good things...

Well, if you have been following this almost-never-updated-anymore blog, you'll know I've had my share of bad luck and disasters over that past year or so.

So, in March, a few things went right. I got a job with the Alzheimer's Association and got a fabulous new puppy who is a mix of shepherd and
St. Bernard (we think). We named him Jake, after my husband's grandfather. He is a handful at 31 pounds at 14 weeks of age. He's doubled in size in the one month we've had him! He's a really happy-go-lucky little guy whose temperament fits in great with the other dogs.

Here's some pics of him:

Well, that was quick...

I showed up at my new job after a little training, and found that I had no office, no phone, no computer, and no place to sit. Huh? Couldn't they have stuffed a desk in the corner of one of the meeting rooms or something?

It's a growing company and they do NOT have any of their processes down yet. Look, I'll be 45 friggin' years old in January. I know I'm not a seasoned social worker as of yet, but maybe a chair? Maybe a desk that could be shared that is not piled high with papers and charts? I was so disappointed. Constant interruptions in clinical work would have been the norm. I have never quit a job without staying a while, but at this age, I know the score and I was going to be taking Xanax by the end of the week. The gals there were sweet, but it was really going to be miserable for me as a professional.

I've always worked in very mature and professional offices and this was like being in someone's house with people yelling back and forth from the kitchen to the living room. Yes, I know I am spoiled, but I'm too old to be going that far backward. Perhaps my first clue was when I threw up in the middle of the night after my first day. I DO NOT throw up and have NEVER in my life vomited from being emotionally overwrought.

Apparently when I got laid off I had the only good social work job in the city. Maybe I'll just go back to marketing, be bored, and draw an easy paycheck.

giddy-up!!

I was offered a job today!! More later!

sunshine!

I can't believe the sun is peeking through today...at least here and there. Gosh, any light at all at this point is a Godsend.

I'm doing a pet loss support group tonight which is kind of difficult for me right now after losing my kitty Grayson, but these groups help people so much. Our culture doesn't do a very good job of honoring companion animal grief and people really suffer when they can't get support from others. Loss is loss in my opinion. If you've loved an animal like a family member, that loss is commensurate to the attachment. Additionally, that loss reconnects people with other losses in their lives. Unresolved grief issues can pop up.

Mom's MRI went well...she had to be perfectly still for 45 minutes, which is like asking my mother to do a tightrope act between two speeding 747s, but she did it. We should know some more by tomorrow. She is nervous about getting bad news (that the cancer has spread outside of the known area). One day at a time. I am not good at waiting and she isn't either. Genetics, I guess. Overall, she is nervous but still has a good attitude. Me, I've gained 3 pounds. I'm not sure what that's about!

One day at a time. :-)

heart and mind tired...

Whew...tired tonight. My body is dragging because my mind and soul are exhausted from worry. Mom spent a great day with loving friends, so that is comforting and wonderful.

I lost another job to a candidate with more experience, though I was in the top running. This time I am not upset, but relieved. I think right now my mom needs me and I am grateful for time to take care of her with surgery on the horizon.

I worked at the vet school today but the afternoon was quiet, which was probably good given my confused state of mind. The sun came out for a while this afternoon, but rain set in again later on...at least we got a little sunshine to boost the spirits. That always helps.

A message from the unemployed...

Being unemployed since April has been a challenge, a tragedy, a blessing, and just a weird experiment in the journey of life. I've never been unemployed since graduating college in 1988, then after I changed my career to social work, bam--here I am. I find it odd that a support service like marketing is 100 times more stable than something like social work. And when I look in the paper, marketing jobs abound...social work almost nothing and half of those are with scary, dysfunctional agencies no one wants to work for...

The things I miss about work: helping people, being intellectually challenged, feeling useful and needed, money, having structure in my life, seeing friends and colleagues, getting OUT. Things I don't miss about work: getting up early, being stressed out, having to get up and out when I'm sick as a dog, not getting to enjoy the outdoors-especially mornings.

Things I will miss when I go back to work: sleeping in, not worrying about staying up late, not necessarily having to get dressed up or put make-up on, shopping in off hours, having lunch with my mom whenever I want to, spending more time with my husband (he works out of the house), and probably most of all-getting to spend time with my animals. I have become a lot more bonded with my dogs, Petey and Pepper. Pepper has gotten a lot more confident since I've been off. She's gotten more consistency and guidance and that has changed her for the better. She's still a nervous, high-strung, anxious dog, but she's a lot better and I think that's because she's had a lot more time with her mama. I tend to be the most "consistent" of the puppy parents and that helps any anxious dog. Petey has just gotten more cuddly with me. He was previously cuddly mainly with my husband.

