Week of September 24, 2001
Monday
Tuesday Wednesday
Thursday Friday
Saturday Sunday
Most Recent Update
Let's see, what happened today? I saw two patients in the hospital this morning and sent one home this afternoon. I admitted one patient during the day for surgery on his foot to remove dead tissue preventing an ulcer from healing. Tomorrow morning I will send the other patient from this morning home which will leave me with one patient in the hospital unless one of my patients gets admitted during the night tonight.
Then, the office was fairly slow this morning. It did pick up this afternoon with more patients to see than slots to see them in. This morning I had a couple of no-shows which made for a slower morning. I did decide to close my practice this morning because my wait for an appointment is way too long. The only way to lower that waiting time is to temporarily not accept any new patients until I can work down the backlog of people wanting to be seen. It is not really a complete closure; I will accept families of current patients, children, and various other special cases. I have never done this before and am approaching this with some trepidation. Our medical director assures me this is the proper thing to do and will actually help patients get seen faster.
I am in the process of renewing my domain name. Network Solutions wants 35 dollars a year to renew it, my web hosting company will do the same for only $9.95 a year. Guess who I am going to use! I have been very happy with my web page hosting company, very little downtime and now they will renew my domain name for less money than any other website I have found. If you are looking for a good company to work with try here.
I am in the process of backing up my data then I am going to repartition my big drive to move everything from my smaller C: drive to it. This is in preparation for getting a 40-60 GB drive to put in my new system which I still plan to build but in more pieces than I had originally planned. First, I am going to put this 20GB hard drive in the kids computer along with this motherboard and processor along with a new power supply for the computer. I will put the new motherboard and processor plus the bigger drive in this computer and use it until I get a newer case. I have to have all my files including system files on this 20GB drive so I can transfer them to the bigger drive when I purchase it in the very near future. I have a new US Robotics external modem which I need to connect to this computer as soon as I find the proper serial cable to connect it. I thought I had one here but cannot find one. Wednesday I should be able to find one in town. More on this computer saga as time goes by.
I have everything done. Yes, I have all the charts that were left to do when I finished office hours this afternoon done. I am leaving none waiting for me to return from my time off. My desk is empty of charts for the first time in a long time. I worked late tonight to finish up but I made it. Today was a very busy day all in all. I discharged one patient today which still leaves me with one in the hospital to round on tomorrow. I am off tomorrow but I need to make nursing home rounds that I did not get to last Wednesday. I also have a committee meeting in Vancouver tomorrow morning at 7 so I will just come by the hospital here afterward then go to the nursing homes. I only need to go to two nursing homes but have several people to see. Then, I have a meeting to attend at 12:30 after which I have nothing scheduled. I will be off Thursday and Friday also then come back next week and work Monday before being off for the next 9 days while my mother is visiting here.
It is raining here again. It has rained all day today and is supposed to rain tomorrow. The rain and clouds are supposed to lighten by Saturday so hopefully we will have nice weather at the coast Saturday and Sunday. We have a new event planned for the retreat this weekend, my group is taking all attendees to the Oregon Coast Aquarium on Saturday afternoon. This is the aquarium where Keiko was raised and where millions of people saw him. It should be a fun time with all the members of my group and their families.
I did get all my data backed up last night. Tomorrow I need to find a serial cable to connect my new modem. More on this later.
Short update tonight as it is late. I have spent all day running around and this is the first time I have been home for any time at all since 6 AM this morning. Remember this is my so called day off. I had to be in Vancouver, WA for my medical advisory committee meeting at 7 this morning. Then it was back to Longview to see one patient at the hospital and discharge him. I also had to arrange outpatient IV antibiotic and dressing changes for him which took almost an hour.
After that, I went to two nursing homes to see my patients there. This took until it was time for our monthly team clinicians meeting which lasted until two. In the meantime, Delanae had to take her Bravada in because the windshield wipers stopped working while it was raining yesterday so she was without any transportation and needed to go do a radio commercial for a former co-worker. So, I then picked her up and accompanied her to his house and observed while they cut the commercial. This took until it was time to pick up Stacey from her volleyball team practice.
We got home in time to change clothes hurriedly and head to church for dinner and choir practice. Choir practice lasted until 9 as we are starting to work on Christmas music for the community tree lighting ceremony December 1. I then had Delanae drop me off and I ran to the grocery store where she was headed to pick up some things. We finally got home a few minutes ago and unloaded the car. She has now downloaded the mp3 file of her finished commercial and can listen to it or send a copy to her parents who have never heard her on the radio.
I am now headed to bed as I have another meeting in the morning at 7. I now have a cable to connect our new external modem and will try and get that done tomorrow interspersed with a volleyball game and who knows what all else including picking up the Bravada which is supposed to be done early tomorrow afternoon. So much for getting to sleep in some on my vacation days.
This is the last update for this week. We are leaving tomorrow around noon for the Oregon coast for the retreat. That should put us there before 5 in the afternoon. The weather is supposed to cooperate this weekend with it being warmer and clearer than was forecast earlier in the week. I do not know how many people from the group will be there but I hope it is a lot. I do know of some who are not going. I don't really understand why not as the group picks up the room and Saturday night dinner for the family. It is a chance for everyone to get together and talk about all of our problems as well as what makes us successful. I am looking forward to it as is Delanae as she really enjoys Newport, Oregon.
I did get the external modem installed today. It is working like a charm except my download speeds have not increased any. I can never get even 28K on this connection so I know it has to be a problem with our telephone lines here. QWest is continually working on them here but I think part of the problem is old cable here in the house. Eventually we will have cable modem service here which is what I plan to change to when it becomes available.
The Bravada is working properly again. Some sort of module was the problem with the windshield wipers. It was not working properly so the wipers would not work. It has been replaced now so they function properly again. Also, the problem that was fixed a couple of weeks ago right after we bought it turned out to be still a problem and that was fixed again. I think this time it has been fixed correctly as no burning smell eminates from the vehicle after the engine has been turned off. The problem was that fluid was leaking from the differential and running onto the exhaust so when it got hot we had a burning smell. Now we do not which probably means it has been repaired completely this time. We shall test that by driving it to the coast this weekend. Delanae is delighted to have HER car back again. She really loves that vehicle and it has made her forget about a Mercedes ML320 for the foreseeable future. By the way, she is making noises about putting up a web page again after the rain comes and she cannot be outside as much. Watch for news bulletins in this space in the future.
Driving to the Oregon Coast.
Gone to the retreat, no update. Taping the Arkansas-Georgia game on ESPN2, however.
We are back for the coast. Wonderful weather, clear and highs today in the middle 70's to low 80's. Yes, the last day of September on the Oregon Coast and highs like that. Nobody could believe it. Very little fog both nights and two gorgeous sunsets. Last night was rather cold in the wind after the sun went down so our outdoor barbeque was attended only for a short time. On the way home this afternoon we stopped at two outlet store complexes and stocked up on some jeans for Stephen as well as shoes. Very productive for him.
The retreat itself was a lot of work but a lot of good direction came out of it. Our Leadership Council has a meeting first thing in the morning to go over the action plans and that should be a very intense meeting as we have a lot of plans to make. There has also been a task force appointed and charged with looking at the way the members of the Leadership Council are elected by the group and the powers that the Council has. This report is due to the entire group by December 1. More on this subject at a later date.
Now I must go unpack and get ready for tomorrow. Tomorrow is the only day I am working for the next eleven as my mother is arriving for a visit on Tuesday. Tomorrow at the office will definitely be busy. Hopefully I will have time to post an update tomorrow night between working late at the office and getting ready for my mother to arrive the next day.
