So we're off to Mexico! Nathan and I have the suburban loaded down with suitcases, pillows, sleeping bags, and lots and lots of DrPepper. The 6 of us will be driving, parent-less, to the border and we are praying we can cross border patrol with no problems. We also hope that the agents will not notice that Beth's birth certificate is not an original copy. We'll be filling up the 6 road trip hours with singing, trivial pursuit (in which I will kick everyone's butts), and most likely discussing theology and politics because we're nerds. Mom is home alone, pray for no more flooding!
5/30/08
5/28/08
a flood
Our house flooded today. Dad's gone, which of course means bad things will happen. These pictures were taken after we'd soaked up over half of the water. It flooded half of the the first floor of our house and in some places the water was ankle deep. Thank God, once again, for Dirk who came to save us. I wonder if he ever gets tired of saving us when Dad is gone...
5/27/08
catch up
It's been a while. I'm not the best blogger in the world. My mom intimidates me with all her posting and I feel I will never measure up...
Ok, not. I'm just busy. Like everyone else in the world. We are super busy getting ready for the mission trip to the Mexico border. We're leaving on Friday! Dad and Mom aren't going with us, so it's up to me to get all 6 of us ready for a week in the heat, dirt, and humidity. Our friend, Blair, and I are in charge of all the meals while we're down there. This means cooking and serving 3 meals a day for 6 days for 50+ hungry people. It also means doing all the menu planning, grocery shopping, and some meal prep before we leave on Friday. I thought it would be easy because we're both really good in the kitchen (if I may say so) but it ended up being more of a challenge than I expected. It's not easy finding meals that are easy to make in bulk, don't include too many perishable ingredients, will be healthy and filling for people who are doing physical labor, cost effective, and will appeal to babies all the way to grandparents. The good thing is, I'm good at cooking in large quantities. I always say that I'll never get married because I don't know how to cook for 2 people...only 40.
Today I've been setting up my brand new cell phone. !! We've had our old, cheap phones for several years and 5 of us have had the exact same phone. The phones were falling apart after a few months and really should have been replaced right then. But AT&T wouldn't let us get new phones till this month and this time we all got different phones. Of course Mom didn't get one because she's already cool with an iPhone. Here's the one I got...
And here's the picture that Abby took of Sam and me today with my new phone. Pretty good for a camera phone, right?
Summer school starts on June 10 and I sure am enjoying the break. Even though I'm busy, I'm not busy with school which is nice.
In medical news, well there's no news. My neurologist is conveniently on a long TDY so I haven't been able to get in to see him. Normally, I'd be fine with that because I don't like him but since I am running out of time with my insurance, it would be nice if he makes it back into town soon. I've had a few bad weeks in a row as far as pain, nausea, and dizziness go and I haven't been able to feel my hands and face for about two weeks. I am always always always extremely sensitive to lights and sounds but it's gotten alot worse during this bad spell. I've been in a perpetual bad mood because everything but complete quiet and darkness makes me hurt like none other. It hasn't been very pleasant to be around people who make noise or to have my eyes open between 7am and 10pm. I'm really praying this cycle ends quickly...I have too many other things to think about.
My spellchecker just told me that "friend" isn't a word. I had to go look it up on dictionary.com to make sure I wasn't going crazy. It is, so far, still a word.
Ok, not. I'm just busy. Like everyone else in the world. We are super busy getting ready for the mission trip to the Mexico border. We're leaving on Friday! Dad and Mom aren't going with us, so it's up to me to get all 6 of us ready for a week in the heat, dirt, and humidity. Our friend, Blair, and I are in charge of all the meals while we're down there. This means cooking and serving 3 meals a day for 6 days for 50+ hungry people. It also means doing all the menu planning, grocery shopping, and some meal prep before we leave on Friday. I thought it would be easy because we're both really good in the kitchen (if I may say so) but it ended up being more of a challenge than I expected. It's not easy finding meals that are easy to make in bulk, don't include too many perishable ingredients, will be healthy and filling for people who are doing physical labor, cost effective, and will appeal to babies all the way to grandparents. The good thing is, I'm good at cooking in large quantities. I always say that I'll never get married because I don't know how to cook for 2 people...only 40.
Today I've been setting up my brand new cell phone. !! We've had our old, cheap phones for several years and 5 of us have had the exact same phone. The phones were falling apart after a few months and really should have been replaced right then. But AT&T wouldn't let us get new phones till this month and this time we all got different phones. Of course Mom didn't get one because she's already cool with an iPhone. Here's the one I got...
