Sad news tonight…
Tonight I learned that my good friend’s mother died. She had been battling melanoma for about three years, I think. She had tried a number of different treatments but, in the end, she lost her battle. I haven’t been able to call my friend as she sent the word out via email and requested no phone calls. I had made my friend what some would call a prayer shawl but hadn’t had the chance to send it. I’ll be sending it either today or tomorrow…as soon as I can find a box.
This is my first friend to have lost a parent as an adult. It seems strange that I would be 36 and only now be facing this with a friend. I hope that I will be able to support my friend during her time of grieving. It also makes me so glad that I had the opportunity to spend quality time with my family members over the holiday. Between news of my friend’s mom and having worked at the hospital the day after Christmas, I realize many people did not have the most joyous of holidays. And many people didn’t get to spend their holidays with a happy and loving family. It makes me more aware not to take for granted all that I am so fortunate to have.
A weird kind of defense mechanism??
I’m trying to figure out if I’m experiencing some sort of weird defense mechanism at work or if I’m just living in a small community. In the past few weeks, it seems as if every person I receive a referral for, I feel like I know them from somewhere. I’ll see the name and, even if it is a totally uncommon name, I’ll think to myself, “I’m sure I’ve seen this person before.” Meaning, of course, that I’ve seen them as a patient before. Many times, when I look up their information, I find that this will be their first visit to the hospital. I’m also finding that when I walk into meet the patient, I’ll be thinking, as I see their face, “Where have I seen this person before?”
I’m starting to doubt that I actually have seen them before. Given that our community is relatively small (around 100,000) it’s probably likely that I’ve seen some folks in the grocery store or whatever. But, we also get a fair number of patients transferred in from other hospitals in our system, so there are quite a few that I’m sure I’ve never truly seen before.
What I’m wondering is, of course, this normal? Or am I making myself think I know the patient and their family in some way as a defense for the fact that I generally work with patients for a very short period of time (usually 3 days or less). I’ll be very interested to hear people’s input on this one!
Bad weather and it’s affect on social workers…
Most specifically this social worker! We have a person in the hospital who needs to be in a facility about 80 miles north of our hospital. The situation is not immediately life threatening but we just do not have the services this patient needs at our hospital. Unfortunately, 80 miles north of us is completely encased in snow and ice…actually the snow and ice starts about 30 miles north of us. At any rate, this patient isn’t going anywhere until things clear out and I’m not sure what we’re going to do for them between now and then. And of course the nurses are always paging me wondering what to do about this patient…and I’m feeling like saying, “Don’t ask me any more! They need to go north and we can’t send them until things thaw! What do you want me to do??” Of course it didn’t help that things were incredibly busy today, even without factoring this patient into the mix.
I loved my science teacher because I’m sexy and do what I want!
Since most of my posts are of a fairly serious vein, I decided to do something a little fun and silly.
Pick the month you were born:
January——I kicked
February—–I loved
March——–I kissed
April——–I licked
May———-I jumped on
June———I smelled
July———I did the Macarena with
August——-I had lunch with
September—-I danced with
October——I sang to
November—–I yelled at
December—–I ran over
Pick the day (number) you were born on:
1——-a birdbath
2——-a monster
3——-a phone
4——-a fork
5——-a snowman
6——-a gangster
7——-my mobile phone
8——-my dog
9——-my best friend’s boyfriend
10——-my neighbor
11——-my science teacher
12——-a banana
13——-a fireman
14——-a stuffed animal
15——-a goat
16——-a pickle
17——-your mom
18——-a spoon
19——-a smurf
20——-a baseball bat
21——-a ninja
22——-Chuck Norris
23——-a noodle
24——-a squirrel
25——-a football player
26——-my sister
27——-my brother
28——-an ipod
29——-a surfer
30——-a llama
31——-A homeless guy
Pick the color of shirt you are wearing:
White———because I’m cool like that.
Black———because that’s how I roll.
Pink———–because I’m crazy.
Red———–because the voices told me to.
Blue———–because im sexy and i do what i want
Green———because I think I need some serious help.
Purple———because I’m AWESOME!
Gray———-because Big Bird said to and he’s my leader.
Yellow——–because someone offered me 1,000,000 dollars
Orange ——–because my family thinks I’m stupid anyway.
Brown———because I can…
Other———-because I’m a Ninja!
None———-because I can’t control myself!
Now type out the sentence you made, in the subject line and try it on your blogs.
How straightforward should you be?
December 20, 2008, 3:42 am
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worrySo, I had a case this week that was pretty challenging. I was meeting with a patient who could possibly be facing long-term disability. But it’s also possible that this person could change the focus of their career and land right on their feet. Of course this is dependent on them being able to reframe their situation and accept that things may not be as they had planned. My diagnostic skills when it comes to different types of personality disorders is somewhat lacking but I’m fairly certain this person has some sort of a personality disorder. They are definitely not borderline but possibly dependent…I’m just not sure. This person may also have a diagnosis of PTSD, although this depends on who you talk to.
At any rate, as we were discussing the changes that may be coming in their life, the person asked me, essentially, what people did when they didn’t have any money or health insurance. My first and almost immediate response was, “Well, they struggle.” I could tell by the look on their face that that was absolutely not what they wanted to hear. I then quickly moved on to discussing how people face those struggles and things that this person needed to do given the situation they were facing.
I related this interaction with one of my co-workers. Her response was, “Well, you know, sometimes people just want to hear that everything is going to be ok. Sometimes I just tell people what I think they want to hear because maybe that’s what they really need.”
I was a little bit floored by this. I guess my gut response is that I don’t believe it’s right to be dishonest with a patient or client. I can’t honestly tell someone that they’re going to be all right if they lose a job and health insurance. I’ve certainly seen it often enough to know that it very well could be ANYTHING BUT all right for them in a few weeks or months. And I don’t think I was unkind to this person in being honest that their situation was going to be a struggle. But, then, given their mental state, maybe they did need me to fib a bit more, I don’t know. I just don’t think I would have done anything differently.
Just wondering what the thoughts in the social work world on this are!
