Category Archives: Daily Log

This Page Intentionally Left Blank

This is when I think of witty, clever, interesting, thought-provoking, imaginative things to write: 12:14 AM. I am half awake, half asleep. Or maybe 75% asleep and 25% awake. Maybe not even that awake. Everyone knows twilight is the best time for writing ideas.

This is when I forget witty, clever, interesting, thought-provoking, imaginative things to write:

*when my alarm o’clock goes off 6 AM. Seriously–what do YOU remember when your alarm goes off?

*when I am hustling around to get out of the house and to work on time. What do YOU remember when you hustle?

*when I am at work. Because when I am trying to remember all of my patients, there isn’t room in my head for anything else. I have a small head. It’s tiny. Not much can fit in it.

*when I come home from a 10 hr day. I look at the white screen in front of me and find it almost a mirror for the blankness in my mind. It makes me pretty sure that Descartes was a terrible philosopher. ‘Cause I certainly don’t think and yet I exist. If we blink out of existence every time we stop thinking, then, well. . .life would be a heck of a lot easier. ‘Cause do you know the consequences of not thinking? Better to skip all that.

I apologize for not being witty. It’s not that I’m not witty, it’s just that I’m only witty at 12:14 AM, and I’m far too selfish to wake up enough to share the joke with you. Sorry.

Posted on January 9, 2012 by T.T. in Daily Log, Me | Leave a comment

I want a bird

This is sorta akin to saying “I want a pony,” because I have a friend who works in a pet store, and I found out the genus of bird I’m interested in runs at like $200-$300. Owie.

But still. While I am talking about my pony, let me describe it to you. I’m looking at Conures, which are a type of parrot. They’re very people friendly, very smart, and full of playful antics. According to their singles’ ads. I mean, their descriptions online. Like this. How could you not want one?

Oh, yeah. That price tag.

I’m still tempted to save my pennies.

Aw, it’s a birdy.

Posted on January 7, 2012 by T.T. in Contemplations, Daily Log, World at Large | 1 Comment

Family Business

So my little family-owned physical therapy company decided to have their company holiday meal in January. People were just too busy and too stressed in December. They sent out their invitations to three of their offices (plus the one I work at) to come join them at a local steak house.

And when I say family owned, I mean the husband and wife jointly own the company and both sat in the middle of the U-shaped seating arrangement; he had his arm about the back of her chair nearly the whole time, and the conversation frequently veered into the territory of what was so great about the Green Bay Packers. He was thoroughly picked on by his employees when he had to borrow his wife’s glasses to read the bill, and pictures were taken and threatened to be put on Facebook.

Everyone touts the all-American, small town family businesses, but so few actually get the pleasure of being part of one.

Posted on January 6, 2012 by T.T. in Daily Log, Work, World at Large | 2 Comments

Clean Clean Up

That’s not a typo. Clean clean up.

Today at work, a laundry detergent jug was jiggled off the counter by the washing machine. When it landed, its cap popped off. Yay for clean messes!

Sorta.

It also happened to land in the garbage can I had just emptied the vacuum cleaner into. That made a nice, soapy mud.

My co-worker went straight for a bucket of water, but I opted to first scoop as much of it up with a mop and a dustpan, which was a lot of it.

Anyway, needless to say, I still reek of laundry detergent. I don’t know if my last two patients noticed or not; I’m sure neither would have mentioned it.

My co-worker was highly unamused by the whole mess (argh, pun!), but was just profoundly happy it was a clean mess. Not bodily fluids or semi-solids. Puke is terrible. It makes you gag. Reeking of urine is a lot harder to politely excuse. A 1/4 of an inch of laundry detergent over a wide swath of floor is relatively pleasant in comparison.

Posted on January 5, 2012 by T.T. in Daily Log | Leave a comment

Why don’t they just use bigger print?

Use less words and make them bigger. I don’t care how many syllables you use, but use less words.

