I'm sitting in one of my favourite old haunts, Taste and See coffee shop in Macon. I can remember so clearly passing away the summer days here, writing about how much I didn't want to leave this place, sipping counter culture coffee before I ever knew what counter culture was, taking time to myself after the long days of teaching gymnastics. I close my eyes, and life passes in an instant. Here I am - school is behind me - this place is all memories and long ago times and a place to be a passerby only, never to stay. Life feels that way - it's passed in an instant. I work in a place where I encounter this a lot, and it's taught me to respect time, my 20's, all that life as a young working person has to offer. I'm tired from work - a different kind of tired. Not the kind of tired I was in school. There's a weight of responsibility on me, and growing pains as I learn full-on adulthood. It's trying to find work-life balance, not gawk at how much money goes to taxes, and weighing healthcare plans. It's making financial plans and trying to pay off student loans and leaving work at 7 or 8 o'clock sometimes. It's finding new friends as my old ones move on into their new lives. It's keeping old friendships alive. It's (still) trying to learn how to cook. It's a season of many new things - including finally having health insurance.
Everytime I go to the pharmacy now, it's hard for it to not feel like Christmas. The concept of going to a pharmacy and not having fear and the feeling of a pit of despair in my stomach is still new. I used to regard pharmacies with a mix of hate and dread - isn't that funny? But I mean it. I hated the place that was filled with a drug I couldn't dream of affording. I'd even look at nursing carts during my internship at the hospital - nurses would open drawers, and pens upon pens of Novolog would be inside of them. They'd draw some insulin from a pen and throw the rest away. That hurt. I've spent a lot of my life going without, and it sucked. It feels like a bad dream now, but it's not, and it was really just a bad learning experience about what falling through the cracks of the American healthcare system means. The reason I write on all this is because of the story that recently made headlines about the 26 year old who died because he came up $25 short for his GoFundMe for insulin. What a sick reality is that? The sad thing is, it happens every day. I rationed insulin for so long. I purposely ate lower carb things to avoid having to give so much insulin. I'd go a unit or 2 without if it meant making my insulin last longer. I'd go without Lantus for an extra 12 hours so that I could have an extra day or two worth of insulin a month. I'd pull the extra insulin out of my insulin pens with a syringe so I could have the extra 10 units. I used insulin that had been expired for 2 years. I begged people for it. You don't leave that and forget it. As long as I live, I will never forget what it was like to have something I needed to live so far out of my reach that just thinking about it made me a little teary eyed. It's part of the reason why I love where I work for so much. I work with a lot of underserved people that need help. Who need advocates - and I hope to spend my life continuously learning how to better serve these people. Because I couldn't have made it through years without health insurance and scraping by with enough insulin through the skin of my teeth, without help from a lot of kind individuals. I'll always count my blessing for that $0 or $25 copay, because I'm happy just to have an affordable copay. Healthcare is a privilege I fought for, but I don't think it should be that way. It should be within the reach of people like you and I, whether that means holding pharmaceutical companies accountable for actually making these drugs affordable, or simply recognizing that there is a big problem, and that we all have to do something to change it. Whatever the solution, it starts with awareness of the problem. This blog is just one small way of making my own voice heard.
Saturday, December 2, 2017
Wednesday, November 15, 2017
Mentorship.
Mentorship can happen in the ways you least expect it, truly. I've come home feeling a little bit downtrodden about work some days over the past two months. It's been hard - my manager transitioned to a new company a week into my first day of employment, and I was sort of left to flounder a little bit with adjusting to a new work environment and learning the ropes of a SNF. I was expecting there to be another full-time PT - they left. We still don't have a dedicated manager. Part-time therapists come here and there. There were so many things that I was supposed to be formally taught but wasn't - the documentation system, that you put papers for the physician to sign in that folder, not that one, who the restorative nurses are and how I set up a program and which nurse gets the program; the fact that we never seem to have enough wheelchairs or matching footrests; that you have to print this paperwork but don't worry about this one; ARD's and OMRA's and which patients will let you treat them at this time or that.
I know, I know. Little guidance - that doesn't always make for the best environment for a new graduate. I've felt as though everything I needed to learn is an insurmountable mountain sometimes, and I feel that I've learned so much of it by error. My job has been where the qualities that made me a good homeschooler have come out a lot - I'm a very self-motivated person. I love to teach myself, to learn, and to be inquisitive in nature. And though it's been hard, I've been really blessed in the form of some absolutely incredible coworkers who have helped me. SNF's, as I've touched on in my last several blogs, can be difficult environments to work in. There are some very challenging patients. Some patients will love you, others may hate you for seemingly no reason. You change people, you're constantly on your guard and keeping an eye on people, you may get yelled at, you deal with employees who are less than thrilled to work there, the list goes on and on. Another thing I've encountered in this setting is an air of sometimes depressing complacency, in a number of places. I say this more as simply a topic of discussion rather than a blame game. I'm not laying blame on anyone. However, all too often I see employees speaking rudely to patients, or shaking their heads, saying, "Oh, them? They are where they are. They won't really get any better. They just talk a big game." Or, people treat patients rudely. "I don't have time for you. You're not my only patient, you know." Or, employees who will treat you rudely. Who you'll ask for help from and they'll just walk on by. I had a woman in the hallway pass me today who has midway though putting an oxygen tank back on a patient. She saw me and literally shoved the cord into my hand and left the patient without a tank on. "You do it," she said, stopping midway though the task, walking towards the door. "You were literally just in the middle of this. You can't just leave her," I told the lady. She shrugged. "I'm off for the day," and she walked out the door. I seethed a little as I helped the woman (a patient who I'd come to love working with) with her oxygen, unable to understand how a simple 10 second task was too much trouble for someone who gets paid to help these patients. I don't say this to paint myself as a saint, because I'm not one. I get tired and short with people just the same as any other human being. I've had to take resident's hands off me gently, shaking my hand, saying, "I'm sorry. I cannot help you right now. I am with another patient." However... working in this environment, I have learned so acutely that if you don't do something for a patient, it may not get done at all. It falls on you to be an advocate in so many ways. You don't know how bad it can get sometimes. I've come into patient's rooms and it's been far too long since they've been sitting in a soiled diaper. Or the PEG is clogged up and no one has come in to check it in far too long. Housekeeping has thrown away patient's shoes. A woman had fallen, door open, and no one had helped her. Or, all too often, even other therapists may write patients off before they've really even worked with them. I've worked with patients that other people have written off and gotten some really amazing results. You would be amazed at what some positivity does for a person. Patients need to know that you are enthusiastic and invested in their progress in a setting like this. They need to know that you care. If this means taking that extra 5 or 10 minutes to set up their room how they like it, or getting their ice water or an extra sheet, or getting them their daily coke from the staff room, working on things in therapy that they actually like doing, or jumping up and down for joy when they go from a maximum assist transfer to a minimum assist transfer over the course of a week, then do it! It's so key. I helped one of those very same patients who had been written off today stand in the parallel bars. He did 75% of the task alone today. A week and a half ago, he couldn't even stand at all. He cried tears of joy as his family came in and myself and the COTA told them glowing, at all of the progress that had been made. At how, being an engineer, he loved to hear about how joints and anatomical pulleys and muscles worked to help him stand, and how he could set himself up in the most biomechanically efficient way to stand. How teaching him these things helped it all click together for him. How he simply needed to know that he could do it, how much it benefitted him just to try. This was a man who couldn't even lift his leg to get out of bed a month ago. You wouldn't believe it now. Some patients don't get better, that's true. But you can't ever truly predict what someone's potential is until you give them the time. Never underestimate a person.
I had been feeling particularly downtrodden over the last three weeks due to my company's transition to a new company. It had been hard, there had been too much paperwork, we were so understaffed. This past Monday, one of my coworkers and I were part of a particularly trying care plan meeting with a patient's family. Afterwards, just needing to get out of the building for a break, we drove to Chick fil a for lunch - the very same one I used to frequent as a student. My coworker was leaving to go to a new company because her current commute was simply far too long. I was sad about it - we had become close, we were a good team, and we were able to cotreat extremely well together, excitedly shared rehab articles and new information with each other whenever we found it; this is something I think is a really special thing to find, when you click well with someone in a different therapy discipline. She'd been in therapy for 30 years this year, and in her, I saw a lot of what drives me to work in this population - a deep-seated love for people and a willingness to meet them where they're at. I've watched her treat so many patients with an incredible depth of compassion and a desire to learn about them in ways that helped them open up and thrive in therapy. I've watched her go out of her way and treat people with such incredible kindness that it made me feel that I need to try 100 times harder to be better. Her and I share the same optimism for patients and willingness to push them past what they or perhaps even other therapists think they can accomplish, and we have seen wonderful results for it. I told her how sad I was that she was leaving, and how I wasn't sure what I felt about the new transition, or where I was supposed to be. Still being in such a phase of learning as a new grad, it has been hard, with all the seemingly extra challenges piled upon me. She looked at me from across the table. "They need you," she said earnestly, and I shook my head, saying, "I know, I'm the only full time PT right now." She shook her head. "You're not hearing me. They need you. Not just for your license. But the way you treat patients. The way you treat people. You don't write people off before you've even tried. You encourage people and make them see all they can do. That gives them the push they need." She told me about how passionate she was for what she did. "I see a lot of the same in you," she told me, "And I hope you never lose that. Trust me. It's easy to get jaded in places like this, but I'm 30 years in, and it doesn't have to be like that."
This motivated me in so many ways. It's still hard. Another PT is starting this month, and I'm excited because this means I'll hopefully be able to learn more from them and continue to learn more wisdom from other coworkers that have worked in this environment far longer than me. My coworker who is leaving and I plan to keep in touch still. Many of my other coworkers have been so understanding and helpful in teaching me new things and correcting me if I make errors and helping me learn the things that they don't teach you in school, that you acquire from years if wisdom. And this week has reminded me that it's so important to embrace your own unique gifts for what they are. For me, that means continuing to try to encourage patients and show them what they're capable of, even when it seems they are in the darkest and lowest of places. This job has shown me how important it really is to have mentorship, not even necessarily from just one person, but from multiple, if that's how it goes and you can learn something from someone more experienced than you at something. And this job has shown me how important servitude is - how we, as able human beings, are called upon to help those who are needy, even if we are tired, or they are mean to us, or we have other people to see. I feel so strongly that we have a moral obligation to do these things, and though it can be hard, I am happy that I can spend my days serving others. Being kind. Mindfulness and kindness with how we treat others is so important.
Friends, if you've never looked inside of our nursing homes in America, please do someday. I see so many people get inspired about caring for children, but so many times, I see so little inspiration when it comes to caring for the elderly - a vastly forgotten population in these forgotten places. Not everyone is called to work with these people, but I will personally say that for me, it has been one of the most rewarding and rich experiences in my 24 year old life. Sometimes I walk out of work, exhausted and over it, no positive energy left to give. But every day I pass my patients in the hallways. I laugh with them, tell jokes, we smile, we cry, we share victories and I have the honor of helping improve their quality of life - I could go on and on and end up in tears over it because I love these people so much. People whose families don't even come to visit anymore. People who may otherwise have been given up on. These are special people with so much wisdom to give and we are privileged if we ever get a chance to hear them voice their stories. Let's remember that these people are a gift, shall we?
I know, I know. Little guidance - that doesn't always make for the best environment for a new graduate. I've felt as though everything I needed to learn is an insurmountable mountain sometimes, and I feel that I've learned so much of it by error. My job has been where the qualities that made me a good homeschooler have come out a lot - I'm a very self-motivated person. I love to teach myself, to learn, and to be inquisitive in nature. And though it's been hard, I've been really blessed in the form of some absolutely incredible coworkers who have helped me. SNF's, as I've touched on in my last several blogs, can be difficult environments to work in. There are some very challenging patients. Some patients will love you, others may hate you for seemingly no reason. You change people, you're constantly on your guard and keeping an eye on people, you may get yelled at, you deal with employees who are less than thrilled to work there, the list goes on and on. Another thing I've encountered in this setting is an air of sometimes depressing complacency, in a number of places. I say this more as simply a topic of discussion rather than a blame game. I'm not laying blame on anyone. However, all too often I see employees speaking rudely to patients, or shaking their heads, saying, "Oh, them? They are where they are. They won't really get any better. They just talk a big game." Or, people treat patients rudely. "I don't have time for you. You're not my only patient, you know." Or, employees who will treat you rudely. Who you'll ask for help from and they'll just walk on by. I had a woman in the hallway pass me today who has midway though putting an oxygen tank back on a patient. She saw me and literally shoved the cord into my hand and left the patient without a tank on. "You do it," she said, stopping midway though the task, walking towards the door. "You were literally just in the middle of this. You can't just leave her," I told the lady. She shrugged. "I'm off for the day," and she walked out the door. I seethed a little as I helped the woman (a patient who I'd come to love working with) with her oxygen, unable to understand how a simple 10 second task was too much trouble for someone who gets paid to help these patients. I don't say this to paint myself as a saint, because I'm not one. I get tired and short with people just the same as any other human being. I've had to take resident's hands off me gently, shaking my hand, saying, "I'm sorry. I cannot help you right now. I am with another patient." However... working in this environment, I have learned so acutely that if you don't do something for a patient, it may not get done at all. It falls on you to be an advocate in so many ways. You don't know how bad it can get sometimes. I've come into patient's rooms and it's been far too long since they've been sitting in a soiled diaper. Or the PEG is clogged up and no one has come in to check it in far too long. Housekeeping has thrown away patient's shoes. A woman had fallen, door open, and no one had helped her. Or, all too often, even other therapists may write patients off before they've really even worked with them. I've worked with patients that other people have written off and gotten some really amazing results. You would be amazed at what some positivity does for a person. Patients need to know that you are enthusiastic and invested in their progress in a setting like this. They need to know that you care. If this means taking that extra 5 or 10 minutes to set up their room how they like it, or getting their ice water or an extra sheet, or getting them their daily coke from the staff room, working on things in therapy that they actually like doing, or jumping up and down for joy when they go from a maximum assist transfer to a minimum assist transfer over the course of a week, then do it! It's so key. I helped one of those very same patients who had been written off today stand in the parallel bars. He did 75% of the task alone today. A week and a half ago, he couldn't even stand at all. He cried tears of joy as his family came in and myself and the COTA told them glowing, at all of the progress that had been made. At how, being an engineer, he loved to hear about how joints and anatomical pulleys and muscles worked to help him stand, and how he could set himself up in the most biomechanically efficient way to stand. How teaching him these things helped it all click together for him. How he simply needed to know that he could do it, how much it benefitted him just to try. This was a man who couldn't even lift his leg to get out of bed a month ago. You wouldn't believe it now. Some patients don't get better, that's true. But you can't ever truly predict what someone's potential is until you give them the time. Never underestimate a person.
