A reality check

Hi there. It has been a while since I have last blogged. I really don't know where the time is going. Since early Feb I have been fighting off my "on-clock work" head/chest cold. You do have to remember that in Calgary you can have change of seasons within ONE day. I had a lot on my plate with my 2 jobs (full time at the Foothills and about 12 hours a week at Tom Baker Cancer Centre) plus my church duties so I got myself run down. Aside from this viral cold I got, the other two that has been hitting Calgary is mono and strept throat. Well, beginning of March on top of my head/chest cold I got my first case of Strept throat - definitely not fun. But hey - drugs are great!! Just finished my penicillin this morning. This is the best I have felt since Feb so you can say I am happy.

I just completed my month of training 3 co-workers on Day Procedure/Day Surgery coding. They are now cross-trained in 2 disciplines (Emergency and DP charts). It was a definite learning experience for me. Just as they were learning something new, I was able to learn a few new things too. That is one of the perks of training someone, your own skills get dusted off as your own thought process has to change. For some reason I can remember codes, so once I know the codes that don't change, I just manually enter them. With training you have to teach them the pathway of how you start looking for the appropriate code - you are essentially re-training your own brain as you put yourself into their shoes. Having notes to share with them help as well and they seemed to appreciate them too. With now everyone in our outpatient coding area trained in those two disciplines the question that came up was is their a rotation schedule so you can maintain both skills learned. With the assistance of my Coding tech - we worked on the schedule Friday - she presented to them - and they all like it. Needlesstosay, I was very happy with that. At the hospital we have work on concurrent (present day) charts and since we work on an Apr 1 to Mar 31 fiscal year, we will not be able to code our April 1 data until we can add the changes to the computer. So working again with the Coding tech, I suggested something we used to do in Thunder Bay when we were overlapping fiscal years. Well, my director and coding manager liked the idea as well - photocopy and write the diagnoses and procedures on the face sheet so it will be so much easier to enter into the computer once everything is updated and you are not spending alot of time photocopying. So Friday was a good day showing me that if you can make a suggestion contributing to your office that it might be warmly received and not always shot down.

My other reality check came in renovations to the house. Hard to believe that it will be almost a year that I have moved into my house. I have been doing phone calling to get estimates, to get an idea of what the costs are to build a deck (which I am hoping can sub as a storage area as my backyard is quite small compared to my Thunder Bay home) and to finish my basement. The first guy gave me a rough total estimate of $40,000-$50,000 for both projects. Okay, ALL blinders were off the eyes now. WOW! I gave him my house plans and more of an idea of what I was looking at and my priorities (like my deck) and he will be getting back to me to give me a better idea cost wise. The second guy I found on handycanadian.com and as I was explaining that the bathroom I would like to have a shower instead of a bath like I had in TB - his reply - hey I am from Current River. Another shocker! I laughed and replied I am from Northwood - so here in Calgary I find another person from Thunder Bay. Seems like it is not uncommon to find more and more people coming from Northwestern Ontario now living in Calgary. Anyway, his estimate was much lower ($25,000 to $30,000) and more what I had originally thought. I just returned a call for someone to come Wednesday after work to get an estimate. I realize I am known to some to be impulsive in my purchases (my car) or actions (my move to Calgary), I am taking this purchase slower and looking at all options and don't take the first estimate and that's all. I am hoping I am learning from my past a bit.

Tonight, my dad arrives with his girlfriend (this will be the first time I will be meeting her), so as you can imagine I am a bit nervous (maybe keep me in your thoughts that things go well for us). They are here until Thursday morning when they head back to TB. Monday night, myself along with the ladies of my church will be presenting my dad with the t-shirt quilts we have been working on since the beginning of January (don't worry I will add the photos of the finish projects on the blog). It has been a great experience for me and felt that I have made special friendships with these ladies as we chatted and shared while doing the quilts. While I am at work during the day, my dad will be working through the boxes and belongings that are in my basement. If anyone has been the TV show - Clean Sweep - he will have his Keep, Sale and Toss piles. He will be taking as much of his Keep stuff into his car back to TB, so my basement might be emptying out a bit come Thursday morning.

Hope my family and friends who read this blog, are having a good day. Thank you for your love and friendships too.