This request is directed at textbook writers. Srsly. I used to tease my brother that he just went to the library and picked out his books on the quality of height and width, but it appears that textbook writers are confused about the fact that this was just a joke. Quantity does NOT equal quality. Once you reach a certain number of words on any given subject, you are not “exploring in depth.” You are “obfuscating”.

It’s bad enough writing a tedious book on a tedious subject, but do you have to obfuscate on top of everything else?

Posted on January 3, 2012 by T.T. in Books, Daily Log, Grumbles and Rants, School | 1 Comment

When Snow is Softly Falling

As much as I grouse and grouse about winter, there are some parts about winter that I do like. I loathe the darkness, it’s true, and I’m not above complaining about the bitter cold when I come in from starting the car in the morning.

But I like gentle snow falls. I like the pristine cover of white that says, despite all the closures and traffic warnings we blare about, all is well. A fresh, sweet, pure new beginning. I like the brilliant sunlight refracting off of every crystal of ice.

I like the chance to gather myself up before Spring.

The trick is to realize winter for what it is, and keep a razor-sharp focus on that throughout the season. It’s too easy to say “nothing”. To easy to say it’s too hard, in the middle of winter. But this is the chance to pull yourself together so you can hit the ground running. This is when you clean, this is when you plan, this is when you take the necessary preliminary steps so that–when winter IS over–you are ready.

Really ready, not a waking-up-slowly ready.

Posted on January 2, 2012 by T.T. in Daily Log | Leave a comment

Past, present, and a I guess maybe a little bit of the future.

PAST:

This morning I was standing there getting dress, and all of a sudden I was hit with a powerful flash-back from my time in school. I imagined myself in the early mornings at school, when I would get there far earlier than would ever seem reasonable, except for the fact that that was when my ride dropped me off. (Earliest class ever offered = 8 am; my arrival time? 7:10.) I heard the sounds of the empty building, saw the flickering light, and most of all, I smelled school. School has a very distinctive smell all its own, and even after the sights and sounds of school were shaken out of my fuzzy head, the smell lingered.

PRESENT: (ish)

As mentioned, I took my boards exam on Saturday. I couldn’t stand the suspense and decided to check and see if my pass/fail results had been posted online yet, even though I was told I wouldn’t be able to find out until Tuesday. So Sunday morning I tentatively logged on, and discovered that I had passed.

You may certainly go back and re-read that sentence, because I went and re-read the results about 5 times, just to make sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me. Then I went back later on in the day just to make sure they hadn’t changed their mind. Nope–still passed!

So I went work today and told my boss, the owner of the whole company, and she was so happy she hugged me, and spent the next 5 minutes exclaiming with delight and telling everyone she could. So, so, so happy I could come into work with a positive report.

Then I was slammed by a full schedule, my first ever on my own. It required three donuts, and I am very glad that someone brought them in, because I don’t know what I would have done without them. I think I did some pretty dang good therapy and made some very good calls, but I think my documentation for it sucked. Some day I would like to be able to do some awesome therapy AND uphold the other end of the book pretty well, but today did not seem to be that day.

And I am exhausted.

FUTURE:

Tomorrow I am going first to the hospital, where I will most likely also be thrown into the boiling water. Then I am going to the clinic, where I will probably be lightly charred. And finally, after lunch I will be shipped off to different branch, where goodness only knows what fate awaits me.

Don’t get me wrong–I like my job. But I am still so, so green at this that I feel more that I am being put into a large washing machine with the agitation cycle set for 10 hours than I feel like I am a competent clinician who is capable of conducting herself in a professional manner. I am pretty sure that if I make it through this week okay than I’ll be over the worst of it.

But I still hope there will be more donuts tomorrow.

Posted on August 8, 2011 by T.T. in Daily Log, Me, Physical Therapy | 4 Comments

Everything I said before, again.

Gorgeous trip home.