I had been feeling particularly downtrodden over the last three weeks due to my company's transition to a new company. It had been hard, there had been too much paperwork, we were so understaffed. This past Monday, one of my coworkers and I were part of a particularly trying care plan meeting with a patient's family. Afterwards, just needing to get out of the building for a break, we drove to Chick fil a for lunch - the very same one I used to frequent as a student. My coworker was leaving to go to a new company because her current commute was simply far too long. I was sad about it - we had become close, we were a good team, and we were able to cotreat extremely well together, excitedly shared rehab articles and new information with each other whenever we found it; this is something I think is a really special thing to find, when you click well with someone in a different therapy discipline. She'd been in therapy for 30 years this year, and in her, I saw a lot of what drives me to work in this population - a deep-seated love for people and a willingness to meet them where they're at. I've watched her treat so many patients with an incredible depth of compassion and a desire to learn about them in ways that helped them open up and thrive in therapy. I've watched her go out of her way and treat people with such incredible kindness that it made me feel that I need to try 100 times harder to be better. Her and I share the same optimism for patients and willingness to push them past what they or perhaps even other therapists think they can accomplish, and we have seen wonderful results for it. I told her how sad I was that she was leaving, and how I wasn't sure what I felt about the new transition, or where I was supposed to be. Still being in such a phase of learning as a new grad, it has been hard, with all the seemingly extra challenges piled upon me. She looked at me from across the table. "They need you," she said earnestly, and I shook my head, saying, "I know, I'm the only full time PT right now." She shook her head. "You're not hearing me. They need you. Not just for your license. But the way you treat patients. The way you treat people. You don't write people off before you've even tried. You encourage people and make them see all they can do. That gives them the push they need." She told me about how passionate she was for what she did. "I see a lot of the same in you," she told me, "And I hope you never lose that. Trust me. It's easy to get jaded in places like this, but I'm 30 years in, and it doesn't have to be like that."
This motivated me in so many ways. It's still hard. Another PT is starting this month, and I'm excited because this means I'll hopefully be able to learn more from them and continue to learn more wisdom from other coworkers that have worked in this environment far longer than me. My coworker who is leaving and I plan to keep in touch still. Many of my other coworkers have been so understanding and helpful in teaching me new things and correcting me if I make errors and helping me learn the things that they don't teach you in school, that you acquire from years if wisdom. And this week has reminded me that it's so important to embrace your own unique gifts for what they are. For me, that means continuing to try to encourage patients and show them what they're capable of, even when it seems they are in the darkest and lowest of places. This job has shown me how important it really is to have mentorship, not even necessarily from just one person, but from multiple, if that's how it goes and you can learn something from someone more experienced than you at something. And this job has shown me how important servitude is - how we, as able human beings, are called upon to help those who are needy, even if we are tired, or they are mean to us, or we have other people to see. I feel so strongly that we have a moral obligation to do these things, and though it can be hard, I am happy that I can spend my days serving others. Being kind. Mindfulness and kindness with how we treat others is so important.
Friends, if you've never looked inside of our nursing homes in America, please do someday. I see so many people get inspired about caring for children, but so many times, I see so little inspiration when it comes to caring for the elderly - a vastly forgotten population in these forgotten places. Not everyone is called to work with these people, but I will personally say that for me, it has been one of the most rewarding and rich experiences in my 24 year old life. Sometimes I walk out of work, exhausted and over it, no positive energy left to give. But every day I pass my patients in the hallways. I laugh with them, tell jokes, we smile, we cry, we share victories and I have the honor of helping improve their quality of life - I could go on and on and end up in tears over it because I love these people so much. People whose families don't even come to visit anymore. People who may otherwise have been given up on. These are special people with so much wisdom to give and we are privileged if we ever get a chance to hear them voice their stories. Let's remember that these people are a gift, shall we?
Wednesday, November 8, 2017
Life Update: Mostly Paperwork, Breakthrough Patient Moments, and Dancing to Johnny Mathis.
Wait, hold on. Is it November already?
I cannot believe it. I feel as though I came back from Europe last January, and then woke up, and here I am. Another year has passed, and here we are, again, getting ready to put up the Christmas tree, making Thanksgiving plans, looking for gifts for everyone, wearing sweaters. Life has changed a good deal since graduating and starting work. I'm so incredibly startled by how much I have had to learn over the course of a couple of months as a full-time therapist on my own. I've been very humbled, frankly. To be honest, work hasn't been easy. I learned very shortly into my time there that my company had been bought out by another one, and November 1st was the official transition date. Learning a new documentation system has been rough. On top of that, my facility is severely understaffed. Last week was rough - it required discharging every patient, and then re-evaluating them in the new system, while maintaining a patient caseload during this time also, and trying to bill and write notes on a system that requires a huge learning curve. It meant a lot of 10-11 hour days and a list of paperwork longer than I could ever hope to finish. It meant coffee and rushed lunch breaks and being in a daze and my eyes blurred from staring at a computer. I'm tired, and being a new grad, it's been hard to learn the ropes. I work in a very fast-paced skilled nursing facility, and the days are a rush. One of the down sides to a SNF is that management pushes getting your minutes a lot. Productivity expectations are also very high. This means that 80-85% of my day should be treating patients even if I have 2-3 hours worth of paperwork. I have to try to reconcile providing what I feel is good patient care with getting my paperwork done on time. I have to be clever with getting minutes because a lot of patients are agitated, cognitively impaired, feeling sick, or just plain don't want to do therapy on a given day.
I think that nursing homes get a bad rap sometimes, though, and for the wrong reasons. A lot of people shy away from working in this setting. You lose your manual skills. It's not challenging. Old people are too hard to work with. I've heard it all. And the honest to God truth is, it is hard. I am a very positive person, but I've left work in tears some days. I've felt so down it's hard to paste a smile on my face. I've left work at 8 pm somedays, tired and someone asks me to help them and I'll stop and help them because they need it. Residents need help and demand things of you even if they aren't your patient and I believe it your moral duty to help if you are able bodied. One of my patients today was really mean. "I think out of all the therapists here I hate you the most," she said. "You're so damn pushy. How much more of this f****** exercise do we have left." I walked out of her room and heard her turn to her roommate and say, "I hate her. She bugs me."
She has psychological deficits, but I still take it personally, even if she can't help it. The fact is, you get beat up verbally by a lot of patients in a lot of ways. This stems from the simple fact that you treat a lot of patients at their worst. You have meetings with family members who can't buck up and tell mom they don't ever want to take her home. You get yelled at and told to get out of patient's rooms. My job is not glamorous. I hold a doctorate but if a patient needs assistance with changing, I'll be the one to change that diaper or empty that catheter. I wear a white coat that gets stained with God who knows what kind of fluids. I listen to sadness and carry the weight of it in my heart sometimes, and it is heavy. Patients go in and out of the hospital. I've had more than a few suddenly pass, one day there, one day gone. Some are just very needy and suck your mental energy away. Sometimes you have to sit the patient walking across the dining hall with her pants down and help her dress again because she doesn't know better. I've been hit by a patient. Something I do appreciate is that I get to use a variety of my skills. Ortho - neuro - prosthetics/orthotics - vestibular/balance; I measure wheelchairs, prescribe cushions, coordinate with clinics for orthotics, see patients with spinal cord injuries, pulmonary and cardiac conditions, ortho injuries, various strokes, amputations, diabetes, cancer, etc. - and every patient's treatment is different. Some won't do outright exercise. They're bored or have dementia and you have to keep it interesting. Sometimes you have to trouble shoot how that patient with the L sided hemiplegia and fractured proximal humerus on the right arm with aphasia, a PEG tube, catheter, and oxygen is going to walk again. Hunt down nurses and report if a patient is doing poorly and always keep an eye out and catch patients from falling and always be on the lookout. I help make decisions on when patients can go home, determine if they can walk in their room safely, have difficult conversations with family, call doctors, hunt down CNA's. I have to be loud and affirmative and stand my ground. I have to have a lot of patience and act confident even when I'm unsure and still learning things myself. It's very rewarding though, when you have a breakthrough. When a patient looks at you and thanks you for how much better they feel. When they walk 100 feet and when you evaluated them they couldn't even stand. When they walk in the gym because they've come back to visit after discharging and they look amazing. Playing Johnny Mathis per patient request and helping a patient to dance. Learning lessons from their life stories. It's a really special setting and I love it, despite the fact that it can be very draining and difficult sometimes. Being a new physical therapist can be hard, but it's a very rewarding field, and I'm glad for the ways in which this profession is changing me for the better and teaching me new things.
I cannot believe it. I feel as though I came back from Europe last January, and then woke up, and here I am. Another year has passed, and here we are, again, getting ready to put up the Christmas tree, making Thanksgiving plans, looking for gifts for everyone, wearing sweaters. Life has changed a good deal since graduating and starting work. I'm so incredibly startled by how much I have had to learn over the course of a couple of months as a full-time therapist on my own. I've been very humbled, frankly. To be honest, work hasn't been easy. I learned very shortly into my time there that my company had been bought out by another one, and November 1st was the official transition date. Learning a new documentation system has been rough. On top of that, my facility is severely understaffed. Last week was rough - it required discharging every patient, and then re-evaluating them in the new system, while maintaining a patient caseload during this time also, and trying to bill and write notes on a system that requires a huge learning curve. It meant a lot of 10-11 hour days and a list of paperwork longer than I could ever hope to finish. It meant coffee and rushed lunch breaks and being in a daze and my eyes blurred from staring at a computer. I'm tired, and being a new grad, it's been hard to learn the ropes. I work in a very fast-paced skilled nursing facility, and the days are a rush. One of the down sides to a SNF is that management pushes getting your minutes a lot. Productivity expectations are also very high. This means that 80-85% of my day should be treating patients even if I have 2-3 hours worth of paperwork. I have to try to reconcile providing what I feel is good patient care with getting my paperwork done on time. I have to be clever with getting minutes because a lot of patients are agitated, cognitively impaired, feeling sick, or just plain don't want to do therapy on a given day.
I think that nursing homes get a bad rap sometimes, though, and for the wrong reasons. A lot of people shy away from working in this setting. You lose your manual skills. It's not challenging. Old people are too hard to work with. I've heard it all. And the honest to God truth is, it is hard. I am a very positive person, but I've left work in tears some days. I've felt so down it's hard to paste a smile on my face. I've left work at 8 pm somedays, tired and someone asks me to help them and I'll stop and help them because they need it. Residents need help and demand things of you even if they aren't your patient and I believe it your moral duty to help if you are able bodied. One of my patients today was really mean. "I think out of all the therapists here I hate you the most," she said. "You're so damn pushy. How much more of this f****** exercise do we have left." I walked out of her room and heard her turn to her roommate and say, "I hate her. She bugs me."
She has psychological deficits, but I still take it personally, even if she can't help it. The fact is, you get beat up verbally by a lot of patients in a lot of ways. This stems from the simple fact that you treat a lot of patients at their worst. You have meetings with family members who can't buck up and tell mom they don't ever want to take her home. You get yelled at and told to get out of patient's rooms. My job is not glamorous. I hold a doctorate but if a patient needs assistance with changing, I'll be the one to change that diaper or empty that catheter. I wear a white coat that gets stained with God who knows what kind of fluids. I listen to sadness and carry the weight of it in my heart sometimes, and it is heavy. Patients go in and out of the hospital. I've had more than a few suddenly pass, one day there, one day gone. Some are just very needy and suck your mental energy away. Sometimes you have to sit the patient walking across the dining hall with her pants down and help her dress again because she doesn't know better. I've been hit by a patient. Something I do appreciate is that I get to use a variety of my skills. Ortho - neuro - prosthetics/orthotics - vestibular/balance; I measure wheelchairs, prescribe cushions, coordinate with clinics for orthotics, see patients with spinal cord injuries, pulmonary and cardiac conditions, ortho injuries, various strokes, amputations, diabetes, cancer, etc. - and every patient's treatment is different. Some won't do outright exercise. They're bored or have dementia and you have to keep it interesting. Sometimes you have to trouble shoot how that patient with the L sided hemiplegia and fractured proximal humerus on the right arm with aphasia, a PEG tube, catheter, and oxygen is going to walk again. Hunt down nurses and report if a patient is doing poorly and always keep an eye out and catch patients from falling and always be on the lookout. I help make decisions on when patients can go home, determine if they can walk in their room safely, have difficult conversations with family, call doctors, hunt down CNA's. I have to be loud and affirmative and stand my ground. I have to have a lot of patience and act confident even when I'm unsure and still learning things myself. It's very rewarding though, when you have a breakthrough. When a patient looks at you and thanks you for how much better they feel. When they walk 100 feet and when you evaluated them they couldn't even stand. When they walk in the gym because they've come back to visit after discharging and they look amazing. Playing Johnny Mathis per patient request and helping a patient to dance. Learning lessons from their life stories. It's a really special setting and I love it, despite the fact that it can be very draining and difficult sometimes. Being a new physical therapist can be hard, but it's a very rewarding field, and I'm glad for the ways in which this profession is changing me for the better and teaching me new things.
Thursday, October 19, 2017
Me Too.
I was just talking to someone last week about this. About how, growing up, it's easy to tell so-and-so that they should just tell someone about what happened. Speak up. Speak out. Call these people out. It's easy to say that when it isn't your problem.
It's harder when it happens to you. The sad thing is - the horrible thing is - it's happened to all women. I don't know a single woman my age who hasn't been the victim of sexual harassment or abuse/assault or has been taken advantage of or had something happen where they didn't consent or they aren't sure if they consented or if the lines are completely blurred but it still scars them.
It's little things sometimes. It's guys harassing you at the gas station at nighttime, making you feel uncomfortable as you're just trying to pump gas. You hurry a little faster. You press the lock on the door more quickly. Or maybe it's the guy that follows you back to your car and tries to ask how much you cost for an hour after you've left a kids party and you're dressed as a mermaid. I literally don't wear my cowgirl costume for kid's parties in public anymore because men will flat out harass you in it (this has been tried and tested - my best friend had it happen to her too, and it's not even an inappropriate costume). It's that jerk at your bachelorette party making fun of you for getting married and asking if you want to spend a night with him. It doesn't really matter what you wear. You can be wearing sweatpants and running and it'll still happen to you.
