Tag Archives: travel

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Authenticity and masks

The Ragtag Daily Prompt today is identity. Yesterday I went to work an hour early so I could attend the Friday morning Continuing Medical Education. It was about adult ADHD and the positives and negatives.

I do not have a diagnosis of ADHD. I have one friend who insists that I have it, but I don’t much care. However, the speaker started talking about masks and authenticity. She said that we are told to be authentic at work, but that people with ADHD often find that their authentic self is not welcomed and they learn to mask.

I asked, doesn’t everyone mask somewhat at work? She said, “Good point, and yes, people do.” It got me thinking about identity and masks. I pretty much clammed up in Kindergarten because I was too much of an outlier and culturally wrong. We did not have a television and television was pretty much what the other children talked about. I knew songs and poems but these did not interest my peers. I was interested in science, too, but that was also not popular. I think I was a geek before it was named and as soon as I learned to read, I became a bookworm. I am not sure if having a television would have made any difference, either.

Fast forward to after high school. I went to Denmark as an exchange student my senior year and then needed to make up credits to graduate. Another high school student was in my Community College classes. After a bit, she said, “I thought you were shy in high school.” I said, “No, I just didn’t talk.”

Currently I am more authentic in the room with patients than with the rest of the staff. Corporations are very weird hierarchical places. My authentic self always questions authority but I am trying not to do it all the time. At least, not out loud. The patients seem to be fine with it. I had a very difficult conversation with an elderly couple this week about memory and planning, now, before they can’t. I got hugs at the end of the visit even though we’d gone into frightening and difficult territory. They did very well. Yesterday was my last day at that clinic and next week I am in another one. Even after just four months in this clinic, I will miss many of the patients and hope they do well.

Yesterday I really did Urgent Care. My schedule only had a few people and then six more sick ones were added on. We had to call an ambulance for one, the first time I’ve had to do that here.

What is authenticity and what is our identity? Is the work mask less real than the self in our minds?

I took the photograph at a small hot springs resort. A friend that I’ve known since high school and I met there. I love the bookworm rabbit. I think she represents the happy bookworm part of me. I read about 7 novels a month, haunting the library here. Maybe I will get to know some more people over the next 6 months.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: identity.

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Air up high

Sunday I drove up to Grand Mesa, over 10,000 feet. Wow. The aspens gold and the evergreens green and the perfume of the clear air. The high temperature was much lower then in Grand Valley. A sign says that Grand Mesa is the world’s largest flat top mountain and there are hundreds of lakes on top.

And you can immerse yourself in gold.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: perfume.

No, I just couldn’t put up a John Denver song.

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The boring vampire

I meet a boring vampire
when I am boring too
when I am worrying with angst and ire
and have too much to do

It’s in the time of covid
We start to walk the beaches
The vampire won’t take paxlovid
His ego overreaches

He says his life’s perfection
He says his brain can’t fit his head
He has no belief in resurrection
That’s probably because he’s dead

I wonder that he lies
Does he think that I don’t see?
The person that believes the lies
Must be him, not me

I grieve before he ousts me
He says he’ll always be my friend
And he speaks of longing to be free
I know there will be an end

I know before he ousts me
He says we’re friends forever
I blink and calmly see
That it will soon be never

Some vampires don’t need staking
They do it to themselves
Isolation of their making
Hoarding blood upon their shelves

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The photograph is a “swamp robin” (Varied Thrush) from my yard, December 2022.

This has nothing to do with the Ragtag Daily Prompt: festival. Except that swamp robins are very festive.

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Weighing in

No nightmares about clinic since the one I wrote about two days ago. I do feel like a bit of a dinosaur in clinic, though. Most of my older patients seem to really be fond of dinosaurs.