And here's the picture that Abby took of Sam and me today with my new phone. Pretty good for a camera phone, right?
Summer school starts on June 10 and I sure am enjoying the break. Even though I'm busy, I'm not busy with school which is nice.
In medical news, well there's no news. My neurologist is conveniently on a long TDY so I haven't been able to get in to see him. Normally, I'd be fine with that because I don't like him but since I am running out of time with my insurance, it would be nice if he makes it back into town soon. I've had a few bad weeks in a row as far as pain, nausea, and dizziness go and I haven't been able to feel my hands and face for about two weeks. I am always always always extremely sensitive to lights and sounds but it's gotten alot worse during this bad spell. I've been in a perpetual bad mood because everything but complete quiet and darkness makes me hurt like none other. It hasn't been very pleasant to be around people who make noise or to have my eyes open between 7am and 10pm. I'm really praying this cycle ends quickly...I have too many other things to think about.
My spellchecker just told me that "friend" isn't a word. I had to go look it up on dictionary.com to make sure I wasn't going crazy. It is, so far, still a word.
5/9/08
Agape
Rowan wasn't super happy that he was ditched by his parents, but he was slightly amused by Addie. Holding them both at the same time kept all 3 of us quite content!
Wherever Addie is, there a camera will be also...
The piano also helped the babies be happy about their life, although you can't tell from Rowan's face. :)
Rowan finally had enough of Addie and enough of the large crowd of children, so we had some one-on-one time to get him to sleep. I sang hymns to get him to sleep, but Tiffany informed me later that he is only allowed to listen to classical music... Too bad.
The rest of the kids ate a ton of food, jumped on the trampoline, played board games, and danced outside. When it got dark, they all settled in the living room to watch Ice Age. Notice the strategically placed weapons. :)
Late at night, these babies were happy to see their moms again!
We had fun with all the kids here and we hope the parents enjoyed their night out!
5/7/08
church, and the last psych-o
Finals are over! This is my excited face.
I have four weeks before summer classes start and right now I'm thanking God that I didn't register for a Maymester class. This gives me time to do other things like work on the Psalty musical, wash my clothes, clean our bathroom, make bread, get ready for the mission trip, and of course sleep.
I am really excited about the church family mission trip. We're going to the Rio Grande Bible Institute and we're going as a church--grandparents,parents, teenagers, kids, babies, and all. Everyone goes, everyone works. This is cool because it will give the kids a chance to see beyond our church and have a frame of reference for the larger Body of Christ. The musical we're doing with all the church kids is actually centered around the Body of Christ and what it means to be a family with other believers. We've had great discussions about this during rehearsals and it's so much fun to watch these kids grow up in a community where being a part of the Body is a way of life, not just a Sunday School topic. Because our church is so close and we are truly a Family, the kids get to see every single day what it means to live as a community and what it means to serve and be served. This makes me more excited that we're all going on this mission trip together, so they can really see that it's not just COG that is the Body, it's all Believers around the world. It will be great for all of us to take what we've learned and practiced within our own church about loving and serving, and extend that to the people at the Institute.
Tomorrow night is the Agape Crisis Pregnancy Center Banquet. Our church has been supporting Agape for years and several people in our church are either counselors at the Center, board members, or other kinds of volunteers. The annual banquet has been a great way to raise awareness and support for the Center and they've usually had famous speakers such as George Grant and Alan Keyes. This is the third year in a row my sisters and I have done mass babysitting at our house for the banquet. We really want everyone in our church to be able to go and don't want childcare to be an issue. So tomorrow night, 25-30 COG kids will be dropped off at our house so their parents can get all dressed up and go to the nice banquet. We told the kids there'd be supper, snacks, capri suns (only for outside on the deck! : ), movies, and games. Should be fun! Wish us luck!
I'm sad that my psych class is over. I mean, I'm actually relieved because I really was mad by the end, but I'm sad that there will be no more stories. It was by far the most entertaining class I've ever been a part of, and I doubt any other class will come close to that level of insanity. So, here is your last story, as it happened the final week of class.
Several people told me to ask if I could do anything to change my grade in the class. So I asked. I explained what had happened about the volunteering assignments and assured him that I was not trying to blow it off. I reminded him that my entire body of work was nothing but straight As and that he had loved all of my papers. I also pointed out that I had not missed one single class period and had been an active participant (whether he liked it or not...) in lecture discussions. I told him I hoped he would see that I was a dedicated student and that I had done my best to take his class seriously.