I am hoping to get a part-time job with benefits and maybe do a little private practice. I also hope I get to stay very involved in veterinary social work. It's kind of an odd field, and more challenging than one would think. I find it the hardest work I've done so far. I'm not sure how to explain that just yet.

Being unemployed has riddled me with anxiety and doubt at times, and has given me a sense of getting a wonderful break at other times. I haven't done anything I thought I would do (all those huge projects you never have time for), but when else are you going to not work for months at a time other than getting laid off? I have to work at not feeling guilty and at times have thoroughly enjoyed it. Like now, my eyes are getting heavy, Pepper is laying beside me on the couch cleaning her paws. The washer is humming downstairs, and it's rainy outside. I'll probably take a little nap. How sweet is it to take a mid-morning nap? Pretty sweet. It will be really hard to get my sleep schedule back on track but I think that's the least of my worries.

So, someone...hire me. It's time for me to go back to work (plus my severance package just ran out...ha).

stickin' it out...

Being laid off - sucks. Being laid off with endless days of rain - sucks even more. The dogs are couped up. I am couped up. We all need some sunshine and time to play in the yard.

It's hard to stay motivated when there are no new opportunities on the horizon. Mental health jobs are being cut left and right and being a social worker just short of being eligible for licensure really hurts because there are plenty of licensed people who've been laid off. It's an employer's market when it comes to getting good employees. A lot of people; not so many jobs.

You would think this would be a welcome vacation after 21 years of working, but it's more a battle against worry and uncertainty. I am to keep recreating myself, readjusting the plan, revitalizing...

The goal for this week is to clean up and reorganize my studio. It's truly a disaster.

Laid off...

For the past two years I have loved my job as a clinical social worker with older adults. We had a really unique program that helped older folks with mild cognitive impairment or mental health issues such as depression get their lives back. We saw so many people regain their resiliency and make new meaning and purpose for themselves.

But this year's Medicare cuts drove the final nail in our coffin. Our program was cut and the entire staff laid off. We will finish out treatment for our current patients and then we are off to hinterlands of unemployment, or even worse, forced into a job we are not suited for. It's all really depressing and the patients are angry and upset because there's no other program we can refer them to that's like ours.

It's been the best two years of employment I've ever had. It's a bad time to be jobless. I hope things turn out okay. It's definitely an anxiety-producing time.

Pets for the Elderly

I got so excited when I saw this website!!! I hope a shelter in your area is supporting this cause!


PETS FOR THE ELDERLY

Under my feet...and in my mind...just breathe...

Recognize this? It's hotel carpet, specifically the one that is covering the floor at a seminar I am attending about practical use of yoga in clinical work. It's really a great seminar so far. Hope your day is filled with good things, too.

A beginning therapist’s guide to the universe, or “How to run a relaxation group while a patient vomits…”

Granted, I knew becoming a clinical social worker would be challenging—more challenging that writing brochures and thinking up new ways to respond to the following: “I’m not telling you how to do your [marketing] job but look at this brochure I found” (said brochure is always the most expensive piece known to man)…and then, “Yes, can we make it look like that (the very expensive 4-color brochure) and pay $500?” You might as well have said, “…for the same price as drawing with crayons on recycled newspaper?” Or, “Oh, you know, make it creative.” Or, the best, “I just have a few changes” the day before printing.

Then, I moved into the far away and strange world of social work, where you find both the best in humans and the very worst. People stealing from the disabled, people suffering unspeakable tragedies and abuse, but still giving life their best shot, people blowing their life savings during just one bipolar manic phase. You name it. You get the joy. You get the heartache. You see people practically come back from the dead. You see people struggle with things that are unimaginable. You learn some sort of painful (and immeasurably valuable) life lesson just about everyday.

Then there are times that make you incredulous or just make you laugh out loud. I remember when I started this new career I was leading a relaxation group with about 12 people. During the most calming deep breathing part, I hear “heclgh, heclgh, heclgh, bleeeeeehhhhhhhhh!!!!!” I open my eyes to a patient spewing all over the carpet with absolutely no control.

I was surprised to see about half the group was still in a deep relaxation. Several are aghast. One runs from the room hand over mouth. “Uh, just keep breathing…um, don’t worry, just keep your eyes closed and keep breathing (thank goodness it didn’t smell)…we’ll take care of this…”

Well, we moved to another room. It was a little difficult to return to the same level of relaxation. The patient was unaffected by the whole thing.

