First Day in Ottawa

Well, today was my first full day being a reabstractor here in Ottawa. I arrived on Sunday afternoon. My girlfriend Lorna picked me up at the airport (funny her husband's flight arrived just 5 minutes before mine). It was great seeing her again - oh yeah that was just last week!!! (HAHA). What a blur my life has been this past week. Finding out that I was heading back to Southern Ontario to take part in this year's reabstracting study. The bathroom renos are FINALLY completed - Marshall had to call in his plumber to help fix the bathtub spout as the copper piping was all warped hence the leaking into the bathtub. I used up the last of my holidays for this year, and took some time off on Friday to head up to Three Hills. Was able to have visit time with my 3 James sisters - Amy, Sara and Amanda. Of course, as I was staying with Sara, I took advantage of getting some cuddle time with Casendra. She is sooooo cute!!! Okay, I'm biased - but she is adorable. Lucky for me, I basically slept the WHOLE way on the flight to Ottawa - so I was able to catch up on my sleep. When we hit some turbalence and thought we must be nearing Sault Ste Marie - funny enough on the map in the seat in front of me showed exactly that - the Soo. I don't know what happens as soon as you hit that corner of the Lake Superior - wind comes.

Lorna dropped me off at the hotel - my room has a little livingroom, a separate bedroom, a small kitchen (even has a dishwasher!!), a washer and dryer. From my balcony on the 16th floor, I can see the Parilament buildings (it was raining today so I will take a photo once it gives sunny outside). I arrived this morning at the Ottawa Civic. I did arrive on time, but learned that there are more than one "main entrance" at the hospital and I choose the wrong one. A volunteer staff member helped me and I found the director of the Health Record Deptwaiting at the main entrance at the other end of the hall. They are in the middle of Phase two in moving Health Records around so I am in a separate building behind the main hospital. The charts were waiting for me and some of them were quite big (one has 6 volumes for just one visit). The staff that I have met so far have been very helpful. Have a nice little set up - using the desktop computer to access the internet and their electronic medical record documents while I do my abstracting on the laptop that CIHI gave me. Once I get to know the assembly order of the chart, I am sure things will become more smoothier and I'll get a rhythm.

Lorna and I are getting together after work tomorrow for a visit at her place (haven't seen it) as well as a visit to the grocery store to get some things like fresh fruit. Later in the week, I will add some photos.

Terry Fox - a true Canadian Inspiration

Terry Fox (1958-1981) - a person that has inspired so many people across our country as well as countries around the world. Terry Fox lost his leg to osteogenic sarcoma but with his artifical leg, he ran 5,373 km (St. John, Newfoundland & Labrador to just outside of Thunder Bay, Ontario) to raise the money for cancer research. He also inspired others to reach for your dreams despite trials you might have to face along the way.

A notice counting down the days until the Winter Olympics arrive in Canada. In 697 days, 4 hours, 50 minutes and 20 seconds from the time I took this photo, the opening ceremonies for the Olympics for both able and disabled athletes around the world begins.

Landmarks of Downtown Ottawa

The Parliament Buildings - where the Federal Government meet

Wilfred Laurier Fairmont Hotel - how cool it is to have a castle in the middle of the city.

The Unknown Solider momument across from the Wilfred Laurier Hotel

Flags representing each province and territory.

Lorna and Laura

Lorna (formerly of Thunder Bay) picked me up at the VIA Rail and took me on a little tour of Ottawa. She also showed me where she lived in Quebec when she first moved to Ottawa area with her husband Jide. It was great seeing her again. It was quite windy the day I arrived, so it is not the best photo of me with Lorna as my hair was being blown everywhere.

Meeting up at Boston's - Lorna and I met up with the rest of her family - Lorna's husband Jide (in the back on the right side), Lorna's sister Carol and Lorna's dad (in the forefront). The one taking the photo is Marcia - Lorna's other sister. Last time I saw Carol and Marcia was at Lorna's wedding which was 3 years ago now. It was great seeing them all again - as always - plenty of laughs throughout the evening.

Lorna picked me up from the CIHI Building on Monday and she was able to take a photo of me in front of the Parliament Buildings. The huge middle structure is called the Peace Tower. If I remember reading it correctly, you can go to the top of the tower and have a wonderful view of the city of Ottawa.

Ottawa - Canada's Capital

View of the National Arts Gallery with famous church in the background

The Parliament Buildings from afar

The Bridge connect Quebec (left) with Ontario (right)

View from the train

The above photos were taken of the country side between Montreal and Ottawa as I took the VIA back to Ottawa.

Family Gatherings

After my cousins Debbie and Janet along with my Aunt Carol (dad's sister) and I went to go see a movie (The Other Bolyen Girl), we all went back to my Aunt Carol's place for dinner. It was great to see everyone (Janet's husband Eddie was at work so I missed seeing him on this trip). The above photo is John (Debbie's husband), Janet, Uncle Bert and Rachel (Janet's daughter).

Hannah and Leighton - there were in their own little world - best playmates. Hannah just turned 6 in February and Leighton will be 6 in December. After dinner while the adults were talking about plans for an Italian trip in the summer of 2009, the cousins - Leighton, Mikayla (Leighton's big sister) , Hannah and Rachel (Hannah's little sister) played so well downstairs.

