loud noise as it hits the cover. I am relived I found the source. Now what do I do? I don’t like the noise but I don’t really want to remove the cover, unleash a cockroach in my bedroom and try to hunt it down. I will just make it through the night and assess the situation in the morning. Though I have a feeling I will be sleeping uneasy and having dreams about bugs.

Family

4:49pm in the apartment. Went to the sporting good store earlier to buy shorts. Now I am home. I am not going out again. My wife called. Her, our daughter and our daughters friend are supposed to travel to visit tomorrow. My wife has a sore throat. She had work meetings with people from out of state. She is worried she is sick. I will see if they make the trip. I am here and ready for them to come whenever. I really want to see my daughter.

Why write

It is 11:38am. I am still on the apartment. I have had a weird headache all morning. I took some medicine but it hasn’t helped much. Thinking about writing. What do I write for? What do I hope to accomplish? I have all day to get something done. But I have tried in the past and nothing materialized. Add writing to the pile of things I want a new perspective on.