He said he was sorry about the fallout with the volunteering but that there was nothing he could do about those missing points. While looking at his grade book, he made some quick calculations and said, "Cathryn, if you score an 80 on the exam today (the last one) and get a 100 on your paper (the last one), that will be enough points to bring your grade up to an 89, which I would bump up to an A for you. If you score a 60 on the exam and get at least an 85 on the paper, your grade can come up to a B."
That was enough for me to hear, as I knew that I would get 100s on both of the assignments. I had already turned in both the exam and the paper that morning (the exam was a take-home) so all I had to do was wait for the grades. The next day (last day of class), I came in and was very excited to see my new grades. I searched through the stack of papers and found mine. On the front of my exam, in red ink, "50". Seriously?? Then I looked at my paper, and in red ink it said, "80/B". That time I actually said, "Seriously??!!!" out loud.
Seriously, a take home exam, how could I get a 50? I compared my answers with the girl at my table who scored 100. Our answers were exactly the same! Below each of my answers he had written "citation needed" and had marked it wrong. Ok, y'all know me. I don't get mad easily. Even at times when I should be really angry, I'm usually just laughing and very amused. Yeah, you probably would have payed money to see me right then. I was mad and wasn't doing a great job of hiding it. I took my exam and the other girl's exam up to the professor and said, "I just want to know why I got these answers wrong and she didn't. They're the same answers." He looked at me and said, "You didn't provide citations." I said, "Seriously? My answers came from my notes, which came from your lectures in this class! Since when do we need references for class lectures?? Look, this girl didn't have any citation!" He looked very calm and said, "Hm, well, I guess I didn't catch that. I'll have to get with her and change that. I'm sorry about your grade though. I know you really wanted that B. You just really need to put in more effort next time and not try to rush through things, ok?"
Seriously. Oh, and my paper? He said it wasn't as meaty as the rest of mine had been. That's just great. So he purposefully graded me down just so my class grade would stay at a C.
And yes, I'm writing a letter to the Dean, even though it won't do anything. My professor is the chair of his department, so the Dean is the only place I can go. And I know...this won't affect my life in the long run. Worse things have happened to me. But it still makes me mad. The nursing board who looks at my application to begin clinicals will see my grades and I can't very well sit there and say, "Well, it wasn't my fault, I had a bad professor!"
So that's the end of the psycho stories. Hopefully next semester will be entertaining but not so aggravating. :)
I have four weeks before summer classes start and right now I'm thanking God that I didn't register for a Maymester class. This gives me time to do other things like work on the Psalty musical, wash my clothes, clean our bathroom, make bread, get ready for the mission trip, and of course sleep.
I am really excited about the church family mission trip. We're going to the Rio Grande Bible Institute and we're going as a church--grandparents,parents, teenagers, kids, babies, and all. Everyone goes, everyone works. This is cool because it will give the kids a chance to see beyond our church and have a frame of reference for the larger Body of Christ. The musical we're doing with all the church kids is actually centered around the Body of Christ and what it means to be a family with other believers. We've had great discussions about this during rehearsals and it's so much fun to watch these kids grow up in a community where being a part of the Body is a way of life, not just a Sunday School topic. Because our church is so close and we are truly a Family, the kids get to see every single day what it means to live as a community and what it means to serve and be served. This makes me more excited that we're all going on this mission trip together, so they can really see that it's not just COG that is the Body, it's all Believers around the world. It will be great for all of us to take what we've learned and practiced within our own church about loving and serving, and extend that to the people at the Institute.
Tomorrow night is the Agape Crisis Pregnancy Center Banquet. Our church has been supporting Agape for years and several people in our church are either counselors at the Center, board members, or other kinds of volunteers. The annual banquet has been a great way to raise awareness and support for the Center and they've usually had famous speakers such as George Grant and Alan Keyes. This is the third year in a row my sisters and I have done mass babysitting at our house for the banquet. We really want everyone in our church to be able to go and don't want childcare to be an issue. So tomorrow night, 25-30 COG kids will be dropped off at our house so their parents can get all dressed up and go to the nice banquet. We told the kids there'd be supper, snacks, capri suns (only for outside on the deck! : ), movies, and games. Should be fun! Wish us luck!
