To all the blogs I love...

To all of you that write extremely entertaining, funny, and even heartwarming blogs: please stop, I'm seriously going to lose my job. When boredom sets in at work around 2:30 in the afternoon, or 10:30 in the morning, or 11, or 3:30, I can't help it. You may not even know that I read your blog, but I do.

It's getting really bad, people. And let's remember who I work for! The Federal Government! As in one day I called my dad from work at his office (and it was a work-related question) and he answered the phone and said, "Oh Sara, I thought it was the President calling me. My caller id said "Federal Government."

I hope to the high heavens that no one is tracking the internet use of the lowly palliative care fellow, but you never know! I mean they wanted to know where I'd lived for the past 5 years when I got this job. Do you know how many places I've lived in the past 5 years? Yeah, neither do I! So I had to make some up! Just kidding, I didn't. But then they even wanted people who had known me at each of those addresses. And the Federal Government doesn't joke around. Those people got personal phone calls and got crap in the mail that they had to fill out.

Trust me, the bureaucracy is in place to provide many positions for people who just monitor internet use all day. The VA is a bastion of typical Fed bureaucracy. For example, my supervisor's fluorescent lighting in her office will sometimes go out on one side of the room. The one time that she called maintenance to come and fix it, it took days until anyone came out, and when he did, he just stared at the light for five minutes and said, "Yeah...this is going to take a while to fix." Then he left and never came back. So some days her office is half lit.

Let's all hope that whoever is assigned to watching my internet use is a slacker, or at least enjoys the blogs that I look at and therefore won't turn me in. Favoritism in the Fed Government is also alive and well, if you care to know.

Dear Dirk

"Um, next time can you knock?"


Lucy after Dirk started bleeding after a freak tongue cutting accident, and then proceeded to continue wrestling with Lucy and bled all over her.



Good times, Lu! A little blood can't stop the Captain, as he is known at the Lyman's!



Our dog Dirk got a letter today from his best girlfriend:

Hi Dirk,
It's me, Lucy. You have probably been wondering where I am. I had surgery on my knee a few weeks ago. My mom and dad said I'm not allowed to play for awhile. Instead, I lay on a really soft air mattress during the day and watch I Love Lucy reruns. Sometimes I get a bone to chew on.

I just wanted to make sure you haven't forgotten about me. I think about you all the time. Do you have your winter coat? I bet you look pretty cute.

Missing you,
Lucy (signed with a pawprint)

This letter got Dirk so riled up that he decided he should stand in front of the TV while we were trying to watch a movie and whine for two hours. Our friends the Lymans are Lucy's parents, and they are hilarious. We loved the letter, Team Lyman! We can't wait until you can play again, Lucy! Dirk thought the haircut you had to get for your surgery was HOTT!

Crappy day

Note to self: my least favorite part of my job is kicking patients off the unit because they aren't dying fast enough to meet our criteria anymore, and we have a waiting list. We don't say it that way, but that's definitely what the patients and their families hear and it sucks.

Yes, we know you like the care here.

Yes, we're sorry you had a horrible experience at that nursing home and are terrified to go to another one.

Yes, you are still very sick and probably do meet hospice eligibility, but do not meet criteria for our unit.

No, this does not make sense when we call ourselves the Palliative Care Unit and palliative care is supposed to be care throughout your terminal illness. Now here's the social worker, she'll help you find a nursing home.

Enter me, thinking, "Please, please, please, do not ask me about Medicare or Medicaid and how they pay for nursing homes because I just don't get it myself and I used to work with kids so can you ask me something I know, like maybe about what TPR is?" First question, "Now will his Medicare days roll over since he's been here for a while or will he still only have 43 left?" Uhh...see this nametag? It says Social Worker Trainee. Which is kind of insulting when I worked really hard (ok kind of hard) to get my master's but whatever, I don't actually know ANYTHING.

Cyclo-what?

This Saturday Tim did his first Cyclocross race. It was really fun to watch. Cyclocross is basically an obstacle course on your bike. I took some other pictures of the course, but somehow they didn't make it from the camera to the computer. So you'll just have to imagine. One thing they have to do is jump over these barriers. Then there are also steep hills where they have to dismount and run their bikes up. Some guys ate it going over these barriers, but luckily not Tim.



Here's his friend Neil going over.



And here is probably the best action shot I've ever taken in my life, and it was totally an accident. This is Jeff going over the barrier.

Halloweenie

I'm not going to lie, it's November 2nd and my Halloween decorations are still up. This is partly because I love them and partly because I don't have any Fall or Thanksgiving decorations. Come December I can put up all two of my Christmas decorations.

Halloween night itself was really lame. I'm not even going to bore you with what we did that night. We cleaned our house. Ok, there, I said it. The night before Halloween we went with a bunch of other dental students on a boat that took us on the Milwaukee River and out to Lake Michigan.

We rode our bikes downtown to the river and got in a gnarly crash.




But we were still down to party! I may look drunk in this picture, but I'm actually just really tired.



If you look closely you can see that I have a neck gash that we had to repair last minute with safety pins, and Tim has a bloody bone sticking out of his neck. And yes, we really do own this much spandex. And yes, I did wear it in front of much of Tim's dental class. And yes, I did sit down for most of the evening. And yes, we did wear our helmets the whole time.



A better view of Tim's neck wounds. Our conversation before the party was pretty funny:
Tim: Do I have enough blood on me? I want there to be a lot of blood.
Me: It looks like you have been face painting on your face with blood. There are fingerprints.
Tim: That black eye looks so real!
Me: Should I give myself a busted lip?
Tim: Yeah!
We still have plenty of fake blood and assorted bruising makeup, so if you ever want to make your face up nice and gory, you know where to go. I have to say, I was pretty proud of that black eye.



Eve was a doll and Eddie was a pheasant hunter. Creative, huh?



My camera's not so great with the moving in a boat night cityscape shots, but you get the idea.



Of course the Jolly Roger was flying.

Cute animal picture

No one can resist a cute animal picture like this. Even if you don't like animals, I bet part of you is melting right now. That's a good thing.

Farewell to Fall

Pumpkin Patch


Apple picking with the Waterhouses.



Jen and Jeff


Ryan



Andrew





Tim told me to pose with the ladder.



This is how he wanted me to pose.


Action shot!



I want Fall gardens like these, but I'm too lazy and cheap. Someday...




Pretty