There's bigger things, things that hurt. Things that make you think afterwards, I should have done something or I should have said something, but you don't want to offend someone or don't want to make a big deal of it. Ladies, why don't we make a big deal of it? Are we not worth enough to make a big deal of it? I think of that time I was staying at my friend's house - she wasn't there. I wanted to go to bed to get to school in the morning. I was sleeping on the couch that night. My friend's brother wanted to hang out and watch movies. Then he wouldn't leave, even though I said I wanted to go to bed. I caught myself drifting off and woke up to him groping me. It creeped me out. I still didn't say anything. They were a nice family. Or that time my ex's friend came over to "help me feel better" after my breakup. I was stupid and naive. I cooked spaghetti and was washing dishes at the sink and he came over and started kissing me. "I'm sorry, I thought that's what you wanted. Everyone keeps talking about how you've been giving me signals since that first time we hung out," he said, as I stared at him in shock, thinking, I'd never once tried to give him any signals, period. This same guy later tried to convince me that he could help me through all the hurt of my ex - but we'd have to sleep together to get any "feelings" out of the way first.
My own experiences aren't the first or the worst or the last. But they're another string of stories in a long list of women that just want some respect from men and want to stop having to be creeped out by dudes that are "harmlessly" catcalling or "giving them a compliment" or saying lude things at the store. Please treat us like human beings and stop acting like we owe you anything. On a personal level, this is also why, as a woman, I choose to carry a firearm. It makes me feel safer to know that I can defend myself if anyone tries to make an advance at me. It HAS made me feel much safer on a number of situations since, as a woman who travels for a living (doing parties), I have traveled to a great deal of strange places completely alone, sometimes not getting back until late at night. The peace of mind is worth it, even if I never use it. I think the "me too" movement is cool - it's important to raise awareness about these important issues. If women are to ever be treated as equals, then we need to come out of the dark ages of thinking that the way women dress is what invites sexual advancement and harassment. I'm not saying women shouldn't be mindful of how they dress and be aware that certain things might attract more attention; but I'm definitely saying that how we raise our songs is just as important of a component too, and part of being a decent and functioning human being means having the decency to respect women and not treat them as objects. Let's all play our part to carry this generation into one that is more welcoming for people of all races, genders, orientations, religions, etc. Rant over.
It's harder when it happens to you. The sad thing is - the horrible thing is - it's happened to all women. I don't know a single woman my age who hasn't been the victim of sexual harassment or abuse/assault or has been taken advantage of or had something happen where they didn't consent or they aren't sure if they consented or if the lines are completely blurred but it still scars them.
It's little things sometimes. It's guys harassing you at the gas station at nighttime, making you feel uncomfortable as you're just trying to pump gas. You hurry a little faster. You press the lock on the door more quickly. Or maybe it's the guy that follows you back to your car and tries to ask how much you cost for an hour after you've left a kids party and you're dressed as a mermaid. I literally don't wear my cowgirl costume for kid's parties in public anymore because men will flat out harass you in it (this has been tried and tested - my best friend had it happen to her too, and it's not even an inappropriate costume). It's that jerk at your bachelorette party making fun of you for getting married and asking if you want to spend a night with him. It doesn't really matter what you wear. You can be wearing sweatpants and running and it'll still happen to you.
There's bigger things, things that hurt. Things that make you think afterwards, I should have done something or I should have said something, but you don't want to offend someone or don't want to make a big deal of it. Ladies, why don't we make a big deal of it? Are we not worth enough to make a big deal of it? I think of that time I was staying at my friend's house - she wasn't there. I wanted to go to bed to get to school in the morning. I was sleeping on the couch that night. My friend's brother wanted to hang out and watch movies. Then he wouldn't leave, even though I said I wanted to go to bed. I caught myself drifting off and woke up to him groping me. It creeped me out. I still didn't say anything. They were a nice family. Or that time my ex's friend came over to "help me feel better" after my breakup. I was stupid and naive. I cooked spaghetti and was washing dishes at the sink and he came over and started kissing me. "I'm sorry, I thought that's what you wanted. Everyone keeps talking about how you've been giving me signals since that first time we hung out," he said, as I stared at him in shock, thinking, I'd never once tried to give him any signals, period. This same guy later tried to convince me that he could help me through all the hurt of my ex - but we'd have to sleep together to get any "feelings" out of the way first.
My own experiences aren't the first or the worst or the last. But they're another string of stories in a long list of women that just want some respect from men and want to stop having to be creeped out by dudes that are "harmlessly" catcalling or "giving them a compliment" or saying lude things at the store. Please treat us like human beings and stop acting like we owe you anything. On a personal level, this is also why, as a woman, I choose to carry a firearm. It makes me feel safer to know that I can defend myself if anyone tries to make an advance at me. It HAS made me feel much safer on a number of situations since, as a woman who travels for a living (doing parties), I have traveled to a great deal of strange places completely alone, sometimes not getting back until late at night. The peace of mind is worth it, even if I never use it. I think the "me too" movement is cool - it's important to raise awareness about these important issues. If women are to ever be treated as equals, then we need to come out of the dark ages of thinking that the way women dress is what invites sexual advancement and harassment. I'm not saying women shouldn't be mindful of how they dress and be aware that certain things might attract more attention; but I'm definitely saying that how we raise our songs is just as important of a component too, and part of being a decent and functioning human being means having the decency to respect women and not treat them as objects. Let's all play our part to carry this generation into one that is more welcoming for people of all races, genders, orientations, religions, etc. Rant over.
Monday, October 2, 2017
All That I Pour From My Cup...
There's a huge dichotomy between the two jobs I work. It's been about a month and a half since I started working as a full time physical therapist, and it's insane how much I've learned in such a seemingly short period of time.
To be totally honest, I come home exhausted a lot. There is so much more to being an on-your-own, full-time, real-life therapist as opposed to a student. I remember my professors telling me that we would be surprised at how many "training wheels" and "safety barriers" we still had up even after clinical 3. I was prepared for that, and I wasn't. It is more tiring to me than I thought it would be to do both full time PT and parties, and I didn't think that it would be much different to work during the week and do parties on the weekend, but I am getting exhausted from it very quickly. I can't keep it up, and I know it. If I'm a cup pouring out for everyone around me, I'm getting dangerously low on what I have to pour in my own cup. I'm tired and frazzled. I'm shorter than usual, and I come home feeling drained, even though I love what I do. I just haven't given myself enough days to have a mental break and I need to have that moment to breathe so I can feel recharged. Thankfully, I'm taking this weekend off to relax, and that's going to help a lot. If anything, these past few weeks have taught me that it's so important, when you're in jobs that deal with people on a level like these do, to take time to yourself to recharge; otherwise, it's hard to have enough energy to devote to others. This is something I will continue to have to teach myself through my life, I think.
Aside from never being good at giving myself breaks, the dichotomy stems from the simple fact that I spend weekends with people at some of their best moments; and weeks with people who are facing some of their worst. For those of you that don't know, I work in a skilled nursing facility (a nursing home). I have always wanted to work in this setting since I entered PT school. I remember being a student in undergrad, and I was introduced to the setting by an old boyfriend. I'd spend afternoons walking through the halls, smelling all of the unusual smells and staring at yellow painted walls. Seeing people roll by in wheelchairs, propelling them or being pushed. Along the way, I came to the conclusion that this setting was for me. There was something about it that spoke to my heart, and I listened to that, making it my goal to work in a place like that when I graduated. So that's exactly what I did.
It's almost surreal, getting to go to work and do that every day now, and get paid for it, and to love it so dearly. The setting can be challenging in that there are a lot of demands placed on you on many ends; physically, emotionally, logistically. You help people that are and aren't your patients, as there are a dozen residents with a dozen different needs at any given time. You have to rely a lot on your rehab team members to help you with patients, whether that means getting them out of bed, or walking safely, or helping one into quadruped on the mat (hands and knees), or making sure the e-stim pads for Russian are on just right to facilitate shoulder movement in a patient with a subluxed shoulder due to arm weakness from a stroke; the list goes on and on. People stop to ask you a lot of questions. You talk to a lot of patient families and help them make difficult decisions for discharging. People will ask a lot of you, and sometimes it can be tiring; you give a lot from that cup of yours, emptying it throughout the day, and it can leave you coming home tired and drained. Sometimes, the sadness wears at you. There are people you can help and others you try to help but it never seems to quite do enough. They just don't improve like you want them to, despite all the energy poured into them. There's a lot of sadness because some people feel they've hit the bottom; others have problems with the nursing and have a long list of complaints that you also get to hear; sometimes, the solutions have to be given to others to help with, and they get lost somewhere up the chain of 7 people or so who have a small role to play in fixing the problem, and nothing ends up getting done.
Sometimes residents aren't there the next day - I've read a few obituaries on the bulletin and cried, looking at pictures from peoples lives, lives I knew for only glimpses. Sometimes you get yelled at, asked to get out of someone's room. Sometimes you'll introduce yourself and then forget to grab something like an oxygen tank and you come back in and the patient doesn't remember you and you have to introduce yourself all over again and they suddenly don't want to do therapy. Sometimes you catch glimpses of family members with sadness in their eyes. Bags being packed by family with resigned looks. Tired people. Patients who have received bad news and you're treating them and all you can do is feel with them. Exchange knowing glances but smile and try to look at the positives.
There are some very beautiful moments you can share with people, though. There's grit and sweat as you work with someone on something and you're hoping they can do it so greatly...and they succeed, and you're just as happy as they are in those moments. There's smiles and triumph in little victories, whether that's transferring from the bed to the wheelchair more easily or climbing the stairs or walking with 3 people helping your patient alongside you. Cheering in the therapy room and the first time standing in weeks and hugs before patients discharge. I had a patient transfer from the mat to the wheelchair using a sliding board entirely alone today and I wanted to dance around the room for joy, because when I met him, he couldn't even sit up out of bed by himself. I can't help but feel right alongside my patients and put my all into it, even if it's tiring sometimes. Even if I'm tired and just want to go home and sleep, when I'm with a patient, they've got my attention and my time fully. I love these human moments and human people. I love working with people who have had these beautiful and colorful lives and hearing their stories and feeling their emotions with them. I love treating them with the dignity they so deserve and working alongside them to help better their quality of life and saying hello each morning or afternoon. I love trying to be a small bright spot in their day and offering kindness and patience and a listening ear where I can. I love to empower people and show them that they can be strong and they can do things they didn't think they could before I started working with them. I love building rapport with these people and learning about why they are the way they are and growing as a clinician through working with these people to try and get better each day. Am I perfect at it? No. But my residents teach me these things, too, just as I teach them.
It's only been 7 weeks, and I've learned so much. There's a patient who doesn't always want to do therapy but one day I was helping her to her chair and asked about a photo on her nightstand. A woman looked about 16 and was leaning against a car in a chiffon layered dress with little lace gloves and white patent shoes. She must have spent 10 minutes talking about that photo and where she was when it was taken and all the while I stared at it adoringly, and also in awe; that beautiful woman was still right in front of me. She'd lived a whole life and now here she was, telling me about it. She told me about the Sears Roebuck building, now Ponce City Market, back when it was a place young girls could work over the summer as secretaries. She told me about the depression. She laughed and said that a guy might look at that photo and think nothing of her but "drool over that vintage car I was leaning on". I told her about my old apartment with the sunroom and the wooden floors and plaster walls and old clawfoot tub and she gushed over it. One sunny day recently, it was warm outside; I had my patient out there as she loved going out and did more therapy that way. We were taking a break and sweat was trickling down my back underneath my scratchy white coat as I walked, pushing her chair in the sunshine. Roses were blooming in the center of the courtyard and some of the residents were smelling them. One of the residents was trying to pick one but the thorns were prickly. I stopped her and told her I'd do it. I thought of how I regretted this as I was doing it, as the thorns were cutting through my white latex-free gloves and pricking me in the fingers, but then I'd also told the patient I was with that I'd get her a rose and she was behind me, urging me to do so. I cut one with the clip of my pen, and another for the other resident, handing it to her. "Are you a therapist?" She asked, as I handed her a rose.
"Yes. I worked with you this morning in the gym."
"Oh, how nice. Maybe I'll work with you again sometime."
I was worried she would prick her fingers on a thorn, so I picked a few thick leaves from one of the plants lining the sidewalk and wrapped both roses in the thick leaves, handing them back to my patients.
I was getting ready to leave that evening and I watched my patient from earlier hand the rose to another resident to let her smell. It was a pretty moment. Sometimes this patient yelled. Sometimes she got angry and wouldn't do therapy. But that evening, she remembered that rose, and 3 or so other residents were around her, taking turns sniffing the pink flower. The next day she told me she liked me because I didn't treat her like she was crazy for forgetting things. Yesterday, I worked with the same woman. "You look familiar," she told me. "I've worked with you all week," I said in reply.
"Is that so?" She didn't remember me at all anymore, but I hope that I've made some small difference.
I love this setting. One of the therapists I interned under once told me that if you can better someone's quality of life, even by a little bit; even if it helps them go to the bathroom on their own or get out of bed; it matters. Working in a place like where I work reminds me of this every day. Little things make a difference and little moments like roses in the sunshine make a difference. Sometimes you build rapport with patients and they don't remember it at all the next day. Again, sometimes you get yelled at, or you bear the brunt of all the emotions that may come from being in a difficult time in your life. Nursing homes are little worlds all of their own. They house so many people with long and colorful lives and beautiful, sad, tragic, and funny stories to tell. And they're important. It's important to me that these people know they are loved and cared for. It's important to me that we as healthcare providers care for these individuals just as I would children or adults out in society. It's important to me that they are treated with the same level of dignity, kindness and respect. And it's important to me to strive to better their quality of life in those small ways, as I dreamed of doing years ago when I was just an undergraduate student who knew practically nothing. People and the moments you spend with them are the most important thing we have in these lives, and there are so many stories that should be heard and so many opportunities to lend a listening ear. Whatever it is that you do in your life, for work or when you're around the people you love, I hope that this reminds you of how important it is to know that. One day, if I am lucky, I'll be older; I'll have lived a long life full of stories and funny moments and glorious successes and tragic heartbreaks; and I'll hope that someone treats me with kindness and a listening ear, too. We don't become less important as we grow older. Not at all. I want to spend my days reminding people of this fact.