I'm sad that my psych class is over. I mean, I'm actually relieved because I really was mad by the end, but I'm sad that there will be no more stories. It was by far the most entertaining class I've ever been a part of, and I doubt any other class will come close to that level of insanity. So, here is your last story, as it happened the final week of class.
Several people told me to ask if I could do anything to change my grade in the class. So I asked. I explained what had happened about the volunteering assignments and assured him that I was not trying to blow it off. I reminded him that my entire body of work was nothing but straight As and that he had loved all of my papers. I also pointed out that I had not missed one single class period and had been an active participant (whether he liked it or not...) in lecture discussions. I told him I hoped he would see that I was a dedicated student and that I had done my best to take his class seriously.
He said he was sorry about the fallout with the volunteering but that there was nothing he could do about those missing points. While looking at his grade book, he made some quick calculations and said, "Cathryn, if you score an 80 on the exam today (the last one) and get a 100 on your paper (the last one), that will be enough points to bring your grade up to an 89, which I would bump up to an A for you. If you score a 60 on the exam and get at least an 85 on the paper, your grade can come up to a B."
That was enough for me to hear, as I knew that I would get 100s on both of the assignments. I had already turned in both the exam and the paper that morning (the exam was a take-home) so all I had to do was wait for the grades. The next day (last day of class), I came in and was very excited to see my new grades. I searched through the stack of papers and found mine. On the front of my exam, in red ink, "50". Seriously?? Then I looked at my paper, and in red ink it said, "80/B". That time I actually said, "Seriously??!!!" out loud.
Seriously, a take home exam, how could I get a 50? I compared my answers with the girl at my table who scored 100. Our answers were exactly the same! Below each of my answers he had written "citation needed" and had marked it wrong. Ok, y'all know me. I don't get mad easily. Even at times when I should be really angry, I'm usually just laughing and very amused. Yeah, you probably would have payed money to see me right then. I was mad and wasn't doing a great job of hiding it. I took my exam and the other girl's exam up to the professor and said, "I just want to know why I got these answers wrong and she didn't. They're the same answers." He looked at me and said, "You didn't provide citations." I said, "Seriously? My answers came from my notes, which came from your lectures in this class! Since when do we need references for class lectures?? Look, this girl didn't have any citation!" He looked very calm and said, "Hm, well, I guess I didn't catch that. I'll have to get with her and change that. I'm sorry about your grade though. I know you really wanted that B. You just really need to put in more effort next time and not try to rush through things, ok?"
Seriously. Oh, and my paper? He said it wasn't as meaty as the rest of mine had been. That's just great. So he purposefully graded me down just so my class grade would stay at a C.
And yes, I'm writing a letter to the Dean, even though it won't do anything. My professor is the chair of his department, so the Dean is the only place I can go. And I know...this won't affect my life in the long run. Worse things have happened to me. But it still makes me mad. The nursing board who looks at my application to begin clinicals will see my grades and I can't very well sit there and say, "Well, it wasn't my fault, I had a bad professor!"
So that's the end of the psycho stories. Hopefully next semester will be entertaining but not so aggravating. :)
4/27/08
like, totally, psych-o
My Psychology grade just went from an A...to a C.
Wanna know why?
Ok, as I've said before, we're graded on a point system, which I call the gold sticker system. Kind of like preschool. There's a total of 400-something points for the semester, and we all start out with zero. Each quiz is worth 10 points, I think, and each paper is somewhere around 30. The other way to earn points is by our "Attendance&Participation" sheets. These are my favorite because we get grade OURSELVES. Yes, every four weeks our prof hands us papers with about ten questions on them. Stuff like,
"How many class periods have you missed?"
"How many class discussions have you participated in?"
"How many questions do you ask per lecture?"
And we get to grade ourselves. It's beautiful. Oh, and ridiculous.
So we turn in assignments, the points are credited to our account, and the percentage of the total possible points that we've racked up by the end of the semester is our final grade.
I'd been doing really well in this class for the entire semester. I have never scored below a 98 on anything I've turned in, and therefore, have had an A. In the course syllabus, one of our assignments is called "The Humanitarian Project." It's divided up into three segments, or 'missions'. Mission #1 was to write a one page paper about humanitarianism, basically talking about if we thought people were inherently good or inherently bad. Mission #2 was to volunteer 8 hours of our time at a humanitarian organization of our professor's choice. Mission #3 was to take what we'd learned from volunteering and rewrite our original paper. We then had to give a presentation to the class detailing what we'd learned about people's hearts and intentions. All of this was a total of 130 points.
