busy weekend!
On Thursday I decided I needed to see my primary care doctor, I'd been holding off for a while, but the sleepless night finally decided me, even if we don't know what my sleep problems are, when they are that bad, I need help! She didn't have any appointments free for 2 weeks, so I said I'd see a different doctor and they gave me an appointment on Friday, I got there to find they'd made it with the nurse! I had said on the phone that the reason was a repeat prescription, which was true, but it just wasn't straightforward and even if it was, this wouldn't have been something that the nurse could have prescribed anyway. I even asked on the phone who the appointment was with and was told Karen, which I thought was a bit bizarre not to say Dr... but I figured they were being informal, I think the receptionist handled it very badly, maybe some cases of needing another prescription can be handled by the nurse, but usually the doctors put the medicines on refills for as long as they are happy to go without seeing you and if you wanted a nurse appointment, you'd ask for it! They should have made it clear on the phone it was a nurse, not just someone who happened to be called Karen as if every patient knows the name of everyone there! Fortunately it worked out well as when I went in and realised the error had been made, an appointment had come up for Saturday morning with my own doctor.
That meant Saturday was a very full day, as always the doctors took a while, they whipped me in and away from Andrew and the kids, only for me to sit in a room for about 20 minutes waiting alone! This seems to be the universal system, I'm sure it's more efficient in terms of the doctors time, the next patient is ready and waiting with vital measurements taken, but I'm not sure if it makes patients into good patients, I suspect it increases anxiety and doesn't help communication, the doctor might see more patients in a day, but maybe they go back for more repeat visits, or end up on the wrong medication, or all sorts of other possible outcomes. I also very much dislike how you have to tell every single person what you are there for, 90% of the time the receptionist doesn't need to know to make the appointment, it's just a scheduled block of time with the doctor, and if it isn't it always seemed to work back in the UK for the patient to say the appointment was for x. So I knew to say this is for 6 week check/8month check/smear test etc and the receptionist would book the appropriate thing, I never had to say, oh, I'm feeling very depressed, I need to see the doctor. The problem is, once you summarise why you need to see the doctor, it's then easy to fit the mould you created for yourself, so your mind is on that reason, the nurses mind is on that reason and so is the doctors. I don't think it's unreasonable to have to go over things with the nurse, but when things are complex, they don't know about the meds you are taking or the condition you suffer from and I've had people make judgements about painkillers I'm taking, so when someone has said aren't they a bit strong about the milder painkiller I take regularly, it then makes me inclined not to write down the strong one I have available for occasional use, because I don't want to go through that whole thing. Who is the nurse to make a judgement about your medication? if she sees a strong painkiller, perhaps sympathy would be more appropriate?
Well after all that I headed over to church for quilting day, I fairly quickly cut and pressed all the finishing bits for Mrs Fox's gift and attached them and put it aside to hand sew later, then I brought out the Thomas quilt and set about finishing it, which I did!!!!! I gave it to Nathanael today and he is thrilled and has it in bed with him now. Then I moved on to working on the disaster (= the first quilt I started) it seemed to be going ok, but I realised I had missed a step, tried to do it differently so it didn't matter, but used the wrong measurement, so I gave up and sat down to hand sew, so I got the gift finished yesterday. We now need to print out a picture and get some dowel for the hanging sleeve and either a ribbon or some string.
After that I met with the coordinator for children's church to go through some stuff as there have been changes since I last helped, then met up with the family to eat burgers for dinner, when Jon was here he found it rather wierd that it was totally normal to arrive at church earlier food in hand and sit down at a table and eat!
Andrew was helping in Ada's class in nursery and they ended up with a mere 3 children and initially 4 adult helpers! Another room was down, so 2 of them moved, but they had 3 children who were completely used to nursery and the people looking after them, so it made for an easy session!
I on the other hand had Nathanael to content with, children always seem to play up the day you are helping, to be fair, he was an angel through the teaching time, other than putting his hand up to ask a question totally unrelated to the story, but at least he put his hand up and waited to be asked! In small group time he was a little more troublesome, but we survived and rejoined the main group, at which point he decided he just had to stand next to Ryan, unfortunately Nathanael's idea of standing next to someone is glueing himself to their sides and Ryan did not approve. Then I spotted another child raise his arm, obviously about to wack his neighbour pretty hard, but there was no way I could get there in time and once it happened that's a pretty big discipline issue to deal with, Nathanael's actions may have been frustrating, but they were much more his wants not matching with other peoples, rather than clear wrongs, thankfully the lead teacher stepped in to deal with it :-).
Then today we walked to Highland Covenant Church, which is where N goes to preschool for a service that included saying good bye to Mrs Fox, the children sang some songs and then the head teacher asked them about a picture that they were giving to Mrs Fox, Nathanael was the nearest child and the microphone was thrust at him and he answered all the questions perfectly!
There was a reception afterwards, but when we went outside, it was raining and it looked like it was going to get heavier and only Andrew had a waterproof coat, he ended up going home to get the car! After all that we were all tired and unsurprisingly had a quiet afternoon!
