Circo

"no es mi circo, no son mis monos"

Not my circus, not my monkeys.

Fridays are going to be my solidly crazy busy days. With the day off before, and being in clinic that day, it will be a scheduled "pelt the coordinator" season. It's ok, it's kinda fun, really. So glad to be back in our little office cubicle later in the afternoon where it is quieter.  My life for the next six years. I know the time will whoooosh by.  

It's a good gig, and I am content. I don't take the grumpy people personally. I make mistakes, I fix my mistakes, I solve problems and move on and do the best job I can. I rattle cages, that is a big part of the job. Patient calls, no one has called them, no one has listened to them, they can't get through. I break up the clog, inform a bunch of people, get some texts and calls and emails oiling the machinery, and follow up. I live in a forest of sticky notes.

But I also am learning when to step back, when a patient is trying to work the system for their own addictions, manipulations and unreasonable demands. Like wanting their surgery on one particular day, and there is no surgeon to do the procedure that day. Or they are out of narcotics and want a refill, long after they should need one for their particular issue. "I know my congressman's phone number!" - Good, we all should, but I still can't kidnap a shoulder surgeon and make him do your surgery on that particular day. 

This is when I just need back up to tell them, no.  No, but here is another way through. No, but we do care, and want to help you get better, just not like that. 

As a scrub, I often heard surgeons make the not-entirely-a-joke instruction, "Give me what I need, not what I ask for!" This is in reference to them asking for an instrument, but they mis-speak, and the scrub probably knows this, but gives them what they asked for.  Learning to be semi-psychic is part of the job.  Pattern recognition, mostly.

People who have been through the military are often not the most stable of people from the most secure families. It leaves fracture lines. We were already a bit broken before we signed up, in all the ways that humans can be crazed* and that environment both stabilizes and creates new damage. Age shows the wreckage beneath the facade, as well as the determination and strength. 

*

When the old job threatened to blow up in my face, one of the most important determining factors in my decision to let go, was Dylan gazing at me and saying "If you don't have this job, your back might heal."

My back is feeling much, much better these days.

No, I can't do that job anymore, but here is another way forward.

Now, just got to get my Vitamin D up to measurable levels.