Instead of talking about what I think about the assignments and the percentage of the overall grade attached to them (because you can probably guess what I think), I'll just tell you what happened. I wrote the first one page paper in probably 7 minutes and got an A or, 30 points. Great. On to mission 2. The organization I was assigned to was called "Any Baby Can". I'd never heard of it before that, but it sounded really cool and I thought it probably wouldn't be a miserable place to spend 8 hours. Before going, I called them to set up a date and times and generally ask for information about what I'd be doing. They told me I'd need a clear TB test before I started. So I went to the hospital, got my test, faxed them the forms, and set a date to go. A few days before I was scheduled to be there, I was looking over the syllabus for the class and happened to read some very fine print underneath the assignment description. It said, "Mission #2 must be completed in groups of 5 or more (from the class) and must be completed before April 16." Great. So I had to find five other people from class who had been assigned to the same place.
At the next class (this was the last week of March), I tried to find everyone who had been assigned to Any Baby Can and was very annoyed to learn that I was the only one of us who was even thinking about that assignment. People, we have 3 weeks to coordinate at least 5 people's schedules and spend 8 hours at this place, it's a third of our grade and you're not worried about getting this done??! So I got everyone's phone numbers, told every single one of them that they'd need a TB test before going, and wrote down everyone's available days. I called the place and I scheduled all 5 of us for a Saturday a week and a half away.
The Friday before we were supposed to go, I called everyone in my group to make sure they were coming. After all, I wouldn't get a grade if every single one of them didn't show up. What do I hear on the phone? "Oh, I like totally like forgot to get that like, um, whatever- you- call- it test done. Oh yeah, the TB test. Yeah, like totally forgot." I tried to take deep breaths and speak as graciously as I could, "Ok, would you please get that done on Monday so we can go next Saturday?" Everyone assured me they would have it done on Monday. I rescheduled us for the next Saturday.
Next Friday rolled around and I called everyone again to remind them of our plans the next day. (The deadline for completion was on that next Tuesday.) What do I get? "Oh my gosh, I was like, at my boyfriend's house like ALL week and oh my gosh! we, like, had such a good time! Oh yeah, and I like totally just totally forgot to get that test done. Do you like think that, like, I'll fail the class? I like already have like a D or something."
What's the result if you can't do the second part of the assignment? You can't do the third part. 100 points, gone.
Maybe I'm simple minded and living under a rock, but shouldn't I be responsible for my own work and not for the work (or lack thereof) of 18 year old highschool dropouts?
Wanna know why?
Ok, as I've said before, we're graded on a point system, which I call the gold sticker system. Kind of like preschool. There's a total of 400-something points for the semester, and we all start out with zero. Each quiz is worth 10 points, I think, and each paper is somewhere around 30. The other way to earn points is by our "Attendance&Participation" sheets. These are my favorite because we get grade OURSELVES. Yes, every four weeks our prof hands us papers with about ten questions on them. Stuff like,
"How many class periods have you missed?"
"How many class discussions have you participated in?"
"How many questions do you ask per lecture?"
And we get to grade ourselves. It's beautiful. Oh, and ridiculous.
So we turn in assignments, the points are credited to our account, and the percentage of the total possible points that we've racked up by the end of the semester is our final grade.
I'd been doing really well in this class for the entire semester. I have never scored below a 98 on anything I've turned in, and therefore, have had an A. In the course syllabus, one of our assignments is called "The Humanitarian Project." It's divided up into three segments, or 'missions'. Mission #1 was to write a one page paper about humanitarianism, basically talking about if we thought people were inherently good or inherently bad. Mission #2 was to volunteer 8 hours of our time at a humanitarian organization of our professor's choice. Mission #3 was to take what we'd learned from volunteering and rewrite our original paper. We then had to give a presentation to the class detailing what we'd learned about people's hearts and intentions. All of this was a total of 130 points.