It has taken me a full year to get to the point I don’t collapse at the end of the day. At first I was completely exhausted and emotionally immobilized after the work day; now I’ve started beginning to practice the survival skill of detaching from work when I go out the door. Patients still creep around in my head, but they don’t keep me awake or distracted during my free time. It’s finally starting to BE free time again.

The main thing I have learned so far is that there is so, so, so much more to learn. Beginner’s mind is useful here.

Geese need therapy too...

It looks like the geese want therapy today...this one apparently feels like he needs an individual session. He's been been waiting at the door for quite a while. Lest we forget he is on the waiting list he'll remind us by pecking on the glass from time to time...

frogs and poliwogs...

Our patients' transportation was cancelled today because of the icy morning, so I got to spend some time finishing up treatment notes and paperwork...and set up Gherkin's new, and larger, home. Kick, froggie, kick.

Except, she may have a secret, he may be a she...a frog in drag, a swimmer with swimmers, but hey, I didn't pick a unisex name for nothin'. I'm planning to add about 2-3 more African Dwarf frogs...names in the "hopper" include PJ (Pickle Juice), Irkle, Zirkle, Heebie, Jeebie, Hanky, Panky...there are some more, but I can't remember. I seem to spit them out in deuces.

Apparently being a social worker causes your after-work brain to slowly metamorphize into a pile of loose fecal matter. I'm telling you my brain is poo-poo by the time I get home. But I still enjoy it... I just want some more balance after work. It's slowly coming back but I'd like to recover some neurons stat. I never thought it would take this long!! Back to the ice this morning. Poor Pepper stepped out on the patio this morning to run out into the yard to potty and as soon as she zipped out the door, she zipped right down on her bottom like Bambi her first day on the frozen lake. Rather wary, the doggie was afterward... after she addressed her cadence to "gingerly and gently prancing" she made it back in with all limbs intact.

Petey, in his almighty lazy fashion, held it until the temperature was acceptable for paw contact.

and then she wrote...

not much...
I keep thinking I am going to return to blogging. So MUCH has happened. So MUCH I have not written about. I've learned a different way of life and I am still adjusting. I don't write much in complete sentences anymore because MedyKare hates humans and reimbursing humans (don't expect you to extrapolate that one).

Anyway, I miss blogging. Hell, I miss WRITING. But, that's right at my fingertips, yes? And I will have to get to it...sometime soon.

Sheesh.

where, oh where has my little blog gone...

oh where oh where could it be?

etcetera.

Oh, wait. Cool! I see where blogger has added a video option. You go Bloggy boi!

Anyway.

This massive career change has really consumed me hook, line, and sinker... I am realizing self-care isn't just nice, it's survival. This new job is really, really stressful and I have to really practice active relaxation techniques and make sure I eat right, exercise---or, ka-pow!!! But, somehow I love this job more than anything I have ever done...weird.

Anyway (deux).

Gotta take Grayson to the university vet school for an echocardiogram tomorrow morning. He's kitty no. 2 falling into the category of heart failure. Atticus is still going strong, but now Grayson, who has an enlarged aortal arch, is starting to develop a chronic cough and continued tachycardia. I'm afraid we're going to lose a couple of critters this year, which I can't even fathom going through that all over again...

One very interesting proposition I made to my husband the other day-- "You know, I need to really take better care of myself, get this extra weight off I've packed on during graduate school...say, if I get down to 149 pounds, you can book a trip to Paris...*snicker*"

To my surprise, he agreed. I clarified immediately that we were talking about THIS PARIS and not THIS PARIS.

Yep, he said he would walk straight to his computer and book the trip if I got healthy and reached 149. I am currently 181(ugh).

He established the rules of deflabulation:
1) I can't starve myself (or cut off necessary limbs for instant weight reduction).
2) I have to eat right.
3) I have to exercise.

In other words, I have to get healthy the old fashioned way--the only way that works.

This all came about after I had a meltdown after an extremely stressful family session that was quite toxic. I thought I had debriefed enough with a colleague, but au contraire, as I was to find out...after I got home, up came some bubblin' crude...

oil, that is...otherwise known as a stressed-out meltdown.

THUS, Operation Glue Your Shit Back Together was initiated. The payoff is quite nice:
1) lower blood pressure
2) reasonable cholesterol
3) less junk in my trunk
4) and a frickin' trip to France

Damn. I'm feeling downright lucky.

but I have fun at work, too...

