Buckle up, bitches.
This is going to be a long post.
Make yourself a sandwich.
Grab yourself a cocktail.
And strap in.
Monday, November 7, the first day after turning the clock back to Eastern Standard Time = The biggest *shit show* in the 48 years I’ve been alive on this planet.
And here’s why…
It was 8:00am and already 78 muggy/humid fucking degrees. IN NOVEMBER.
Apparently, I forgot to set my alarm (or I accidentally hit the off button instead of snooze) and I did not wake up until 7:30. But luckily, the first patient wasn’t coming into the office until 8:30am = I got ready faster than I’ve ever gotten ready in my entire life (thank God I took a shower and shaved my legs and conditioned my hair the night before) and I flew out of my house — with a barely enough caffeine to see straight or drive in the proper lane.
On my three minute commute to work there was a detour because of road construction adding an additional three minutes to my commute.
When I got to work only half of the lights were working. The phones were down. And our electronic health record system (EHR) was not functional, whatsoever.
The desk-top version of our EMR (electronic medical records) called “EClinicals” was stuck on an endless rainbow wheel spinning + giving error, error, error, error, errors that you couldn’t X-out-of.
To bypass the “desktop Eclinicals” our front desk captain (also the person who should probably be our office manager) had to manually install the “Eclinicals iCloud”onto every computer inside every patient room — which took at least a solid 15 minutes per each computer/ per each patient room because it took that long waiting to “build your experience” before optimal usage.
Once the “Eclinicals iCloud”was installed? Nobody knew how the fuck to navigate it because it’s completely different from the desktop version.
Because our phone system was down?
And because our EMR system was down (and the iCloud version sucked)?
=
We could not receive incoming calls, nor could we make outgoing calls — unless it was from our personal cell phones — which patients didn’t recognize and therefore didn’t answer. (And now they have our cell phone numbers so when they can’t get through to the office they can call us on our cell phones directly!!)
We could not print, receive, or send faxes.
We could not send any electronic prescriptions.
That entire scenario lasted until about 12:30 PM.
Then things kind of got normal for the afternoon.
I clocked out of work at 4:15 PM.
And that’s precisely when my doctor/boss asked me to stay to help train the new MA giving an EKG and B12 injections until 4:45 PM. Which, of course I did, because I totally love my job, and I totally love this new MA, and I’m a total team player, so I had no problem working “for free” for a half an hour.
When I left work at 4:45 to head to school?
[FYI — when you leave work 15 minutes later than usual— that causes a drastic difference in traffic volume.]
First I was stuck behind a truck doing 30 mph in a 50 mph for 4 1/2 miles in a no passing lane zone.
Once I was on route 520 I proceeded to hit Every. Single. Red. Light.
EVERY. SINGLE. RED. LIGHT.
I finally made it to campus by 5:30 PM.
And then I was thrown waist deep into the muscular system in my anatomy and physiology laboratory.
After class ended at 7:30pm I stayed late to find out what I did wrong on that motherfucking goddamn “bones practical” to see why I got an 84!
I already knew I totally **shit the bed** on four questions (because I was so distracted by two previous questions I wasn’t concentrating on the current material in front of my face) which **would have** left me with a 92%
In a prior email my professor told me that I was going to be very upset with my “simple mistakes”. And he was right. My mistakes, were in fact spelling. Instead of writing mediaN sacral crest, I wrote mediaL sacral crest. I WROTE AN “L” INSTEAD OF AN “N” — so that’s 2 points off my grade — FML. I also wrote for the group of bones on your foot as “tarsal” instead of “tarsalS” I forgot to add the S and pluralize; so I lost another 2 points. FML.FML.FML.
On my drive home from campus?
I got stuck behind another driver — in a no passing zone — who ALSO drove 35MPH in a 55MPH for 17 miles.
When I got home, I ripped off my scrubs, washed my face, put on my pajamas, and curled to my sofa to relax.
That’s when I went into my email inbox and accidentally selected DELETE ALL … and then I immediately went to trash and selected DELETE ALL as well. So emails that I’ve been saving for years, including the sentimental ones, are now gone forever.
So ….how was YOUR day??
I am climbing into bed.
And, I am praying — on all things holy — that tomorrow will be much better.
That is all.
Stay tuned.
Love,
M
