The Storm After the Calm

April was oddly quiet. I counted up yesterday we admitted nine whole patients (2 were re-admits) the entire month and might have had that many deaths or discharges, but probably less. Most days I was working on my own personal stuff while waiting for the phone to ring. I knew that could only many a storm was brewing on the horizon. This week it hit...in full force.

Monday wasn't too bad. One admission and two from the weekend. That was good because all of April's billing cleared through and I had spreadsheets to play with and invoices to create. Tuesday started out oddly, but I didn't think a whole lot about it except to commiserate with my friend Jenny. That afternoon, a tornado came through the office. Without the novel-length backstory, Jenny and I ended up racing down to Dallas at 3:30 to get to the City Hall and vital records department before it closed at 4:30 in order to get a birth certificate. We made it even though I didn't know where I was going (but Dallas isn't near as difficult to navigate as Boston), retrieved the certificate and went back to the office to fax it to a funeral home in Houston (praise God for HOV lanes!). That calmed that storm to a steady drizzle.

Wednesday: Exactly how many referrals can one nurse stack up in one day? This week: four. And that doesn't include another later, the fact that she already had an admission the next day to handle, the one from Monday was her's as well as one from the weekend, and several of the eleven patients she already has are actively dying. She talked the NP into letting another nurse help her. Meanwhile, I cleaned off my desk. There was no way I could stack another six admissions on top of the seven I already had without going insane.

All those referrals accumulated into three admissions on Thursday, plus she received two other referrals. We dished one out to another nurse (for Monday), she admitted one today, and she postponed the other til Wednesday. In numbers all this equals seven admissions in one week, with two already on the calendar for next week. In one week we have equaled our entire month of April. And after three days of spinning circles, frustrated because I can't keep any of these new patients in my head like I usually do; today has been very quiet. But maybe I shouldn't say anything...it's only 2 o'clock.

I also figured out this week that I really need a dog. I'm housesitting this weekend for a woman with two Sheep Dogs named Lilly and Jade. I went over after work yesterday and we played fetch in the backyard with a ball and frisbee for about 20 or 30 minutes. It was so relaxing to toss the toys across the yard, watch them catch or fetch them and bring them back to me. I would love to go home to that every day!