Instead of talking about what I think about the assignments and the percentage of the overall grade attached to them (because you can probably guess what I think), I'll just tell you what happened. I wrote the first one page paper in probably 7 minutes and got an A or, 30 points. Great. On to mission 2. The organization I was assigned to was called "Any Baby Can". I'd never heard of it before that, but it sounded really cool and I thought it probably wouldn't be a miserable place to spend 8 hours. Before going, I called them to set up a date and times and generally ask for information about what I'd be doing. They told me I'd need a clear TB test before I started. So I went to the hospital, got my test, faxed them the forms, and set a date to go. A few days before I was scheduled to be there, I was looking over the syllabus for the class and happened to read some very fine print underneath the assignment description. It said, "Mission #2 must be completed in groups of 5 or more (from the class) and must be completed before April 16." Great. So I had to find five other people from class who had been assigned to the same place.
At the next class (this was the last week of March), I tried to find everyone who had been assigned to Any Baby Can and was very annoyed to learn that I was the only one of us who was even thinking about that assignment. People, we have 3 weeks to coordinate at least 5 people's schedules and spend 8 hours at this place, it's a third of our grade and you're not worried about getting this done??! So I got everyone's phone numbers, told every single one of them that they'd need a TB test before going, and wrote down everyone's available days. I called the place and I scheduled all 5 of us for a Saturday a week and a half away.
The Friday before we were supposed to go, I called everyone in my group to make sure they were coming. After all, I wouldn't get a grade if every single one of them didn't show up. What do I hear on the phone? "Oh, I like totally like forgot to get that like, um, whatever- you- call- it test done. Oh yeah, the TB test. Yeah, like totally forgot." I tried to take deep breaths and speak as graciously as I could, "Ok, would you please get that done on Monday so we can go next Saturday?" Everyone assured me they would have it done on Monday. I rescheduled us for the next Saturday.
Next Friday rolled around and I called everyone again to remind them of our plans the next day. (The deadline for completion was on that next Tuesday.) What do I get? "Oh my gosh, I was like, at my boyfriend's house like ALL week and oh my gosh! we, like, had such a good time! Oh yeah, and I like totally just totally forgot to get that test done. Do you like think that, like, I'll fail the class? I like already have like a D or something."
What's the result if you can't do the second part of the assignment? You can't do the third part. 100 points, gone.
Maybe I'm simple minded and living under a rock, but shouldn't I be responsible for my own work and not for the work (or lack thereof) of 18 year old highschool dropouts?
4/22/08
Oh, Doctors
So so so... My anesthesiology appointment today was normal. Here's the normal order of business as it happens on the Pain Clinic floor of the hospital.
--I show up about 15 minutes early, sign in, fill out symptom forms, sit down in waiting room. The waiting room is packed with 15-20 people. In front of me is a big sign that says something like, "Because of the large volume of patients in this clinic, your wait time may be an hour or more. Please excuse our delays!"
--2 minutes after I sit down, the nurse comes in and calls, "Warren, Cathryn!" I get up and my face has a questioning look as if to say, "All these people have been waiting longer than I have and their appointments were before mine...why am I getting called back?" She understands and says, "The doctors found out you were here and since you are the poster child of the floor, you get to go first."
--She takes my vitals which are usually quite vital and puts me in one of the offices to wait for the doctors.
--The door is shut, but I can hear what's going on in the hallway. I recognize the voices of several of my favorite doctors and probably some residents also. They are fighting over who gets to be in my room first. "You had her last time!" "Can I just come in and watch?" "I've never seen her before and I think I deserve at least one time!"
--My all-time favorite doctor (Dr. Edell) usually settles the argument by saying, "Um, no, none of you are going in. It's just me this time. Oh, just like last time! Have fun with your other patients!"
--Dr. Edell comes in my room, gives me a huge hug and asks me if I've grown any taller since last time.
--He is the only doctor now that has been with me since day 1. Knowing me all too well, before he does anything else he goes to the closet, pulls out a blanket and drapes it over me. "I know you're always cold, kiddo."
--We talk medicine for a few minutes, agree on any changes to meds or dosages. (My appointment slot is only ever scheduled to be 15 minutes long.) He then curses the names of most of my other doctors and tells me how badly he wants to bite their heads off.
--Even though we've already eaten through 30 minutes (double my allotted time), he continues to talk and wants to me to get him up to date on everything about school, job, family, home, church, dating, activities, plans, etc. By this time, we've been in there an hour.
--A nurse (the one who hates me) knocks on the door and with a deep frown, reminds Dr. Edell of his 19 other patients who have been waiting for 2 hours. He doesn't seem too concerned and tells the nurse he'll come out when he's ready.