To be totally honest, I come home exhausted a lot. There is so much more to being an on-your-own, full-time, real-life therapist as opposed to a student. I remember my professors telling me that we would be surprised at how many "training wheels" and "safety barriers" we still had up even after clinical 3. I was prepared for that, and I wasn't. It is more tiring to me than I thought it would be to do both full time PT and parties, and I didn't think that it would be much different to work during the week and do parties on the weekend, but I am getting exhausted from it very quickly. I can't keep it up, and I know it. If I'm a cup pouring out for everyone around me, I'm getting dangerously low on what I have to pour in my own cup. I'm tired and frazzled. I'm shorter than usual, and I come home feeling drained, even though I love what I do. I just haven't given myself enough days to have a mental break and I need to have that moment to breathe so I can feel recharged. Thankfully, I'm taking this weekend off to relax, and that's going to help a lot. If anything, these past few weeks have taught me that it's so important, when you're in jobs that deal with people on a level like these do, to take time to yourself to recharge; otherwise, it's hard to have enough energy to devote to others. This is something I will continue to have to teach myself through my life, I think.
Aside from never being good at giving myself breaks, the dichotomy stems from the simple fact that I spend weekends with people at some of their best moments; and weeks with people who are facing some of their worst. For those of you that don't know, I work in a skilled nursing facility (a nursing home). I have always wanted to work in this setting since I entered PT school. I remember being a student in undergrad, and I was introduced to the setting by an old boyfriend. I'd spend afternoons walking through the halls, smelling all of the unusual smells and staring at yellow painted walls. Seeing people roll by in wheelchairs, propelling them or being pushed. Along the way, I came to the conclusion that this setting was for me. There was something about it that spoke to my heart, and I listened to that, making it my goal to work in a place like that when I graduated. So that's exactly what I did.
It's almost surreal, getting to go to work and do that every day now, and get paid for it, and to love it so dearly. The setting can be challenging in that there are a lot of demands placed on you on many ends; physically, emotionally, logistically. You help people that are and aren't your patients, as there are a dozen residents with a dozen different needs at any given time. You have to rely a lot on your rehab team members to help you with patients, whether that means getting them out of bed, or walking safely, or helping one into quadruped on the mat (hands and knees), or making sure the e-stim pads for Russian are on just right to facilitate shoulder movement in a patient with a subluxed shoulder due to arm weakness from a stroke; the list goes on and on. People stop to ask you a lot of questions. You talk to a lot of patient families and help them make difficult decisions for discharging. People will ask a lot of you, and sometimes it can be tiring; you give a lot from that cup of yours, emptying it throughout the day, and it can leave you coming home tired and drained. Sometimes, the sadness wears at you. There are people you can help and others you try to help but it never seems to quite do enough. They just don't improve like you want them to, despite all the energy poured into them. There's a lot of sadness because some people feel they've hit the bottom; others have problems with the nursing and have a long list of complaints that you also get to hear; sometimes, the solutions have to be given to others to help with, and they get lost somewhere up the chain of 7 people or so who have a small role to play in fixing the problem, and nothing ends up getting done.
Sometimes residents aren't there the next day - I've read a few obituaries on the bulletin and cried, looking at pictures from peoples lives, lives I knew for only glimpses. Sometimes you get yelled at, asked to get out of someone's room. Sometimes you'll introduce yourself and then forget to grab something like an oxygen tank and you come back in and the patient doesn't remember you and you have to introduce yourself all over again and they suddenly don't want to do therapy. Sometimes you catch glimpses of family members with sadness in their eyes. Bags being packed by family with resigned looks. Tired people. Patients who have received bad news and you're treating them and all you can do is feel with them. Exchange knowing glances but smile and try to look at the positives.
There are some very beautiful moments you can share with people, though. There's grit and sweat as you work with someone on something and you're hoping they can do it so greatly...and they succeed, and you're just as happy as they are in those moments. There's smiles and triumph in little victories, whether that's transferring from the bed to the wheelchair more easily or climbing the stairs or walking with 3 people helping your patient alongside you. Cheering in the therapy room and the first time standing in weeks and hugs before patients discharge. I had a patient transfer from the mat to the wheelchair using a sliding board entirely alone today and I wanted to dance around the room for joy, because when I met him, he couldn't even sit up out of bed by himself. I can't help but feel right alongside my patients and put my all into it, even if it's tiring sometimes. Even if I'm tired and just want to go home and sleep, when I'm with a patient, they've got my attention and my time fully. I love these human moments and human people. I love working with people who have had these beautiful and colorful lives and hearing their stories and feeling their emotions with them. I love treating them with the dignity they so deserve and working alongside them to help better their quality of life and saying hello each morning or afternoon. I love trying to be a small bright spot in their day and offering kindness and patience and a listening ear where I can. I love to empower people and show them that they can be strong and they can do things they didn't think they could before I started working with them. I love building rapport with these people and learning about why they are the way they are and growing as a clinician through working with these people to try and get better each day. Am I perfect at it? No. But my residents teach me these things, too, just as I teach them.
It's only been 7 weeks, and I've learned so much. There's a patient who doesn't always want to do therapy but one day I was helping her to her chair and asked about a photo on her nightstand. A woman looked about 16 and was leaning against a car in a chiffon layered dress with little lace gloves and white patent shoes. She must have spent 10 minutes talking about that photo and where she was when it was taken and all the while I stared at it adoringly, and also in awe; that beautiful woman was still right in front of me. She'd lived a whole life and now here she was, telling me about it. She told me about the Sears Roebuck building, now Ponce City Market, back when it was a place young girls could work over the summer as secretaries. She told me about the depression. She laughed and said that a guy might look at that photo and think nothing of her but "drool over that vintage car I was leaning on". I told her about my old apartment with the sunroom and the wooden floors and plaster walls and old clawfoot tub and she gushed over it. One sunny day recently, it was warm outside; I had my patient out there as she loved going out and did more therapy that way. We were taking a break and sweat was trickling down my back underneath my scratchy white coat as I walked, pushing her chair in the sunshine. Roses were blooming in the center of the courtyard and some of the residents were smelling them. One of the residents was trying to pick one but the thorns were prickly. I stopped her and told her I'd do it. I thought of how I regretted this as I was doing it, as the thorns were cutting through my white latex-free gloves and pricking me in the fingers, but then I'd also told the patient I was with that I'd get her a rose and she was behind me, urging me to do so. I cut one with the clip of my pen, and another for the other resident, handing it to her. "Are you a therapist?" She asked, as I handed her a rose.
"Yes. I worked with you this morning in the gym."
"Oh, how nice. Maybe I'll work with you again sometime."
I was worried she would prick her fingers on a thorn, so I picked a few thick leaves from one of the plants lining the sidewalk and wrapped both roses in the thick leaves, handing them back to my patients.
I was getting ready to leave that evening and I watched my patient from earlier hand the rose to another resident to let her smell. It was a pretty moment. Sometimes this patient yelled. Sometimes she got angry and wouldn't do therapy. But that evening, she remembered that rose, and 3 or so other residents were around her, taking turns sniffing the pink flower. The next day she told me she liked me because I didn't treat her like she was crazy for forgetting things. Yesterday, I worked with the same woman. "You look familiar," she told me. "I've worked with you all week," I said in reply.
"Is that so?" She didn't remember me at all anymore, but I hope that I've made some small difference.
I love this setting. One of the therapists I interned under once told me that if you can better someone's quality of life, even by a little bit; even if it helps them go to the bathroom on their own or get out of bed; it matters. Working in a place like where I work reminds me of this every day. Little things make a difference and little moments like roses in the sunshine make a difference. Sometimes you build rapport with patients and they don't remember it at all the next day. Again, sometimes you get yelled at, or you bear the brunt of all the emotions that may come from being in a difficult time in your life. Nursing homes are little worlds all of their own. They house so many people with long and colorful lives and beautiful, sad, tragic, and funny stories to tell. And they're important. It's important to me that these people know they are loved and cared for. It's important to me that we as healthcare providers care for these individuals just as I would children or adults out in society. It's important to me that they are treated with the same level of dignity, kindness and respect. And it's important to me to strive to better their quality of life in those small ways, as I dreamed of doing years ago when I was just an undergraduate student who knew practically nothing. People and the moments you spend with them are the most important thing we have in these lives, and there are so many stories that should be heard and so many opportunities to lend a listening ear. Whatever it is that you do in your life, for work or when you're around the people you love, I hope that this reminds you of how important it is to know that. One day, if I am lucky, I'll be older; I'll have lived a long life full of stories and funny moments and glorious successes and tragic heartbreaks; and I'll hope that someone treats me with kindness and a listening ear, too. We don't become less important as we grow older. Not at all. I want to spend my days reminding people of this fact.
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
Today is a Good Day.
Last night I received some of the biggest news of my life. I know it was big news to ALL of my classmates - the culmination of years of hard work, achieving good grades, beating out hundreds of others for a spot in a very competitive program - and actually making it through the program. Passing my boards means I'm now licensed to practice physical therapy, and I can start my job once the state issues my license.
While this is a big deal to everyone, the post is about why it's such a big deal to me. Because, I feel like I could literally sing God praises through the rafters for finding out I passed. Words can't describe the work it took to get to that moment. The mental and physical strain it put on me. And words can't describe the depth of how God provided for me every step of the way... even when I doubted things.
My mind still goes back to the hospital room. Finding out I got Diabetes. Asking myself if I'd be able to have a "normal" life and even do physical therapy. It may seem easy to say "sure, why couldn't you" - but my life had been flipped upside down. Everything I knew was different now. Things were harder. And getting insulin was a very real issue on top of the strain of actually managing my disease.
I started crying last night because I have fought this fight for so long. I have struggled for so long. I've counted expired boxes of insulin in my fridge and turned to the black market and begged for medication to keep me alive for so long. I've gone without for so long. I've cried because of it. I've prayed to God I'd have enough. I started this journey knowing I'd have to have faith to get through, and it hasn't been easy. My faith has been tested for years. And I'm tired. I'm tired of that fight. It's made me stronger, but for so long I've used those expired pens and recalculated my insulin doses alone because doctors aren't affordable to people without (or without good) healthcare. This isn't to garner pity, it's to say that I've run myself ragged with fighting, I feel like I've fought the good fight, and for the first time in my life - I'm breathing a sigh of relief, because my God, I'm here. I've made it.
Passing my boards means for the first time in a long time, I can see a doctor consistently. Passing my boards means I can have not expired insulin. I can go to the pharmacy and pay a reasonable copay and I can have insulin every month. I can get a pump... a CGM... I can have resources. I don't have to beg for medicine. I don't have to rely on samples. I will be provided for. I will have stability.
Stability... that's something I haven't had in a long time. Just the knowledge that I'll have the resources to take care of myself month after month is enough to make me dance in joy. I have never had to go without, thankfully, but it takes a toll on you - worrying, month after month who you can ask for more insulin or whether there will be any in a few months.
God did provide for me every step of the way. He gave me an incredible doctor who prescribed me as much as she could every month while I had medicaid. "You'll need it someday," she had told me, and she was right. This doctor saved my life - it was because of her that I had enough insulin to last me through the years. They were pediatric endocrinologists, but they let me see them until I was 21. They always prescribed me more than I needed. I never went without, because of them. People have given me insulin when diabetic relatives passed away. It touched my heart that through their pain, they still thought to reach out to me and give me medicine. Someone gave me almost 6 months worth of insulin once... another person gave me almost a year worth of test strips. Support groups online for people like me made sure I didn't go without. Every time I doubted I'd have enough, someone was there, with samples or medicine here and there. This is the world of bad healthcare: people have to do these things. I had to do these things. I'm not happy about it, but I was always provided for. And when I had to pay for medicine - God helped the business I started to flourish, and he gave me enough business to save for what I needed. Things may have gotten hairy sometimes, but I have always had enough. Always.
In short, God is good. I'm blown away by his provision over the last few years. It's been a hard road, and an uncertain one. It tested me more than I ever thought possible. It's made me a fighter, perhaps a little too much so. But through that I came out and I survived, and I know I can survive anything in my future after all I've been through the last few years.
Today is very much a day to celebrate, to breathe a sigh of relief, and to let myself relax after years of obstacles and hurdles that tried to stop me from getting here.
I by no means think that life will be a cakewalk from here - I know that my first year of treating patients will be a huge learning curve that will test and challenge me. But this is a challenge I will happily step up to.
Today, I passed. Today, I have a job. And I hope that I can live my whole life in thanks of all of the blessings God has given me up to this point. I hope that I can live my life helping others, like others helped me. Today is a good day.
While this is a big deal to everyone, the post is about why it's such a big deal to me. Because, I feel like I could literally sing God praises through the rafters for finding out I passed. Words can't describe the work it took to get to that moment. The mental and physical strain it put on me. And words can't describe the depth of how God provided for me every step of the way... even when I doubted things.
My mind still goes back to the hospital room. Finding out I got Diabetes. Asking myself if I'd be able to have a "normal" life and even do physical therapy. It may seem easy to say "sure, why couldn't you" - but my life had been flipped upside down. Everything I knew was different now. Things were harder. And getting insulin was a very real issue on top of the strain of actually managing my disease.
I started crying last night because I have fought this fight for so long. I have struggled for so long. I've counted expired boxes of insulin in my fridge and turned to the black market and begged for medication to keep me alive for so long. I've gone without for so long. I've cried because of it. I've prayed to God I'd have enough. I started this journey knowing I'd have to have faith to get through, and it hasn't been easy. My faith has been tested for years. And I'm tired. I'm tired of that fight. It's made me stronger, but for so long I've used those expired pens and recalculated my insulin doses alone because doctors aren't affordable to people without (or without good) healthcare. This isn't to garner pity, it's to say that I've run myself ragged with fighting, I feel like I've fought the good fight, and for the first time in my life - I'm breathing a sigh of relief, because my God, I'm here. I've made it.
Passing my boards means for the first time in a long time, I can see a doctor consistently. Passing my boards means I can have not expired insulin. I can go to the pharmacy and pay a reasonable copay and I can have insulin every month. I can get a pump... a CGM... I can have resources. I don't have to beg for medicine. I don't have to rely on samples. I will be provided for. I will have stability.
Stability... that's something I haven't had in a long time. Just the knowledge that I'll have the resources to take care of myself month after month is enough to make me dance in joy. I have never had to go without, thankfully, but it takes a toll on you - worrying, month after month who you can ask for more insulin or whether there will be any in a few months.
God did provide for me every step of the way. He gave me an incredible doctor who prescribed me as much as she could every month while I had medicaid. "You'll need it someday," she had told me, and she was right. This doctor saved my life - it was because of her that I had enough insulin to last me through the years. They were pediatric endocrinologists, but they let me see them until I was 21. They always prescribed me more than I needed. I never went without, because of them. People have given me insulin when diabetic relatives passed away. It touched my heart that through their pain, they still thought to reach out to me and give me medicine. Someone gave me almost 6 months worth of insulin once... another person gave me almost a year worth of test strips. Support groups online for people like me made sure I didn't go without. Every time I doubted I'd have enough, someone was there, with samples or medicine here and there. This is the world of bad healthcare: people have to do these things. I had to do these things. I'm not happy about it, but I was always provided for. And when I had to pay for medicine - God helped the business I started to flourish, and he gave me enough business to save for what I needed. Things may have gotten hairy sometimes, but I have always had enough. Always.
