That road to hell is well paved

Nick is officially a college Freshman, Jas has come and gone, and I have 2 more official FP days with Dr. B.  Hard to imagine that I am almost 15% done with the year. Um...really?

I don't know enough. That is what I know the most. The rest is just mush in my brain, and I am hoping at some point in time it clicks. As for now, Thank God for Epocrites and my other iPhone programs. I use them  a lot, and am ever grateful for the quick glance to make sure I "get" it- and hopefully get it right.

I had one day that I found difficult. A pt came into the UC facility that I was working with. He was young, and had 3 small children with him. There was no other family with him, and the kids were, well, kind to say, un-disciplined. Now, I give my kids (or rather gave...sniff. No more kids for me! One all grown and one ready to be an adult....) a fair amount of free rein. But, there were certain things that they knew crossed the line. And perhaps I might have flown off the handle a few times, who knows...(they might and I do), but overall, I was never horrified by them in public.  Actually, I have to say they usually made me proud.

So, this situation was tough for me. These kids needed to behave- Dad was in pain, sick, and needed a bit of a "best not to go to soak in the lake after getting a huge 'tat on your arm...and if it looks hot and inflamed and has smelly stuff oozing out of it- might be a good idea to head to your friendly ED/UC without your kids, before you have a full-blown abscess or 3 in your arm" kind of talk that you give to all your patients that come in. Well, maybe not exactly that, but...you can imagine something like that might be said to a supposed pt that might be presenting to you some day.  Just sayin'.

So, there was that line of pt needing my attention, and the kids demanding my attention. Kids won for a bit, only because I was afraid that they might end up needing a head CT from them bashing each others heads into the walls....

So, I left, and felt bad. My job was my patient- not the kids. My job was to take care of him, not his kids. My job was to treat him, not judge his parenting. For the first time, I felt that I learned something- from the patient, not a book. There is a great video...Every Person has a Story that says it better than I can- a training video from Chik-F-La. I have NO idea why that day I did not remember that important part of caring is...caring, but I am sure to remember from this point on. I have no idea what or how these kids got to be there, but surely they deserved more of me.

I would never have thought I'd have needed a lesson such as this- usually I am the one that points this out to others. But, in a very nice, yet direct way, someone showed me, and I appreciate it.

We learn more by being at the bedside than we learn from books. I am grateful...always.