I’ve heard from other docs that they don’t have time to talk to each other in clinic either. Patient time but primary care we read all the notes from everyone: specialists, PT, OT, xrays, CT, MRI, ultrasound, lab, lab, lab, lab, prescription refills, phone calls. I read that people are trying to insert Artificial Intelligence into this. I am fine with a computer learning to read mammograms, but condensing information from notes? The AIs currently can “hallucinate”, and make things up. Is that worrisome or am I being silly? Notes are often wrong ANYHOW, way more than I would like. I saw a patient yesterday who has a neurological disorder. The hospital discharge note lists the wrong one! The patient caught the error, I didn’t. I am very glad he corrected me, but the hospital note is still sitting there wrong. Having been labeled with wrong diagnoses myself, I think it is a big deal. In order to fix it, he would have to fill out a form and the form would go to the physician, who is supposed to respond and add an addendum to the note. How often do you think THAT happens?

The discharging physician suggests he see a specialist for testing. I call that specialist and they agree with me: that testing is not indicated, it won’t make one bit of difference in his treatment. The discharging physician also suggests lung testing. I don’t think it works or is useful with a serious neurological disorder that affects muscles! Think, people.

My patient is grumpy and asks how we know the medicine is working. I reply, “You’re not dead.” Which is true. Undiplomatic, but he does not mind, because he is already saying, “What is the point of this?” To explain more about the medicine working, I ask, “Is your breathing better than when you went to the emergency room?”

“Yes,” he says.

“That is because the medicine is working.” I explain how it works and what happens if he stops it.

Sometimes it makes me feel heavy, heavy, like a dinosaur.

But I think I will try discussing my clinic day with my cat. I think she might enjoy it and I can clear the grumps out. And it’s not a hipaa violation! She doesn’t like other cats and won’t tell them anything.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: dinosaur.

This is new to me:

I’ve never seen these cartoons. The animation is, well, not the best. The guitar work is fun though!

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Letters

I went to the post office Monday. I am in a rental house, and get packages every so often for the previous renter. This time I realized at the post office that one was misdelivered and was to the house next door. Ooops. But the post office said they would redeliver it.

I love snail mail letters. I have colored pens and stickers and stamps. The whole thing makes my inner child very happy. Once I got a letter from my mother-in-law saying that my letters are national treasures! I kept that letter.

I haven’t written myself a letter, but maybe I should. What would I write?

I sent the envelope above out, but it came back. I will be driving home soon and wrote to a friend on the way, but I must have the wrong address. I bought the stamps here. The stamp pads were expensive, though, so I only got two!

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: post office.

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Naughty

The naughtiest postcard I ever sent was to my friend B, when he was living the romantic life of a government tax economist in New Zealand. He had been working for the US government, but went off to work for New Zealand’s government for two years. I felt rather jealous. Uprooting as a physician with a husband and two children to go work in a foreign country seemed a bit insurmountable. There was an awful lot of difficult family drama and illness going on, so that is the real reason that I did not do it.

Anyhow, naughty postcards. I sent B a postcard from Georgetown. It is black and white, a man lying prone looking up. A sheep is standing over him, so that no naughty bits can be seen, but one certainly suspects that the man is nude. He and the sheep are looking at each other. The caption is “No more sheepless nights.” Eeeeee. I bought two of that one, because it made me laugh.

B sent a letter back, along the lines of, “Cut it out, you are getting me in trouble with the postman.” I desisted. I did not have any more postcards like that one.

I have bought and kept blank cards and postcards over the years. Good thing, too, now that cards are a whopping $4.00 to $7.00 each. People must buy them, right? I have picked up blanks at garage sales too, once in a while. And the ones I don’t like can go out in the Little Free Library for other people.

I plan to make a calendar and maybe some postcards of Elwha’s cat art. He did it more than Sol Duc does. The photograph is one of the designs, from February 2023. I did see both of them adding to it. Perhaps there was some sibling rivalry going on, I don’t know. This installation is quite complex, with two toy mice, the earbuds, one of those glittery balls tucked under a mouse and the toy made of pipe cleaners.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: postcard.

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Hole in the wall

The walls of rock at Arches National Park are so amazing. And are they arches or are they holes in the wall? And a hole in the wall doesn’t imply the majesty of arches or how amazing the remaining section of rock above us. Magical, amazing, unbelievable, astounding.