In short, God is good. I'm blown away by his provision over the last few years. It's been a hard road, and an uncertain one. It tested me more than I ever thought possible. It's made me a fighter, perhaps a little too much so. But through that I came out and I survived, and I know I can survive anything in my future after all I've been through the last few years.
Today is very much a day to celebrate, to breathe a sigh of relief, and to let myself relax after years of obstacles and hurdles that tried to stop me from getting here.
I by no means think that life will be a cakewalk from here - I know that my first year of treating patients will be a huge learning curve that will test and challenge me. But this is a challenge I will happily step up to.
Today, I passed. Today, I have a job. And I hope that I can live my whole life in thanks of all of the blessings God has given me up to this point. I hope that I can live my life helping others, like others helped me. Today is a good day.
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
My Normal, Not-So-Normal Diabetic Life
Yesterday was a fun experience for me. One of my old professors from Mercer asked me to come in and volunteer for Diabetes foot lab. This is a day that students get to practice performing diabetic foot exams on real patients -- reflexes, sensation screen, ROM, foot strength, ulcer screens, temperature checks, and ABI (Ankle-Brachial Index, a measure of your foot circulation). I arrived to a group of what appeared to me mostly Type II's. One woman turned to me and asked me if I was with the foot lab. "I am!" I told her. "Oh, yay, I'm not the only one!" She continued to chat with me as we sat on the lobby couch. "So are you a student?" One of the people across from me asked. "I used to be. I just graduated! Now I'm the patient!" "You must be Type 1," he said. I told him I was. "Do you have a pump?" I nodded no, I didn't. "My insurance doesn't cover one. But I'm hoping, if I pass my boards and start working soon, that I can get an Omnipod. It's tubeless!" He and the other lady sounded very impressed by this. I couldn't blame them - that was my response when I found out that pumps were tubeless, too. When I was diagnosed, which in the world of medicine (6 and a half years) was a long time ago, pumps were attached to you with tubes. This can make things like swimming and showering and dressing other activities difficult. I feel like I wouldn't really mind if my pump was tubeless. I had tried the sample my diabetes educator had given to me back in April. Unfortunately, it was just a sample, so I didn't get to insert it - the part that really scared me. They used to have really big insertion sets (see below) and I'm sure they still do, but the Omnipod actually inserts itself once you turn it out. Not going to lie, that scares the heck out of me. Way back in the day, your girl here used to be very afraid of needles. Now I'm only a little afraid of needles. Meaning, I still look away and get anxious when I go to the doctor's for a shot. I hate getting blood drawn. And the way I get around dealing with injecting myself is simply by doing just that - doing it myself. That way it's predictable and at my own pace. I don't like other people doing it for me. I suppose I'll get used to it if I get the Omnipod - it'll just be a challenge for my fear.
"Are you using insulin pen needles?" I asked the woman beside me. "No," she said. "I used to. I used to have good insurance. Now I'm on syringes and vials." "Me, too," I told her. "Or really, anything I can get my hands on!" We laughed a little at that, mutually understanding of how difficult this disease can be financially on people. We deal, but life gets a little harder for it.
The sensation on my feet checked out just fine. I don't feel the monofilament on my heel quite as much (a measure of protective sensation), but my heels are almost all callus from years of dance and gymnastics and barefoot walking. My ABI was above 1.0 on both feet. I was very glad about both of these things - I feel as though I'm hyper aware of my body now. I'm always worried that maybe I don't feel as well on my toes as I used to, or that if my feet fall asleep it's definitely neuropathy. A lot of my research in graduate school was on preventing and treating diabetic peripheral neuropathy. I've spent a lot of time designing exercise programs and researching the programs with the best efficacy - lots of swimming, balance exercises, ankle/foot strengthening, and progressive walking and treadmill programs. I recently started running also in hopes of keeping my sugars well controlled and keeping my feet strong. I desperately want to stay healthy.
It's still hard. I called the pharmacy to refill my insulin this morning. "Just the Lantus," I told the pharmacist. The (long acting) Lantus is fully covered. My short acting Novolog (or Humalog), that you take at mealtime, is still only partly covered. "You're just refilling the one?" She asked. "The other one is a little expensive," I told her. "Well I'd hate for you to only be taking one... oh, that this expensive." I laughed. "It's ok, I know." It wasn't her fault. I had managed well enough thus far. I still held my hopes up that I'd pass boards and get health insurance at my job soon. One can only pray...
Life is what it is though. It's a daily struggle to make sure you have the means to get your medicine, it's a daily struggle to eat well and keep good blood sugars. You toe the line between a normal life and a life completely flipped upside down. Struggling to maintain normalcy. My hopes in writing these blogs is to help spread awareness for the kind of daily lives that people like me lead. Whether that means someone with Diabetes reads this and knows they aren't along, or people without it read it and understand why health care policy is so important for the sick, I'll keep writing. I always will - if I'm stuck with this disease, I might as well be a mouthpiece for it, right?
Monday, July 17, 2017
My Experiences With the Harsh Reality of Healthcare
One of my Diabetes friends posted on my wall this morning, saying "you might be interested". It was a screenshot of a post from a Graduate student looking to interview Type 1's who have had limited access to insulin for her thesis. I sent the woman in the post a message, a little more excited than perhaps I should be about gushing about the last few years of my life.
It never fails to evoke an emotional response, those last few years. Nothing makes me have a lump in my throat or watery eyes faster, in fact, than telling this story. It's a story that has been told through the form of posts on this blog here, but that is one of my only outlets for my story. I couldn't tell a lot of people in school because I was supposed to have health insurance throughout all those years, or health insurance in the state I was living in. My struggles therefore had to be a tight-kept secret to many.
I just got off the phone with my endo office, canceling my appointment because I owe a balance that I wasn't told my school's insurance wouldn't pay, and I'm worried that since I lose my school insurance next week, I'll be responsible for it and the full cost ($700) of my endo visit. Not having insulin is a stress, yes, but so is having $1000 in outstanding medical bills. This scenario encapsulates a lot of my struggles throughout the year into one big nutshell:
Not having guaranteed access to medicine is stressful. But so is having more medical debt than you can pay.
It's easy to be a healthy person and say, "you should just bite the bullet and pay it. I mean, what can be more important than your health?" Or, "Just take out more loans... worry about paying them later."
That's great, but unless you're the one saddling yourself with the thousands of dollars in debt - you can't understand the pit of despair that feels like. I've tried for years to save a nest egg, put away in case of a rainy day. It's come in handy. When I wrecked my car, bought a new car and that one died too. Car troubles over the year. Moving to grad school. The $6000 emergency room visit. Not being able to work as much in grad school. It eases my troubles to know I have money put away just in case of these things, even if they aren't fun expenditures. But it also means I've mindful of where I put my money, and I don't like having outstanding debt from my last two doctor's visits, let alone the debt I would have had from years of these visits. I guess that's something I kept in mind as I lived this struggle for the last few years.
When I went to Wesleyan, I had Florida Medicaid. It was the only thing that would pay for my doctor's visits and my insulin monthly. My endos were very understanding of me only being able to make appointments in between semesters (two visits a year). They always filled my prescriptions and I could email them my glucose logs. My control was good. Wesleyan didn't technically allow this insurance because it wouldn't cover me in Georgia. But they didn't understand that I couldn't be a resident, because students with student addresses can't be residents, and they didn't let students live off campus, so I had no choice. I could buy their insurance, but then I'd lose Medicaid and their insurance didn't do much in the way of covering the expensive prescriptions or specialists I needed for my condition. Student insurance, as it may not come to surprise you, is very subpar. I somehow managed to enter the insurance information in the system in a manner that they approved of, saying I had Medicaid but not specifying the state. I banked on the fact that Medicaid never answers the phone, so if they tried to confirm that I had Georgia Medicaid and not Florida, they'd never actually talk to a human being unless they wanted to wait 2-3 hours.
And it worked. For 3 years, I was able to keep my insurance. I was very young; I moved to Georgia when I was 17, and while I lived in fear at 18 that they'd take the Medicaid away, they actually let me keep it until I was 21. And my endo always prescribed me full boxes of 5 pens each of insulin - I was able to stockpile all of the extra throughout the years.
Time goes on, and I move to Atlanta for graduate school. I'm 20, and I know I'm going to lose my insurance soon. I go down for one last visit. I'm too old to see my pediatric endocrinologist now, so I have to make a visit with another endo. There is only one in the entire Orlando area that takes Medicaid. It's understandable; Medicaid hardly, if at all, reimburses physicians. It's basically a charity visit. But I still need to see someone. I make an appointment with a Dr. Lorenzen 5 months in advance because that's the soonest I can see her. It's August 2014 when I drive down to see her. The first thing she does is ridicule me. "I can't believe you don't go see anyone more often... I don't even know why you bothered to come. You're going to be one of those noncompliants." It hurt my feelings a lot. I tried to explain to her that I was too old for the pediatric endo and she was the only one that took Medicaid and it took 5 months to get an appointment to see her. I tried to explain that I could only make the 6 hour trip to Florida between semesters to see the doctor. She didn't listen. She just ridiculed. It had been since December of last year since I'd seen anyone. My A1C was 7.5%, which was a little on the high side, but considering I hadn't seen anyone in almost a year and had gone through a brutal breakup with an ex boyfriend in February, who was still currently stalking me and causing a lot of stress (which raises blood sugar levels), I though that was pretty damn good, thank you very much. I'm a woman that does what she has to and knows how to survive.
She only gave me one month's worth of insulin because I was apparently an awful diabetic and she didn't want to "reward" my noncompliance. It was fu**** up. And then she sent my bill to a credit agency for collection because she didn't file the Medicaid right anyways, so I was stuck with the bill. I never paid her, out of principle. She was the worst doctor I ever saw.
But that was it. From that moment on, I wouldn't see another doctor until February of this year. The first semester, I did the same thing I had done at Wesleyan to keep my Medicaid through October when I turned 21 so I could have that last visit. Insurance was $900 a semester at Mercer, which meant I would have to take out a separate loan just to pay for it, since it exceeded the federal loans I qualified for. In addition, it didn't cover my prescriptions past $500 per semester. My insulin cost more than that per month. The insurance, in short, was essentially useless for me. I even sat down and did the math with the head of my PT program and we both agreed it was a very poor option for me.
I made a decision. I counted the boxes of insulin I had saved up in the fridge. I did the math.
And I had enough to last until May 2017. Sure, some of it would be expired, but as long as it wasn't cloudy, I was going to use it.
And until Fall of 2016, that it what I did. In summer of 2016, Mercer finally caught on and realized I 1. Didn't have Medicaid anymore and 2. Florida Medicaid wasn't considered adequate coverage in Georgia and made me get their insurance. It was fine; I'd been on this ride long enough. To supplement my dwindling supplies, I was having to resort to charity and the goodness of others to give me things I needed. It was getting harder. I needed to see someone. And that brings me to my endo visit in February (I have a post on it on my blog here).
Has it been easy? No. I heard some of my classmates talking shortly before we graduated about being worried about not having health insurance over the summer. I don't downplay that that may be stressful for a lot of people. It's just... if that's stressful, think of what it's like to have a chronic illness and not have insurance for over two years. It's been a game of luck, a game of relying on the goodness of others, and a game of quite frankly, testing my mettle as a human being bent on survival. I may have made things unnecessarily hard on myself, but frankly I'm not really sure I did. I would have spent thousands on insurance that did me no good and then still spent thousands on insulin not covered for it, which meant I would have just used my insulin supply instead of buying new stuff anyways. It's been hard, after my supply has started to dwindle, but I've been very thankful to have help from people in all sorts of places. It's been hard working every single weekend in a program that goes just short of forbidding you to work in the program because of how academically rigorous it is. But I did it, and I did what I had to to survive and make sure I had what I needed to live. I juggled work, school, and illness and I came out with my degree. And yes, it meant I didn't get the best grades. I wasn't the most involved in school activities. But I survived.
This is the reality of the American healthcare system. It has forced me to get insurance that doesn't cover what I need. It has still failed to make my insurance affordable, because even looking into other options, they don't make subsidies available to students who don't claim income above a certain level. And insulin prices keep raising simply because companies can raise the price - even though Banting, the man that discovered insulin, sold it cheap to allow people like me to have access to it back in the 1920's. This is what having limited access to insurance and insulin is like. And I guarantee you that you have, or you know someone, who has experienced something like this too. Making the choice between savings or medicine, debt or healthcare, going with or without. Not being able to do what's best for your health not because you don't want to but because it's a cost benefit analysis that costs you dearly either way. Getting, sometimes, blamed or ridiculed by healthcare practitioners that don't seem to understand it.
And while this battle is (hopefully) going to be over for me when I pass my boards and get to start working at my job with benefits, I hope to God that this changes someday. Because the things I have had to do for survival, quite frankly, sucked ass. And I would never wish those struggles on my worst enemy. No one deserves to go through it, but we with chronic illnesses, we who are sick, we do. And you all need to know how hard that struggle is.
Friday, July 7, 2017
Business: the Good, the Bad, the Ugly
Last night, I realized that, despite having been a children's entertainer for years, there's a first for everything. I read the email from Paypal in disbelief that they'd decided to believe the client that stated the charge (for the deposit they paid for me) was unauthorized. Even though the card matched the name and address that they gave me and that I went to do the party at. Even with 2 witnesses, a booking agency to vouch for my being there, and a contract as well as an entire written conversation where the client agreed to pay the deposit and then confirmed paying it. Paypal and the client's bank still decided to refund them, leaving me with a $70 loss. I was pretty upset about this, vented a little to some other face painters, and set out trying to contact Paypal again to reinvestigate the case. I tried to reach out to the client (with no avail, of course). Thieves are going to be thieves I guess.
Thankfully, aside from one bounced check I've never had any issues, but it was a reminder to me that you never know if you're going to deal with a bad person, no matter how prepared you feel that you are. This, sometimes, is a lot of the ugly sides of business - you deal with these things, a small percentage every year gets chalked up to bad debt that you simply have to eat, and you move on. There's days when it feels like all 5 of the clients I've been talking to decide to go with other entertainers after stringing me along for a week or two. Or who flat out tell me I charge too much (I charge the same as any reputable entertainer here). People are going to be people. It hits you a little harder when you're personally invested and your livelihood is at stake. It hits you a little harder when you don't clock out for the day, but you dwell on this stuff because it's yours to dwell on.
