About effing time in Normal entries

It is later or it still is later. Below is some nonsense about the mundane habits of existence that I’ve been working on for a day or too. Heh. That gives the impression that I’ve put thought into it; no. Hell no. It’s just that other things came and none of it was engaging enough to demand priority. In the triage of importance, from life threatening to a boo boo on the elbow the below stuff rates as “Get out of my E.R. try WebMD then take two aspirins and never call.”

Today was tiring but fulfilling. At the risk of giving away somebody else’s business, a burden was lifted from the shoulders of near and dear by diagnosis. I have absolutely no idea why I feel obligated to post these words, I think it’s an organizational thing. Once posted they quit mocking me.

I overheard some well-meaning good intentions, the kind that pave the road to hell. I was in a waiting room listening to a mother listen to her young daughter, perhaps six years old. The kid was reading some Halloween kids book. The mom kept calling it the teeny weeny ghost; the kid kept telling her it says Teeny Tiny. The kid didn’t make any Freudian remark on her mom’s obsession with weenies. Neither did I, but both the kid and I noticed it.

The mother kept praising the kid and telling her what she got wrong. The mother was taking a phonetic approach. There was this word that stumped the kid. Mom pointed and said “wha-wha-wha …” the kid couldn’t get it. It was once. There’s an inherent failure of teaching reading phonetically; it doesn’t account for all the failures, like, say, once. The daughter was proud of her skills, mother too, but she wasn’t doing her a great service educationally. There was another point where the kid was reading — The teeny tiny ghost was sad and tears ran down his cheek…” mom interrupted “Is there a cha –cha-cha sound in there? No, it’s cat.” I wanted to look at the book. The tears ran his cat didn’t make any sense to me or the kid. Eavesdropping is a dangerous avocation.

There was this little kid with a mighty voice, well, a mighty voice of frustration; a screaming kid. Given that 90 percent of the places business was giving shots it seems reasonable. The kid was bored. Dad was trying very hard to help with that. Not with comfort but with taking the kid out in the hallway and letting him run. He was also trying to reason with him. If that kid was older than 24 months I’ll eat a hat. Not mine, I need mine. The father was a good man, but he didn’t quite get it. I mean he got that it’s a service to the waiting room to take a screaming kid out in the hall, and he got that the kid needed running space, he didn’t get reasoning with a 2 year old. Um, I didn’t mean he was cold and refused to comfort the kid, he held him. The kid didn’t want to be held; he wanted distance between him and the poky poky needles.

People say a lot of things about god, things like Man Plans, God Laughs, and other such secular albeit philosophical happy horseshit. Today god was a clown. Just saying. Ok that’s it, and below was that. Do what you will, you’re gonna anyhow, but now you have my permission.

Today I met with another intern and another attending. I spent two hours there and I’m still not sure exactly to what end. Complex care is what they are called and for some reason they are sort of housed in cardiology which I’m sure scares the shit out of some patients referred to them. Yeah but, yeah but, you’re thinking, Shirley the patients must know what the fuck. Shirley my mucho mas McClain ass. Pardon my spelling, I was channeling.

I filled out a form before going in with that question on it (do you know why you’re here?) and was asked in the office. I said something like “My intern said you could return the pain meds taken from me, not to embarrass him or I. I’m really tired of the extent of my treatment being regulated to medication discussions. Is this being videoed?” The last was coy, I signed a waiver to allow video for, allegedly, educational purposes. A savvy detective, profiler or shrink would have seen almost two hours of misdirection. Maybe misdirection is too strong of a word, redirection. I didn’t say a thing that wasn’t true.

Complex care is listed on the website, but the description sounds more like it’s for perspective med students than patients. It’s supposedly a different philosophy for approaching internal medicine with an emphasis on psychological disorders. I am a layperson, I think I have a broader understanding of psychological issues. Ok, I’m not really a lay person, but I’ve never been a practicing shrink, counselor, or anything of the sort, except maybe an addiction counselor.

I apologize to my chair for suggesting it is exclusively responsible for stealing my thoughts. I started this yesterday and other things popped up. If journal entries were a real priority I wouldn’t let that happen. At least this one isn’t a real priority. I was underwhelmed by the whole appointment, but allowed another one set out three weeks from now.

They did one of the most predictable things possible, gave me an SSRI. I don’t know why MSU needs a special department to figure that out. They also offered an appointment with a therapist. So, um, if they aren’t qualified to do therapy, but they have a focus of psychological issues, what exactly do they do? The attending told me she was an internist. That’s what internal medicine folks are.

Doesn’t matter. I would have just scrapped heap this entry except for the mild annoyance that it lurked on my desktop overnight. Stranger things will be happening. One of the reasons I accepted this appointment is to fill out my file more. That sounds silly on paper but it makes a lot of sense. At some point someone needs to address something other than my medication. I’m thinking if there are enough things in my file someone might try to take a crack at addressing those.

I realized something about TV and radio recently, well, more like re-realized; what is attractive about older music and shows is that they don’t follow the modern formulas. There is a much of a muchness