Not how it should go! in QUOTIDIEN

I'm a Patient Advocate. Aside from providing personal care for my patient, I fight insurance companies, research her disease (MS) and examine new symptoms so that when we get to this doctor or that, I know what I'm hearing and have even made well educated suggestions (Trigeminal Neuralgia, low-air loss mattress, etc). Hospital stays require extra attention when the patient is a full quad and I end up driving 50 miles round trip, per day, while she is there, and my hours increase exponentially. More often than not, staffing is inadequate for the one who can't press a call button. I love my work, and I am very good at what I do.

So - yesterday, my little corner of Missouri was buried in 9-10" of snow. I'm looking out the window this morning and at my Jeep, which we smartly parked in the garage, and thinking about how horrible I am for even thinking about playing hooky! I'm experiencing a fair bit of burn-out, recently. It's not a job thing, it's more of a patient (and patient family thing). I have worked for this woman for 12 years, now. A few weeks ago, she hired a Monday girl for a dollar less than what I make. This, after I took a pay cut of $1 per hour to help them out financially.

I'm venting, of course and will likely manage the trip by the grace of God and my 4-wheel drive, and much of these feelings will likely disappear, or at least sink back down into that little dark room at the bottom of the stairwell in my brain. I find that every now and again, it's good to hunt these feelings down and air them out a bit, lest they fester, until the time I'm ready to actually face them head on, and DO something about 'em.