So helpful person I am replacing.

Headache.

Boards.

Eek.

Hmm.

Tired.

Starting to find my groove at work; grateful that they are experiencing a slow time right now and that I don’t have to hit the ground at a full out run. Re-gaining some confidence in my ability to make clinical decisions. (Hey–I haven’t done any PT since May, and out-patient PT since last December. I’m allowed a little hesitation.) Everyone here has been very supportive of taking on a new grad, and am kinda thrilled that so many patients that they have actually want to get better and are actually willing to do their exercises at home to make that happen.

Talked more about the boards today, and she is really helping me feel more relaxed going into this. Having said that, the closer the time comes, the more wound up I am. I am practically counting the minutes at this point.

Stupid tests!!!!

Posted on August 4, 2011 by T.T. in Daily Log | 1 Comment

Why Winning can be sad

I got the job I did. . .because someone else lost it.

I suppose some people would say, “That’s their problem, not yours,” or “for a good reason, probably” or some other sort of thing. But the girl is younger than me, and failed her boards twice. She can’t re-take them again until October. And so she is orienting me to her job for a week, and then will no longer be able to function as a PTA until she re-takes (and passes) her boards.

It would be no overstatement to say that this arrangement can at times feel very awkward, especially since I’m going to be making my first attempt at passing the boards this Saturday. I’m nervous about taking my boards, and so I inherently want to talk about it. Working right along side someone who has failed to pass it–twice–doesn’t make me any less nervous. But it also makes me horribly awkward about saying anything about my attempt. I can’t say, “I’m nervous, but I’ll probably do fine” to her–how could I?

For her part, she has been incredibly sweet and helpful about orienting me and showing me around, and seems not have the slightest shred of resentment toward me for literally taking her job out from under her. All the more–how could I possibly talk to her about my anxiousness concerning the boards?

Today we had a little break-through as we both talked openly with each other about studying for them. I showed her the app I’m using; she showed me her notecards. It was most pleasant. We were on even footing.

She has this graciousness thing down pat. She’s even going to bring me in a cookie recipe we’d talked about. Me? I feel incapable of being a gracious ‘winner’. What do I say? What do I do? I say, “thank you for everything” and she says “of course!” with her sweet smile, and somehow I just feel kind of slimey, even though I’m glad to have this job and I think it will be a good fit. The thing I most want to say is “welcome back! I missed working with you!” when she passes her boards. . .

Posted on August 3, 2011 by T.T. in Contemplations, Daily Log | Leave a comment

If I took a picture, you’d think I’d photo-shopped it

This morning I drove into the rising sun, and this afternoon I drove into the setting sun. Not a proper sunrise and sunset (though that will be coming soon, I’m sure, with the shorter days), but just the right angle to be in your eyes the whole way through. Today it was a different small town. I am seeing so much of picturesque, quaint rural America lately that I feel like I ought to taking along a camera and doing some proper photo-shoots for magazines, post-cards, and people who don’t believe that it really exists. (It really does, people!!)

I met two new PTAs today. . .one was the one that inadvertently got me a job, as she passed news of the opening on to her friend, who then passed it on to me. The other insisted she recognized me from somewhere, and come to think of it, she looked familiar to me too. We spent the whole morning trying to figure it out, and finally decided that it had been at the (local, small-town, entire community effort) craft fair a few weekends previous. I couldn’t place her booth exactly, and I struggle to believe out of the many people streaming past her she really remembered my face. Nonetheless, we were both definitely there.

Right now I am kind of feeling like the way things are right now is how I wished my clinical experiences would have been. I see a lot I can learn. I also feel pretty dang clueless (which I hate), but past clinical experiences have taught me that the first week is really the most acute phase of cluelessness. As long as I keep pushing myself through, I should feel a little (tiny) bit more settled by next week.

Posted on August 2, 2011 by T.T. in Daily Log, Physical Therapy | Leave a comment