There's the days that go on forever, too. It's 10:45, and I crawl into my car, my Rapunzel skirt soaked with water, my ballet flats damp from the rain. I've hauled my bags out in the dark and rain alone, and I had struggled to get the heavy bags back into my car. I can't help but think of a lot of scenarios like this one that have played out through the years. People are sometimes impressed at the level of success I've had with this business. (Long story short, I already have savings and investments that I started at 18). Business allows you to be incredibly successful and achieve a lot.
But it came at a price. I have sacrificed birthdays, holidays and time with friends to grow my business, to take that "really good gig", to put some more money into savings or make sure I can pay my bills each month. I've worked my birthdays, I've missed family dinners, parties, fun weekend events. Much to the chagrin of some less understanding friends... heck, I even had an ex mock me and say I didn't know what it was like to have a real job until I did retail or wait tables. He'd say it was unfair of me to make so much more than him, and mock me for working even though that same work, while it required me to work some holidays, paid his bills! (And to him I politely say, f*** you. I never worked in the rat race of retail/restaurants because I didn't have to. Start your own business if you can't deal with that). All that to say though, you've got to tune out the unsupportive people if you have goals and dreams of your own. The people that will love you, will support you.
The weekend just isn't really my time to have fun because I have work to do. Worth it? Yes. Is it a sacrifice? Also yes. I don't get an off day unless I give it to myself, and if I do, there's no paid time off. I accept the fact that I'm losing out on money. Which is fine, but you have to plan and save for those weekends, or those slow weekends or slow seasons (cough, summer).
Having a business has been one of the most rewarding ventures of my entire life. It has taught me SO much about myself. I started as a shy 17 year old, putting ads on Gigmasters, even Craigslist, to drum up business. I think I got 3 gigs my first summer, that was it! I knew no one, I had no clientele, and I was entirely new at this. My heart hammered every time I called a client to follow up with them about an event inquiry. I tried to sound as though my voice wasn't shaking, tried to sound confident, even if I wasn't! That was my life for years. Trying to be confident, even when I wasn't. I laugh now, but this was a time before I even had a working GPS on my phone. I used an out of date Garmin and refused to buy a charge cord for it, so I turned it on, wrote down the directions, and then turned it back on every 30 minutes or so on long car rides, only leaving it on once I got close to my destination. I made a lot of wrong turns back then...
I was still learning how to twist balloons. I'd stay up until midnight practicing some nights. I'd play around with my princess makeup, trying to make it as good as I could. I'd cram to get all my homework done during the week so that I could devote the weekends to work.
Fast forward a year, and my business was actually starting to take off. I had consistent gigs every single weekend of the year. My first year, I'd get 2, maybe even 3 bookings every weekend - I started to get 2 or 3 bookings on Saturdays and Sundays. The most events I've ever done in one day was 5 (and I don't recommend it). I was actually confident on the phone now. I had learned (the hard way) to take deposits to avoid getting stood up at parties. I was starting to build clientele and get good reviews online. These reviews have helped me to get gigs every year after that. I built a reputation and I worked hard to make people happy. Sometimes this meant staying a little late at events, or going the extra mile to dress to match a theme or learn to make a lifesize Dr. Seuss balloon with lifesize matching Thing 1 and 2's just to make a client happy. Going the extra mile, keeping a smile pasted on your face and cheer in your voice even when you're dead tired - these are, I will always firmly believe, pivotal to giving customers a good experience. It's my way and it's worked, at least.
But at the end of the day, as I grow closer to taking less weekend events and focusing more on full time physical therapy, I can't help but breath a little sigh of relief.... does this sound bad? I don't know. My mom calls it the hustle and it's so true. This business, at least, it is a hustle. It's a constant string of worrying where your next paycheck is coming from because you're at the mercy of clients deciding to book. Weekend after weekend, you drum up gigs, hoping you have enough to fill the quota for the month. And most times you do, but there are slow months and times when it's not as much as you would have hoped. There are no benefits, and you're constantly fighting out other competition who has better costumes than you or cheaper prices or there's simply 20 other people for clients to choose from. Despite my having incredibly good reviews and years of experience, that still happens to me. Do not get me wrong - managing a business has changed my life. My mom raised me to be an independent, savvy and driven woman, and these are things I identify with. But people giggle a little when they ask me why I wouldn't want to be a princess forever, and while I know they're joking half joking, the answer is no, I don't want to be a princess forever (even if I'm 23 and still look 18). That hustle is hard. I don't have health insurance. And I make good money, but I'm tired. Having a job with a guaranteed paycheck every two weeks, paid vacation (what!) and actually being able to afford healthcare is going to be a welcome change. No, it's not working for myself. Yes, it's full time all week. I welcome that though,because it's security: something I haven't had in a very long time.
Am I giving up business ownership? Heck no. I'll still do weekend parties - it's all extra income to pay expenses (or save up) with. More importantly, I love it. I adore people and different cultures and working with children. It never fails to make me happy. And if you ask me what my 10 year plan is, I'll excitedly tell you that I would like to operate my own home health company, because I have a passion for traveling to people's homes to help them, be it parties or physical therapy. Business ownership is fun, scary, exhausting, and it's also doubly rewarding because your successes are all done thanks to you.
There's good, there's bad, there's ugly to everything, especially business. I'm just glad I've been blessed enough to live that and have a choice to have a secure and rewarding job as a physical therapist all before the age of 23. It's taught me a lot about life and what I want from it. The drive will never go away to succeed and be my own leader and push for excellence - but I'm happy I get to have a weekend off every once in a while. To have stability and healthcare. That's been my dream for a very long time.
Thankfully, aside from one bounced check I've never had any issues, but it was a reminder to me that you never know if you're going to deal with a bad person, no matter how prepared you feel that you are. This, sometimes, is a lot of the ugly sides of business - you deal with these things, a small percentage every year gets chalked up to bad debt that you simply have to eat, and you move on. There's days when it feels like all 5 of the clients I've been talking to decide to go with other entertainers after stringing me along for a week or two. Or who flat out tell me I charge too much (I charge the same as any reputable entertainer here). People are going to be people. It hits you a little harder when you're personally invested and your livelihood is at stake. It hits you a little harder when you don't clock out for the day, but you dwell on this stuff because it's yours to dwell on.
There's the days that go on forever, too. It's 10:45, and I crawl into my car, my Rapunzel skirt soaked with water, my ballet flats damp from the rain. I've hauled my bags out in the dark and rain alone, and I had struggled to get the heavy bags back into my car. I can't help but think of a lot of scenarios like this one that have played out through the years. People are sometimes impressed at the level of success I've had with this business. (Long story short, I already have savings and investments that I started at 18). Business allows you to be incredibly successful and achieve a lot.
But it came at a price. I have sacrificed birthdays, holidays and time with friends to grow my business, to take that "really good gig", to put some more money into savings or make sure I can pay my bills each month. I've worked my birthdays, I've missed family dinners, parties, fun weekend events. Much to the chagrin of some less understanding friends... heck, I even had an ex mock me and say I didn't know what it was like to have a real job until I did retail or wait tables. He'd say it was unfair of me to make so much more than him, and mock me for working even though that same work, while it required me to work some holidays, paid his bills! (And to him I politely say, f*** you. I never worked in the rat race of retail/restaurants because I didn't have to. Start your own business if you can't deal with that). All that to say though, you've got to tune out the unsupportive people if you have goals and dreams of your own. The people that will love you, will support you.
The weekend just isn't really my time to have fun because I have work to do. Worth it? Yes. Is it a sacrifice? Also yes. I don't get an off day unless I give it to myself, and if I do, there's no paid time off. I accept the fact that I'm losing out on money. Which is fine, but you have to plan and save for those weekends, or those slow weekends or slow seasons (cough, summer).
Having a business has been one of the most rewarding ventures of my entire life. It has taught me SO much about myself. I started as a shy 17 year old, putting ads on Gigmasters, even Craigslist, to drum up business. I think I got 3 gigs my first summer, that was it! I knew no one, I had no clientele, and I was entirely new at this. My heart hammered every time I called a client to follow up with them about an event inquiry. I tried to sound as though my voice wasn't shaking, tried to sound confident, even if I wasn't! That was my life for years. Trying to be confident, even when I wasn't. I laugh now, but this was a time before I even had a working GPS on my phone. I used an out of date Garmin and refused to buy a charge cord for it, so I turned it on, wrote down the directions, and then turned it back on every 30 minutes or so on long car rides, only leaving it on once I got close to my destination. I made a lot of wrong turns back then...
I was still learning how to twist balloons. I'd stay up until midnight practicing some nights. I'd play around with my princess makeup, trying to make it as good as I could. I'd cram to get all my homework done during the week so that I could devote the weekends to work.
Fast forward a year, and my business was actually starting to take off. I had consistent gigs every single weekend of the year. My first year, I'd get 2, maybe even 3 bookings every weekend - I started to get 2 or 3 bookings on Saturdays and Sundays. The most events I've ever done in one day was 5 (and I don't recommend it). I was actually confident on the phone now. I had learned (the hard way) to take deposits to avoid getting stood up at parties. I was starting to build clientele and get good reviews online. These reviews have helped me to get gigs every year after that. I built a reputation and I worked hard to make people happy. Sometimes this meant staying a little late at events, or going the extra mile to dress to match a theme or learn to make a lifesize Dr. Seuss balloon with lifesize matching Thing 1 and 2's just to make a client happy. Going the extra mile, keeping a smile pasted on your face and cheer in your voice even when you're dead tired - these are, I will always firmly believe, pivotal to giving customers a good experience. It's my way and it's worked, at least.
But at the end of the day, as I grow closer to taking less weekend events and focusing more on full time physical therapy, I can't help but breath a little sigh of relief.... does this sound bad? I don't know. My mom calls it the hustle and it's so true. This business, at least, it is a hustle. It's a constant string of worrying where your next paycheck is coming from because you're at the mercy of clients deciding to book. Weekend after weekend, you drum up gigs, hoping you have enough to fill the quota for the month. And most times you do, but there are slow months and times when it's not as much as you would have hoped. There are no benefits, and you're constantly fighting out other competition who has better costumes than you or cheaper prices or there's simply 20 other people for clients to choose from. Despite my having incredibly good reviews and years of experience, that still happens to me. Do not get me wrong - managing a business has changed my life. My mom raised me to be an independent, savvy and driven woman, and these are things I identify with. But people giggle a little when they ask me why I wouldn't want to be a princess forever, and while I know they're joking half joking, the answer is no, I don't want to be a princess forever (even if I'm 23 and still look 18). That hustle is hard. I don't have health insurance. And I make good money, but I'm tired. Having a job with a guaranteed paycheck every two weeks, paid vacation (what!) and actually being able to afford healthcare is going to be a welcome change. No, it's not working for myself. Yes, it's full time all week. I welcome that though,because it's security: something I haven't had in a very long time.
Am I giving up business ownership? Heck no. I'll still do weekend parties - it's all extra income to pay expenses (or save up) with. More importantly, I love it. I adore people and different cultures and working with children. It never fails to make me happy. And if you ask me what my 10 year plan is, I'll excitedly tell you that I would like to operate my own home health company, because I have a passion for traveling to people's homes to help them, be it parties or physical therapy. Business ownership is fun, scary, exhausting, and it's also doubly rewarding because your successes are all done thanks to you.
There's good, there's bad, there's ugly to everything, especially business. I'm just glad I've been blessed enough to live that and have a choice to have a secure and rewarding job as a physical therapist all before the age of 23. It's taught me a lot about life and what I want from it. The drive will never go away to succeed and be my own leader and push for excellence - but I'm happy I get to have a weekend off every once in a while. To have stability and healthcare. That's been my dream for a very long time.
Wednesday, June 7, 2017
Summer Days
The slow, warm days of summer are here. I'm happy to report that my life as I know it has been... totally wonderful lately. This week started out on an amazing note. I got two job offers from both of the jobs I applied for, my car runs (I had a bad fuel pump that kept leaving me stranded without a car that started last month), and I booked 4 gigs yesterday. Mornings have taken on a wonderful sort of peacefulness. I wake up when I want, my husband has left me coffee on my nightstand to the left, and I make avocado toast with an egg and eat in peacefulness while he is on his daily run. I do yoga, which I have come to love. I tidy up, maybe prep dinner and stick it in the crockpot, and then I find a place to study for the NPTE for the day.
After 8 years of college, I must say that I find the peace invigorating and downright good for my soul. It has been a weird transition, in fact, getting used to this life of mine, in this brief period of wonderful rest and recovery before I start working. After hearing the news about the jobs yesterday, I spent a long time thinking about how my life was going to change. How I was going to get health care and the daily accounting for dollars and pennies and crunching jobs every weekend was going to come to a graceful halt. Sure, I have loans and credit cards to pay off - I may not be able to afford all my wants right away - but I felt such a peace in knowing that all of my needs and my husband's needs are going to be provided for in just a few weeks. With smart financial planning, in a few years I can be debt free and then some. As I walked through the grocery store aisles yesterday, I marveled at where I've been and how far I've come. The years of going to school, doing homework, studying until the late hours, driving to work all weekend, worrying about affording insulin, having no healthcare or insulin costing too much, making do with all of my old belongings, my computer on its last legs and those shoes that are slightly too worn out, putting off wants and paying bills and doing what needed to be done. It's been hard. I've held multiple jobs. I've learned how to be a wife. I have relished my journey and how it makes me grow. This is my unique story and this is who I am. I may not always be the top of the class or the best out of everyone, but I will try until I can't try anymore, I will run towards a goal until my feet give out, I will give it my all until I have nothing left to give and then I'll keep on giving. That is who I am and who I have become, after years of fighting to make my life stable, support myself with finances, save, be responsible, make a home and a life for myself that I can be proud of. That I can look on at the end of the day and smile and say, "I made that."
I made it. Years and years of hard work, and I've made it. The road was hard, I cried, I wanted to give up, I cursed, I become frustrated at this hand of life and that. But I made it. And I'm so overwhelmed by joy at the knowledge of this fact that I have made it. Life is a wonderful and worthwhile thing, and I am pleased to know that I have spent my 23 years thus far working hard, setting goals and reaching for more. I am humbled at how much the people I love have helped support me and uplift me. My heart is full. Life is such a marvelous adventure, and I am overwhelmed with thankfulness for the ability to be able-bodied and minded and able to put my mind towards anything I please.