Next week doesn't look too busy, originally I had a daytime sleep study scheduled for Tuesday, but it got cancelled, which does make life a bit easier! I'm booked in for an evening crop on Friday, so I want to be organised during the week, so I can be productive there, which means getting quite a few pictures printed. I'm also moving all my scrapbooking stuff to a cupboard downstairs as working on the dining room table makes much more sense than anywhere else and I can't do that easily if everything is upstairs! This also means rearranging that cupboard a bit and shifting some things to the laundry cupboard, but we'll get there in the end!
That meant Saturday was a very full day, as always the doctors took a while, they whipped me in and away from Andrew and the kids, only for me to sit in a room for about 20 minutes waiting alone! This seems to be the universal system, I'm sure it's more efficient in terms of the doctors time, the next patient is ready and waiting with vital measurements taken, but I'm not sure if it makes patients into good patients, I suspect it increases anxiety and doesn't help communication, the doctor might see more patients in a day, but maybe they go back for more repeat visits, or end up on the wrong medication, or all sorts of other possible outcomes. I also very much dislike how you have to tell every single person what you are there for, 90% of the time the receptionist doesn't need to know to make the appointment, it's just a scheduled block of time with the doctor, and if it isn't it always seemed to work back in the UK for the patient to say the appointment was for x. So I knew to say this is for 6 week check/8month check/smear test etc and the receptionist would book the appropriate thing, I never had to say, oh, I'm feeling very depressed, I need to see the doctor. The problem is, once you summarise why you need to see the doctor, it's then easy to fit the mould you created for yourself, so your mind is on that reason, the nurses mind is on that reason and so is the doctors. I don't think it's unreasonable to have to go over things with the nurse, but when things are complex, they don't know about the meds you are taking or the condition you suffer from and I've had people make judgements about painkillers I'm taking, so when someone has said aren't they a bit strong about the milder painkiller I take regularly, it then makes me inclined not to write down the strong one I have available for occasional use, because I don't want to go through that whole thing. Who is the nurse to make a judgement about your medication? if she sees a strong painkiller, perhaps sympathy would be more appropriate?
Well after all that I headed over to church for quilting day, I fairly quickly cut and pressed all the finishing bits for Mrs Fox's gift and attached them and put it aside to hand sew later, then I brought out the Thomas quilt and set about finishing it, which I did!!!!! I gave it to Nathanael today and he is thrilled and has it in bed with him now. Then I moved on to working on the disaster (= the first quilt I started) it seemed to be going ok, but I realised I had missed a step, tried to do it differently so it didn't matter, but used the wrong measurement, so I gave up and sat down to hand sew, so I got the gift finished yesterday. We now need to print out a picture and get some dowel for the hanging sleeve and either a ribbon or some string.
After that I met with the coordinator for children's church to go through some stuff as there have been changes since I last helped, then met up with the family to eat burgers for dinner, when Jon was here he found it rather wierd that it was totally normal to arrive at church earlier food in hand and sit down at a table and eat!
Andrew was helping in Ada's class in nursery and they ended up with a mere 3 children and initially 4 adult helpers! Another room was down, so 2 of them moved, but they had 3 children who were completely used to nursery and the people looking after them, so it made for an easy session!
I on the other hand had Nathanael to content with, children always seem to play up the day you are helping, to be fair, he was an angel through the teaching time, other than putting his hand up to ask a question totally unrelated to the story, but at least he put his hand up and waited to be asked! In small group time he was a little more troublesome, but we survived and rejoined the main group, at which point he decided he just had to stand next to Ryan, unfortunately Nathanael's idea of standing next to someone is glueing himself to their sides and Ryan did not approve. Then I spotted another child raise his arm, obviously about to wack his neighbour pretty hard, but there was no way I could get there in time and once it happened that's a pretty big discipline issue to deal with, Nathanael's actions may have been frustrating, but they were much more his wants not matching with other peoples, rather than clear wrongs, thankfully the lead teacher stepped in to deal with it :-).
Then today we walked to Highland Covenant Church, which is where N goes to preschool for a service that included saying good bye to Mrs Fox, the children sang some songs and then the head teacher asked them about a picture that they were giving to Mrs Fox, Nathanael was the nearest child and the microphone was thrust at him and he answered all the questions perfectly!
There was a reception afterwards, but when we went outside, it was raining and it looked like it was going to get heavier and only Andrew had a waterproof coat, he ended up going home to get the car! After all that we were all tired and unsurprisingly had a quiet afternoon!
Next week doesn't look too busy, originally I had a daytime sleep study scheduled for Tuesday, but it got cancelled, which does make life a bit easier! I'm booked in for an evening crop on Friday, so I want to be organised during the week, so I can be productive there, which means getting quite a few pictures printed. I'm also moving all my scrapbooking stuff to a cupboard downstairs as working on the dining room table makes much more sense than anywhere else and I can't do that easily if everything is upstairs! This also means rearranging that cupboard a bit and shifting some things to the laundry cupboard, but we'll get there in the end!