--Then we talk about what's next on the agenda as far as my other doctors are concerned. He calls some of those doctors right there on the phone and tells them to get their act together. He makes notes to call the rest as soon as I leave.
--Now we've been going for almost an hour and a half and he refills my meds, schedules my next appointment, and says to please call him if I need anything. I walk out and try not to make eye contact with the mean nurse.
That's how it goes and that's how it went today. The next step is to see Dr. Alpers (the one we don't like) in neurology and see if he'll actually listen to me this time. Dr. Edell said that he will call Dr. Alpers the day of my appointment to make sure he does what he's supposed to and doesn't blow me off like that last few times. A few things should ideally happen at that appointment.
--Dr. Alpers needs to schedule my next MRI (which really shouldn't be a problem, I know he'll do that)
--He needs to send in a referral to Tricare to send me to a hospital that has those vertical MRI machines (this will probably be a big issue with him)
--He should make plans to get me a second opinion with some better neurologists and get a final word on where we go from here
We are praying hard that all of those things will happen, because quite truthfully, I'm running out of time with Dad's insurance. We would appreciate it so much if you all would pray with us that my doctors would work together to get these things accomplished quickly so we can move on to whatever the next step is.
--I show up about 15 minutes early, sign in, fill out symptom forms, sit down in waiting room. The waiting room is packed with 15-20 people. In front of me is a big sign that says something like, "Because of the large volume of patients in this clinic, your wait time may be an hour or more. Please excuse our delays!"
--2 minutes after I sit down, the nurse comes in and calls, "Warren, Cathryn!" I get up and my face has a questioning look as if to say, "All these people have been waiting longer than I have and their appointments were before mine...why am I getting called back?" She understands and says, "The doctors found out you were here and since you are the poster child of the floor, you get to go first."
--She takes my vitals which are usually quite vital and puts me in one of the offices to wait for the doctors.
--The door is shut, but I can hear what's going on in the hallway. I recognize the voices of several of my favorite doctors and probably some residents also. They are fighting over who gets to be in my room first. "You had her last time!" "Can I just come in and watch?" "I've never seen her before and I think I deserve at least one time!"
--My all-time favorite doctor (Dr. Edell) usually settles the argument by saying, "Um, no, none of you are going in. It's just me this time. Oh, just like last time! Have fun with your other patients!"
--Dr. Edell comes in my room, gives me a huge hug and asks me if I've grown any taller since last time.
--He is the only doctor now that has been with me since day 1. Knowing me all too well, before he does anything else he goes to the closet, pulls out a blanket and drapes it over me. "I know you're always cold, kiddo."
--We talk medicine for a few minutes, agree on any changes to meds or dosages. (My appointment slot is only ever scheduled to be 15 minutes long.) He then curses the names of most of my other doctors and tells me how badly he wants to bite their heads off.
--Even though we've already eaten through 30 minutes (double my allotted time), he continues to talk and wants to me to get him up to date on everything about school, job, family, home, church, dating, activities, plans, etc. By this time, we've been in there an hour.
--A nurse (the one who hates me) knocks on the door and with a deep frown, reminds Dr. Edell of his 19 other patients who have been waiting for 2 hours. He doesn't seem too concerned and tells the nurse he'll come out when he's ready.
--Then we talk about what's next on the agenda as far as my other doctors are concerned. He calls some of those doctors right there on the phone and tells them to get their act together. He makes notes to call the rest as soon as I leave.
--Now we've been going for almost an hour and a half and he refills my meds, schedules my next appointment, and says to please call him if I need anything. I walk out and try not to make eye contact with the mean nurse.
That's how it goes and that's how it went today. The next step is to see Dr. Alpers (the one we don't like) in neurology and see if he'll actually listen to me this time. Dr. Edell said that he will call Dr. Alpers the day of my appointment to make sure he does what he's supposed to and doesn't blow me off like that last few times. A few things should ideally happen at that appointment.
--Dr. Alpers needs to schedule my next MRI (which really shouldn't be a problem, I know he'll do that)
--He needs to send in a referral to Tricare to send me to a hospital that has those vertical MRI machines (this will probably be a big issue with him)
--He should make plans to get me a second opinion with some better neurologists and get a final word on where we go from here
We are praying hard that all of those things will happen, because quite truthfully, I'm running out of time with Dad's insurance. We would appreciate it so much if you all would pray with us that my doctors would work together to get these things accomplished quickly so we can move on to whatever the next step is.
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