I remember that girl I reference frequently in this blog - that girl sitting in that sunny doctor's office, all those years ago, wondering what Diabetes meant and if it would stop me from doing what I wanted. I remember the affirmation from my doctor that I could do it, that it would make the road harder but she had done it and so could I. I remember the affirmation from others with my disease that I could do it, that we could do it, that this disease was no small thing but that we were bigger than it would ever be. This year - this time in my life - this is the time of my life where I have finally gotten the chance to show that girl that everything those people ever told her was true. That she could do it, that she could overcome those obstacles and push for what she wanted. My blood sugars still aren't perfect but they are getting better. One of my insulin's is only 9 dollars a month and the other one I have enough samples of from the doctor to last me until I start working. I'll have insurance and a doctor and I'm even thinking of getting an insulin pump this year, a tubeless one.
That peace in my heart I feel - that fullness and hope and excitement for new things - I feel happy because I've earned that. And I hope that peace I feel is something I carry from now until always.
After 8 years of college, I must say that I find the peace invigorating and downright good for my soul. It has been a weird transition, in fact, getting used to this life of mine, in this brief period of wonderful rest and recovery before I start working. After hearing the news about the jobs yesterday, I spent a long time thinking about how my life was going to change. How I was going to get health care and the daily accounting for dollars and pennies and crunching jobs every weekend was going to come to a graceful halt. Sure, I have loans and credit cards to pay off - I may not be able to afford all my wants right away - but I felt such a peace in knowing that all of my needs and my husband's needs are going to be provided for in just a few weeks. With smart financial planning, in a few years I can be debt free and then some. As I walked through the grocery store aisles yesterday, I marveled at where I've been and how far I've come. The years of going to school, doing homework, studying until the late hours, driving to work all weekend, worrying about affording insulin, having no healthcare or insulin costing too much, making do with all of my old belongings, my computer on its last legs and those shoes that are slightly too worn out, putting off wants and paying bills and doing what needed to be done. It's been hard. I've held multiple jobs. I've learned how to be a wife. I have relished my journey and how it makes me grow. This is my unique story and this is who I am. I may not always be the top of the class or the best out of everyone, but I will try until I can't try anymore, I will run towards a goal until my feet give out, I will give it my all until I have nothing left to give and then I'll keep on giving. That is who I am and who I have become, after years of fighting to make my life stable, support myself with finances, save, be responsible, make a home and a life for myself that I can be proud of. That I can look on at the end of the day and smile and say, "I made that."
I made it. Years and years of hard work, and I've made it. The road was hard, I cried, I wanted to give up, I cursed, I become frustrated at this hand of life and that. But I made it. And I'm so overwhelmed by joy at the knowledge of this fact that I have made it. Life is a wonderful and worthwhile thing, and I am pleased to know that I have spent my 23 years thus far working hard, setting goals and reaching for more. I am humbled at how much the people I love have helped support me and uplift me. My heart is full. Life is such a marvelous adventure, and I am overwhelmed with thankfulness for the ability to be able-bodied and minded and able to put my mind towards anything I please.
I remember that girl I reference frequently in this blog - that girl sitting in that sunny doctor's office, all those years ago, wondering what Diabetes meant and if it would stop me from doing what I wanted. I remember the affirmation from my doctor that I could do it, that it would make the road harder but she had done it and so could I. I remember the affirmation from others with my disease that I could do it, that we could do it, that this disease was no small thing but that we were bigger than it would ever be. This year - this time in my life - this is the time of my life where I have finally gotten the chance to show that girl that everything those people ever told her was true. That she could do it, that she could overcome those obstacles and push for what she wanted. My blood sugars still aren't perfect but they are getting better. One of my insulin's is only 9 dollars a month and the other one I have enough samples of from the doctor to last me until I start working. I'll have insurance and a doctor and I'm even thinking of getting an insulin pump this year, a tubeless one.
That peace in my heart I feel - that fullness and hope and excitement for new things - I feel happy because I've earned that. And I hope that peace I feel is something I carry from now until always.
Tuesday, May 23, 2017
Dear Dad, It's Been Almost a Year
--Personal Post--
It's been almost a year since I stopped talking to my dad. This time of year is met with a lot of mixed emotions, and it's fitting, really - it's also the time of year of my wedding anniversary. It's fitting that I would choose my relationship with one man to end while I promised to maintain a relationship to another for the rest of my life. The only time I shed tears over it all was the day before my wedding, after I texted my dad to ask if he was coming. I remember sending that text - I remember knowing, with dread, what the answer would be, and why I didn't ask him sooner. I had put that inevitability off, because I had wanted to believe that the RSVP that he had sent in January was reality. The truth was, however, that that RSVP was a metaphor for most of my relationship with my father. It's easy to commit to a "yes" on an RSVP - it's harder to put action behind it. I think of all the times my father let me down, or told me he would do something, and forget, or show up 5 hours late, or reschedule. Ballet recitals that he made right before they ended. Him telling me to be ready at 8am for an adventure... and me waiting by the window, ready, at 7:55.
He'd show up at 4.
My relationship with my dad has been marred by a lot of disappointment, but to be fair, it's not all that. I have a lot of fond memories of my father. Of Saturdays spent on the boat on the Wekiva river, swimming on the sandbanks, nervously looking for gators and steering clear of the lily pads. Weekend movies. All the times he let me set my Barbie tent up to sleep on the bed, how he wasn't (that) upset when I used all of his stamps to mail letters addressed to Santa, and mornings spent watching Tunami and Sailor Moon while drawing and eating an entire box of cheezits at the kitchen table, warm sunlight pouring in through the big windows. I loved that house, "the blue house", later painted a loud magenta, and years later, a tame light yellow. I visited the house, long ago sold, back in high school one day. It was so much smaller than I remembered. Things always seem larger in your childhood memory, it seems. Still, I loved the ivy growing up the chimney, My art desk in the corner. The petrified wood coffee table. I had an art business I ran on the weekends because, yes, even at 5, I was an entrepreneur at heart. I'd post my finished art creations on the wall and hand draw little ads to place around the house, advertising art - pre made or custom - at 25 cents apiece. I'd make the upstairs bedroom my office sometimes even, and when I had a new "order" come through from my dad or one of my siblings, I'd place the art in a little basket tied up with string and lower it over the balcony of the stairs for pickup. I'd watch tortoises dig up the back yard, pet the dogs, make dubious creations in my EZ Bake oven, play my Barbie genie computer game, and sit on the front porch. My dad was the first person I ever officially really visited Atlanta with. I remember the visit - staying at the Mariott downtown, and driving by his old home in Mableton. The city was vast, and I proclaimed that I would never want to live there. I had no idea at the time that 7 years later I would meet my husband there. Didn't know the 7 years later, we'd go on a date at 2 am, taking turns eating bites of chocolate cheesecake at Cafe Intermezzo, sipping turkish coffee and then getting the wild idea to sneak up to the top of the Mariott to see the view.
My dad missed a lot of my life. He missed almost all of middle school. He drove me to prom once Junior year. I still have a photo he snapped of me in my purple sequined dress that reminded me of Meg from Hercules. He wasn't around to give me advice on boys, but told me once that I should never change my last name. He didn't give me the talks that most dads do the their daughters. He gave me happy birthday cards for graduation. He came in bits and pieces. My mom and I moved down the road from him (on accident) in high school. Every few weeks, he'd swing by and take me to sushi in winter park, or let me accompany him on outings for his business that mostly meant driving around looking at property and taking photos or him pointing out billboards he said he'd built. The conversations we had were 90% my dad talking at 10% me saying "uh huh" and nodding my head. I remember on my 17th birthday that my dad got someone to put up "Happy Birthday Lacy" on his new triface billboard in the middle of town, and I was really excited. I showed all my friends. He'd come have dinner sometimes at my moms. He taught me how to drive, and showed me the backroads around Apopka and Zellwood. Then he wouldn't be there for weeks - would reappear again - and so on. We had a falling out my second year of college due to some family matters. My sister and I really bonded during this time, because she had chosen years ago to stop communicating with my dad for her own reasons. The end of my undergraduate days rolled around. My dad and I had tenuously made up over the last year after his carotid artery surgery. He promised me he'd come to my college graduation, but the night before, he said he couldn't come after all.
My mom comforted me a lot the day before my wedding, when I called her, upset and trying to wipe away tears before heading to the venue for rehearsal. She told me, "I tried to shield you from the reality of who he was when you were little. Manage your expectations. But that's always how he's been."
She was right, and it crushed me. I look back, and I think that part of my disappointment was from unmanaged expectations. They're the kind of expectations that any child has, and frankly... for years, all I wanted to be was a child to my dad. I wanted my dad to be proud of me. I wanted to warmth of his love, his approval, his affirmation that I mattered. I wanted him at rehearsals and graduations and dinners. Those times he made it to those school dinners, accompanied me to my Phi Theta Kappa induction or drove me to school or taught me to drive - it made me feel special, like I had glimpses of something I had missed out on. I wanted my dad to have my back like I watched my friend's dads do. Part of me was immature - I wanted my dad to buy me things like my friend's dads did, or bail me out of trouble, or interrogate my boyfriends. I wanted him to help me with tuition like he promised, or with college textbooks. I wasn't entitled to any of those things, but I don't think that's wrong. I think it's what kids want. They want love, approval, help, normalcy. I wanted him to be a part of my life. I wanted him to take my side. I think what hurt the most was him pretending or saying he'd do so many of these things, but when it came down to doing them - he'd bail at the last minute. From "Can't make it, sorry!" texts, to, "If you have to drop out because you can't pay tuition, that's just God's will", after planning my college budget out for the year on his promise to help me. To my dad promising he'd spend the day with me and pick me up early, and waiting, looking out the window and wondering why he wasn't answering his texts. I'd wait half the day and feel like shit when he forgot.
I don't say any of this because I want pity or to feel sorry for myself. I think it's more cathartic to vent these things than anything. The hurt goes deep - deeper than I can write in a simple blog. It's a long story, the story of my father and I, that's been unfurling since I was born, and even before then. My experiences are mine alone, and these are how I perceived them. This is just one blog from a girl that wanted her father to be there all the time, not just when he felt like it. It's a blog from a girl that wants you to know that if anything like this has ever happened to you, I get it. Not having the love of a parent really hurts in a deep part of your heart that never really fully heals no matter how hard you try to fill it. I've come a long way from being that girl. My dad taught me a lot of things. He inspired me to get things done myself if I want them done. To work hard enough and be successful enough so I would never need his help. He taught me to be self sufficient. To listen to people. He taught me a lot of things through his shortcomings, that's true. He taught me a really important lesson: that just because someone is your dad, doesn't make them your dad.
My father wasn't there to walk me down the aisle. In fact, I never asked him to be. I invited him... and didn't ask him to walk me down the aisle. Because the truth was, I knew in my heart of hearts that my father would bail at the last minute. My entire family said so. And I used the last of that childlike, girlish hope in my father to believe that he would make it. But I took precautions. I asked my grandfather. Because when it came down to it, my dad wasn't the one that had been there for me through my life. It was my stepdad(s), my grandfather, the other male figures in my life. The ones that weren't there when it suited them, but were there because they chose to be. I haven't had the most consistent father figures in my life, and that shows sometimes. But I had people that loved me, that picked me up after I messed up, that helped me when I was down, that gave me tough love and good love and fatherly love, at the times that I needed it. And the biggest person: my mom. My mom showed me exactly who I needed to be. She fought for me. She taught me algebra while I literally threw a temper tantrum meltdown in the office. She didn't pay for all of my things: she taught me to be a princess and taught me how to make a business pay for things for me. She taught me to fight for myself. She taught me to push harder. She taught me to never just settle for no. She taught me to grind.
My edges perhaps aren't as round as they could be. I handle things in my own messy way, I get too emotional sometimes, I push people a little too hard, I'm not always the most tactful or the best with people. It took me a long time to realize that the right person isn't going to just leave. It took me time to trust my husband, to undo what I had learned before. Having grown into an adult now, I see that I have a lot of the Lacy family in me - the hard work ethic, the grind, the ability to put my head down and push through until the job is done. The fight, the independence, the creativity. My dad wasn't there, but I've worked with what I had.
My dad was there sometimes, that's true. But there came a time in my life - that day before my wedding - when I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't take the disappointment. The hurt feeling in my gut everytime he let me down or blamed me for upsetting my aunt or spent 2 hours telling me about him but never even asked what I was going to college for. I love my dad, but my dad hurt me. He hurt me over and over again and never apologized nor considered how much his actions hurt me. And that's why I made the decision I did: to not sit and wait for him to let me down, time after time. I chose to remove my dad from my life, but truly, he'd already chosen to not be there for me years before. I don't hate my dad, I love him, but I made the decision to walk away from him so that he couldn't hurt me anymore.
It hasn't felt like a year. I learned a lot of this before this time last year. Life doesn't always treat you fair. I have always tried to make the best of my situations, to fight for what I dreamed for, to be positive, to count my blessings. I take my relationship with my father in stride. It still hurts, but for me at least -- I think there's a power in choosing how you hurt. I can't tell you if my actions were the best or the healthiest, I can't tell you what will happen with our relationship in the future. Here and now though, one year later, this is where I'm at. Letting go of the hurt and embracing my new life. Making my own choices. And at the end of the day, I have the family I always dreamed of with my husband - someone who isn't going anywhere, who loves me despite my shortcomings and whom I love despite his. Life isn't perfect. People let you down. People pick you back up again. Life goes on. A year later, I am making my own legacy, apart from my father: built with the help of people that I am thankful to have love and care for me.
It's been almost a year since I stopped talking to my dad. This time of year is met with a lot of mixed emotions, and it's fitting, really - it's also the time of year of my wedding anniversary. It's fitting that I would choose my relationship with one man to end while I promised to maintain a relationship to another for the rest of my life. The only time I shed tears over it all was the day before my wedding, after I texted my dad to ask if he was coming. I remember sending that text - I remember knowing, with dread, what the answer would be, and why I didn't ask him sooner. I had put that inevitability off, because I had wanted to believe that the RSVP that he had sent in January was reality. The truth was, however, that that RSVP was a metaphor for most of my relationship with my father. It's easy to commit to a "yes" on an RSVP - it's harder to put action behind it. I think of all the times my father let me down, or told me he would do something, and forget, or show up 5 hours late, or reschedule. Ballet recitals that he made right before they ended. Him telling me to be ready at 8am for an adventure... and me waiting by the window, ready, at 7:55.
He'd show up at 4.