Gosh I hate to leave out the highlights of my career. Like the other day when I was conducting a relaxation group...everyone eyes closed...breathing deeply...then about 20 minutes into the exercise, I hear a couple of gags and open my eyes to a patient puking freely all over the floor...uh, um, continue breathing...uh...uh...

We moved to another room.

And the other day the cleaning crew had the joy of wiping down a poo-smeared bathroom. Now, I don't know what that was about, but I'm glad I didn't walk in on it.

There's never a dull day, and never a day that doesn't keep you human and very humble.

golly I sure do miss some things...

I really do miss my blog. I no longer write for eloquence or wit, but for speed to meet an insurance deadline. I write about symptoms in sentence fragments, instead of worrying with the musical lilt of the words...which, at first, nearly broke me out in a rash.

But I have learned SO much as a beginning therapist. Although we are still fighting short staffing and program changes, I have really gotten an education on a lot of things...on hope, on the tragedy of cognitive decline, on the perils of insurance bullshit, on learning a new lingo and becoming part of the clinical world, on priorities, on self-care, on dignity, respect, and honor.

There have been days when I really felt like I made a difference in a person's life, which is a heady reward for someone who churned out newsletters and intranet snippet-writing. There have also been suicide prevention contracts to sign, frightening stories, and heartbreaking situations.

All in all, the rapid pace of being immersed in this new profession has my head spinning, and it will take me a while to regain balance again...to be able to leave the patients at the center and not hear them ruminating, asking me questions, and mucking around in my head all evening long. But I've heard that skill of separation simply takes time and experience. It is quite an adventure and one I do not regret.

oh, the frickin' woe of it all...

Wah. Wah. Wah.
I am still in school, taking one last class to get a graduate certificate in gerontology...and the "frickin' woe of it all" has to do with a paper I need to be writing right now.

But I don't wanna.

Like a 5 year old doesn't wanna...

I have been so tired and stressed out over the past two weeks that I don't frickin' wanna do much of anything when I get home. We are under-staffed and reorganizing all in the same breath at the hospital I work at and it is excruciating. Everyone is trying to stay afloat and not kill one another. Our director just left, everyone on staff is fairly new and admissions are flocking in like stuck-together boogers on a stick.

I dare say my marketing job at its busiest was akin to sitting around and picking my nose compared to my job as a therapist at this partial-hospitalization program. I do still love it, but it is fast-paced, extremely emotionally and intellectually demanding, no time to eat or take a piss... I've worked through my lunch everyday since May 25. Come in early and stay late--and be nowhere near caught up on Medicare's evil and mighty stack of required paperwork. Suicidal? Yeah, well prove it with these 15 forms...

Like I said...wah, wah, wah.

I still wouldn't go back though. The rewards of the job are worth the growing pains.

Unfortunately, the blog has suffered mightily, and probably will continue to do so until things smooth out a little more...

I guess I'd better go squeeze that paper out of my ass now. Bleh.

So, I did 8 1/2

So, I did 8 1/2 hours of paperwork and 1 1/2 hours of therapy today...see anything wrong with that? Unfortunately, that's pretty typical.

oh, the trees...

As a new therapist serving older adults, I am single-handedly killing the rainforest. Medicare requires so much documentation that it is a flat-out race to get it done each day. I spend far more time documenting than I do providing treatment.

Now THAT'S crazy.

It's not like you can catch up on it either. You've got a 24 hour window to get it done. Fortunately for the trees, we will be transitioning to an electronic charting system.

What a big change it is to go from the administrative side of life to the clinician side. They really are woefully disconnected from one another. I hardly have time to pee during the day as a social worker/therapist. Everything is time-limited and pressured. There's no time to read the silly newsletter I used to edit. There are 500 other things that come before it...just like what I used to complain about..."why don't they read their newsletter?!" Now I know why. Well, I knew before, but I tried to convince myself that they would somehow find it in their hearts to read the corporate newsletter in order to save my waning ego.

The other big change is that everything is ill-equipped for staff. Ah, the days in marketing were cushy, my friend. You needed supplies...ask and ye shall receive promptly. Welcome to human services... Now I sit in a broken chair, work on an old computer and clunky old inkjet, share an office with another therapist and scrounge for supplies and materials. But I knew it would be that way, because our focus is on the patients who enjoy a homelike atmosphere that is healing and healthy. And the hungry get fed first when there's only so much money to go around, right?

By the way, did I tell you I love my job? (never said that before) Either I'm a masochist, or something real is happening in my life...