My relationship with my dad has been marred by a lot of disappointment, but to be fair, it's not all that. I have a lot of fond memories of my father. Of Saturdays spent on the boat on the Wekiva river, swimming on the sandbanks, nervously looking for gators and steering clear of the lily pads. Weekend movies. All the times he let me set my Barbie tent up to sleep on the bed, how he wasn't (that) upset when I used all of his stamps to mail letters addressed to Santa, and mornings spent watching Tunami and Sailor Moon while drawing and eating an entire box of cheezits at the kitchen table, warm sunlight pouring in through the big windows. I loved that house, "the blue house", later painted a loud magenta, and years later, a tame light yellow. I visited the house, long ago sold, back in high school one day. It was so much smaller than I remembered. Things always seem larger in your childhood memory, it seems. Still, I loved the ivy growing up the chimney, My art desk in the corner. The petrified wood coffee table. I had an art business I ran on the weekends because, yes, even at 5, I was an entrepreneur at heart. I'd post my finished art creations on the wall and hand draw little ads to place around the house, advertising art - pre made or custom - at 25 cents apiece. I'd make the upstairs bedroom my office sometimes even, and when I had a new "order" come through from my dad or one of my siblings, I'd place the art in a little basket tied up with string and lower it over the balcony of the stairs for pickup. I'd watch tortoises dig up the back yard, pet the dogs, make dubious creations in my EZ Bake oven, play my Barbie genie computer game, and sit on the front porch. My dad was the first person I ever officially really visited Atlanta with. I remember the visit - staying at the Mariott downtown, and driving by his old home in Mableton. The city was vast, and I proclaimed that I would never want to live there. I had no idea at the time that 7 years later I would meet my husband there. Didn't know the 7 years later, we'd go on a date at 2 am, taking turns eating bites of chocolate cheesecake at Cafe Intermezzo, sipping turkish coffee and then getting the wild idea to sneak up to the top of the Mariott to see the view.
My dad missed a lot of my life. He missed almost all of middle school. He drove me to prom once Junior year. I still have a photo he snapped of me in my purple sequined dress that reminded me of Meg from Hercules. He wasn't around to give me advice on boys, but told me once that I should never change my last name. He didn't give me the talks that most dads do the their daughters. He gave me happy birthday cards for graduation. He came in bits and pieces. My mom and I moved down the road from him (on accident) in high school. Every few weeks, he'd swing by and take me to sushi in winter park, or let me accompany him on outings for his business that mostly meant driving around looking at property and taking photos or him pointing out billboards he said he'd built. The conversations we had were 90% my dad talking at 10% me saying "uh huh" and nodding my head. I remember on my 17th birthday that my dad got someone to put up "Happy Birthday Lacy" on his new triface billboard in the middle of town, and I was really excited. I showed all my friends. He'd come have dinner sometimes at my moms. He taught me how to drive, and showed me the backroads around Apopka and Zellwood. Then he wouldn't be there for weeks - would reappear again - and so on. We had a falling out my second year of college due to some family matters. My sister and I really bonded during this time, because she had chosen years ago to stop communicating with my dad for her own reasons. The end of my undergraduate days rolled around. My dad and I had tenuously made up over the last year after his carotid artery surgery. He promised me he'd come to my college graduation, but the night before, he said he couldn't come after all.
My mom comforted me a lot the day before my wedding, when I called her, upset and trying to wipe away tears before heading to the venue for rehearsal. She told me, "I tried to shield you from the reality of who he was when you were little. Manage your expectations. But that's always how he's been."
She was right, and it crushed me. I look back, and I think that part of my disappointment was from unmanaged expectations. They're the kind of expectations that any child has, and frankly... for years, all I wanted to be was a child to my dad. I wanted my dad to be proud of me. I wanted to warmth of his love, his approval, his affirmation that I mattered. I wanted him at rehearsals and graduations and dinners. Those times he made it to those school dinners, accompanied me to my Phi Theta Kappa induction or drove me to school or taught me to drive - it made me feel special, like I had glimpses of something I had missed out on. I wanted my dad to have my back like I watched my friend's dads do. Part of me was immature - I wanted my dad to buy me things like my friend's dads did, or bail me out of trouble, or interrogate my boyfriends. I wanted him to help me with tuition like he promised, or with college textbooks. I wasn't entitled to any of those things, but I don't think that's wrong. I think it's what kids want. They want love, approval, help, normalcy. I wanted him to be a part of my life. I wanted him to take my side. I think what hurt the most was him pretending or saying he'd do so many of these things, but when it came down to doing them - he'd bail at the last minute. From "Can't make it, sorry!" texts, to, "If you have to drop out because you can't pay tuition, that's just God's will", after planning my college budget out for the year on his promise to help me. To my dad promising he'd spend the day with me and pick me up early, and waiting, looking out the window and wondering why he wasn't answering his texts. I'd wait half the day and feel like shit when he forgot.
I don't say any of this because I want pity or to feel sorry for myself. I think it's more cathartic to vent these things than anything. The hurt goes deep - deeper than I can write in a simple blog. It's a long story, the story of my father and I, that's been unfurling since I was born, and even before then. My experiences are mine alone, and these are how I perceived them. This is just one blog from a girl that wanted her father to be there all the time, not just when he felt like it. It's a blog from a girl that wants you to know that if anything like this has ever happened to you, I get it. Not having the love of a parent really hurts in a deep part of your heart that never really fully heals no matter how hard you try to fill it. I've come a long way from being that girl. My dad taught me a lot of things. He inspired me to get things done myself if I want them done. To work hard enough and be successful enough so I would never need his help. He taught me to be self sufficient. To listen to people. He taught me a lot of things through his shortcomings, that's true. He taught me a really important lesson: that just because someone is your dad, doesn't make them your dad.
My father wasn't there to walk me down the aisle. In fact, I never asked him to be. I invited him... and didn't ask him to walk me down the aisle. Because the truth was, I knew in my heart of hearts that my father would bail at the last minute. My entire family said so. And I used the last of that childlike, girlish hope in my father to believe that he would make it. But I took precautions. I asked my grandfather. Because when it came down to it, my dad wasn't the one that had been there for me through my life. It was my stepdad(s), my grandfather, the other male figures in my life. The ones that weren't there when it suited them, but were there because they chose to be. I haven't had the most consistent father figures in my life, and that shows sometimes. But I had people that loved me, that picked me up after I messed up, that helped me when I was down, that gave me tough love and good love and fatherly love, at the times that I needed it. And the biggest person: my mom. My mom showed me exactly who I needed to be. She fought for me. She taught me algebra while I literally threw a temper tantrum meltdown in the office. She didn't pay for all of my things: she taught me to be a princess and taught me how to make a business pay for things for me. She taught me to fight for myself. She taught me to push harder. She taught me to never just settle for no. She taught me to grind.
My edges perhaps aren't as round as they could be. I handle things in my own messy way, I get too emotional sometimes, I push people a little too hard, I'm not always the most tactful or the best with people. It took me a long time to realize that the right person isn't going to just leave. It took me time to trust my husband, to undo what I had learned before. Having grown into an adult now, I see that I have a lot of the Lacy family in me - the hard work ethic, the grind, the ability to put my head down and push through until the job is done. The fight, the independence, the creativity. My dad wasn't there, but I've worked with what I had.
My dad was there sometimes, that's true. But there came a time in my life - that day before my wedding - when I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't take the disappointment. The hurt feeling in my gut everytime he let me down or blamed me for upsetting my aunt or spent 2 hours telling me about him but never even asked what I was going to college for. I love my dad, but my dad hurt me. He hurt me over and over again and never apologized nor considered how much his actions hurt me. And that's why I made the decision I did: to not sit and wait for him to let me down, time after time. I chose to remove my dad from my life, but truly, he'd already chosen to not be there for me years before. I don't hate my dad, I love him, but I made the decision to walk away from him so that he couldn't hurt me anymore.
It hasn't felt like a year. I learned a lot of this before this time last year. Life doesn't always treat you fair. I have always tried to make the best of my situations, to fight for what I dreamed for, to be positive, to count my blessings. I take my relationship with my father in stride. It still hurts, but for me at least -- I think there's a power in choosing how you hurt. I can't tell you if my actions were the best or the healthiest, I can't tell you what will happen with our relationship in the future. Here and now though, one year later, this is where I'm at. Letting go of the hurt and embracing my new life. Making my own choices. And at the end of the day, I have the family I always dreamed of with my husband - someone who isn't going anywhere, who loves me despite my shortcomings and whom I love despite his. Life isn't perfect. People let you down. People pick you back up again. Life goes on. A year later, I am making my own legacy, apart from my father: built with the help of people that I am thankful to have love and care for me.
Friday, May 19, 2017
Getting Used to this Whole "Not a Student Anymore" Thing
I've been trying to place my finger on exactly what I have been feeling over the past few days. But it sunk in as I was driving home from work today. Specifically, it sunk it when I was walking back to my car, hauling my face paint, balloons and heavy bags, sweating from head to toe from 2 hours in the hot georgia heat.
These times are coming to an end.
For years, I have spent many such weekends like this. I have gotten up, sat in class, done my homework through lunch. Study till 11 pm. Go to sleep. Wake up. Repeat. Don't take it too easy on Fridays - you have work over the weekend. Wake up. Shower. Dress. Drive to work. Do kids' parties. At the end of the 3rd of 4th party that day, I'll be making balloons and not even watching my hands move. I have the muscle memory down. Balloons pop. Smile. Offer to remake balloon. Offer to touch up face paint. Eat food. Go home. Sleep. Get up. Repeat.
It's been 6 years since I left home. It feels like a lifetime ago. I packed my white truck full of too many belongings, knowing I wouldn't be coming home much anymore - I wasn't moving back in - I brought everything but my furniture, which was later sold or given away, and left my stuffed animals that someday I'll finally take home. I had barely started to learn balloons when I left home, and my first gig in Georgia, I muddle through, offering what I knew. I'd practice over the years and get good. I knew hardly anything about business back then. I didn't take deposits - a practice I learned I needed to do the hard way when I got stood up for a party once. I hadn't wrecked my truck yet. I hadn't experienced heart break yet. My pancreas was still producing a little insulin and I had insurance, diabetes wasn't as hard yet, but my 100lb self kept bruising from the shots and hadn't gained back the weight I'd lost from the diabetes yet.
For 6 years, I worked. And worked, And worked. Putting money away, being practical, studying hard, doing school. Eyes on the goal: graduate. Just a few more years. Graduate. Count down the years some more. Tell myself they weren't that long. Work a little more, push a little harder.
What I am feeling now is the silence of life. It is the calm of new beginnings that have not yet formed. For the first time in my entire life, I'm not working towards a degree. The grind is settling down. I've got some money put away, I'm interviewing for jobs and I'm studying for boards and I'm living life. The feeling of living life having already gotten the huge goals out of the way is strange. I'm 23 - now what? I have forever to live life, forever to figure things out, to learn more, to become better at my career. To travel. To just enjoy life with my sweet husband. I used to be a girl, a little lost in the world, eyes only on her goals, pushing to work a little more, press a little further, make it a little longer towards those goals... and I'm there now. I know, I'll make more goals. I'll figure out more things in life to do. I'll discover work and 401k's and paying off student debt and one day we'll buy a house and maybe we'll even have kids if we want to. I've worked for a long time, and somedays I feel a little older than I should. School and work have always come first and life has always been on the backburner, after the responsibility aspect. I have enjoyed these long summer days and sleeping in and morning yoga and bikes and walks through the park. The days go on and on and I don't even have to know what day of the week it is except for days I work parties. Some day, I'll stop doing parties, too. There will come a day that is the last day of hauling those heavy bags of face paint and balloons back to my car trunk, and someday I'll get my trunk door fixed so I don't have to hold it up on my head.
My college days have ended - now comes the rest. That'll take some time to get used to.
These times are coming to an end.
For years, I have spent many such weekends like this. I have gotten up, sat in class, done my homework through lunch. Study till 11 pm. Go to sleep. Wake up. Repeat. Don't take it too easy on Fridays - you have work over the weekend. Wake up. Shower. Dress. Drive to work. Do kids' parties. At the end of the 3rd of 4th party that day, I'll be making balloons and not even watching my hands move. I have the muscle memory down. Balloons pop. Smile. Offer to remake balloon. Offer to touch up face paint. Eat food. Go home. Sleep. Get up. Repeat.
It's been 6 years since I left home. It feels like a lifetime ago. I packed my white truck full of too many belongings, knowing I wouldn't be coming home much anymore - I wasn't moving back in - I brought everything but my furniture, which was later sold or given away, and left my stuffed animals that someday I'll finally take home. I had barely started to learn balloons when I left home, and my first gig in Georgia, I muddle through, offering what I knew. I'd practice over the years and get good. I knew hardly anything about business back then. I didn't take deposits - a practice I learned I needed to do the hard way when I got stood up for a party once. I hadn't wrecked my truck yet. I hadn't experienced heart break yet. My pancreas was still producing a little insulin and I had insurance, diabetes wasn't as hard yet, but my 100lb self kept bruising from the shots and hadn't gained back the weight I'd lost from the diabetes yet.
For 6 years, I worked. And worked, And worked. Putting money away, being practical, studying hard, doing school. Eyes on the goal: graduate. Just a few more years. Graduate. Count down the years some more. Tell myself they weren't that long. Work a little more, push a little harder.
What I am feeling now is the silence of life. It is the calm of new beginnings that have not yet formed. For the first time in my entire life, I'm not working towards a degree. The grind is settling down. I've got some money put away, I'm interviewing for jobs and I'm studying for boards and I'm living life. The feeling of living life having already gotten the huge goals out of the way is strange. I'm 23 - now what? I have forever to live life, forever to figure things out, to learn more, to become better at my career. To travel. To just enjoy life with my sweet husband. I used to be a girl, a little lost in the world, eyes only on her goals, pushing to work a little more, press a little further, make it a little longer towards those goals... and I'm there now. I know, I'll make more goals. I'll figure out more things in life to do. I'll discover work and 401k's and paying off student debt and one day we'll buy a house and maybe we'll even have kids if we want to. I've worked for a long time, and somedays I feel a little older than I should. School and work have always come first and life has always been on the backburner, after the responsibility aspect. I have enjoyed these long summer days and sleeping in and morning yoga and bikes and walks through the park. The days go on and on and I don't even have to know what day of the week it is except for days I work parties. Some day, I'll stop doing parties, too. There will come a day that is the last day of hauling those heavy bags of face paint and balloons back to my car trunk, and someday I'll get my trunk door fixed so I don't have to hold it up on my head.
My college days have ended - now comes the rest. That'll take some time to get used to.
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