This is Rachel - she is so precious. She loves playing with her cousins and sister, but at the same time likes to be where the adults are. She would come upstairs for chips and dip and then go back downstairs. She must have done that for about a half hour!! She sat beside me at dinner and she let me butter her bread for her too. Just before they left for the evening and we were saying our goodbyes - Rachel came up to me and gave me a big hug.

My Uncle Bert with his dad. Before I left Montreal, we stopped in to spend some time with Bert Sr. My aunt Carol tells me that Bert Sr is in the only War Veteran's Hospital in Canada - St Mary's hospital. You know for 92 - he still has a great sense of humour. It brought a smile to your face when you go to his room and see the shelf above the tv holding photos of his family and his wife who has passed away. The last time I saw Bert Sr was at my cousin Janet's wedding - some 7 years ago - it was good seeing him again.

Visiting Montreal

Before I went to my training week in Ottawa, I spent the weekend in Montreal to visit with my relatives. I took the VIA Rail from Ottawa. It has been awhile since the last time I took the VIA - it is a great way to visit this country, as I remember taking the VIA from Montreal to Halifax - we do have such beautiful in my home country of Canada - how fortunate we are. One of the most familar scenes I remember to mark my arrival to Montreal is the Fabrine 5 Roses building.

This is my Uncle Alan and Aunt Dee. I had such a wonderful visit with them. So you know the connection - Uncle Alan is my mom's brother. I think this is the first time that my Aunt Dee and I haven't had a game of Scrabble during our visits. She showed me my house on Google Earth - we had a good laugh when we saw how close I am to the edge of Calgary. I left with a heirloom of my grandmother's too. My aunt Dee gave me my grandmother's hairset - the handles of the hairbrush, comb and nail filer as well as the top of the tray are of mother pearl. Last year when I was visiting with my mom, my aunt Dee gave me a photo of my Grandmother's nursing photo.

I shared with my Aunt Dee of one afternoon I had spent with my Grandmother Grace. We were in her parlour in Cornwall, just the two of us. I so wished I had a tape recorder to capture the stories she told me. She was suffering from early stages of Alzheimer's, but it is one of my most fondest memories - she would tell me stories of the boys locking the girls in the outhouse near the one-room school she taught at in Moira, Ontario. So having a little piece of hers is special to me. Thanks Aunt Dee.

Mountains of Snow!!!

My uncle Alan's front yard

These two photos are the front of my Uncle Alan's door. The path in the photo below is for their dog Katie to run around. She loves putting her nose in the snow and making a little path herself.

This is my Uncle Bert's front yard.

Pushing my Comfort Zone

For those who have known me a long time, understand that growing up (say age 10 to my 20s) I suffered from low self-esteem. This would include low confidence in my own gifts and abilities. Unless I knew for certain I would be able to complete something successfully, I would not do it or attempt it.

Some close friends have shared with me that over the last few years that have noticed my confidence to try something that normally is not in my "Comfort zone" increase. They say they began to see it when I learned how to drive (finally!!!) when I was 30. Looking back I tend to agree that things began to change when I learned that valuable skill of driving.

Taking that step to move to Calgary 3 years ago now, was a huge push in expanding my comfort zone. Relocating oneself is a huge decision, but a decision I have never regretted. Since beginning at Calgary Health Region, so many doors have opened to increase my skill level - within in 3 months of working I went from just doing Emergency coding, to include surgical daycare and inpatient coding. And within that same year learn how to code obstretical and newborn coding. I was worried about that last area as that was my stumbling block in school. Today, I can include being a surgical daycare coding traineras well. When I did my interview with CIHI and they asked me to say yes or no to the areas where I have coded - do you know that I was able to say YES to everything?? I just shake my head - I thought I would never been able to say that. You know the other thing I learned? - If I did not work at the Foothills site as well as gone to PLC and Rockyview to code - I would not been able to say yes to all.

Last month, I decided to push my comfort zone again (no I am not leaving Calgary). I applied for 2 coding coordinator positions here at the Calgary Health Region. One is a temporary full time (until the end of August) and the other is a permanent FT. Two weeks ago I had a 2 hour computer assessment test and last Wednesday I had my interview (almost 2 hours long!!). I was the first one of 5 whom applied to have the interview - My boss, the coding supervisor and the data quality coordinator were conducting the interview and they rotated through the 11 pages of questions (some had 2-3 questions per page). At the end of the interview I had to give a 10 min presentation on something. Thinking I have been only here for 3 years, I decided on talking about my career and how different things could apply to being a coding coordinator. Not knowing what to expect, I had to think on my feet for the answers. Hopefully I will find out either way this week when I am in Calgary. If by chance, I am asking to take this position, I would be in charge in leading meetings plus just going through the whole process of applying is what I mean by "pushing my comfort zone".

Lately, my view on my career future has been looking at the "Big Picture" - if I stay in Health Records until I retire that will be another 20-25 years! So if I don't try different aspects of my field now it might lead me down a different path. So even if I don't become a coding coordinator now, my boss knows it is something I am interested in, so if a small temporary job (taking part in an internal study project - just did one for thoracic surgery) they might remember. What is that saying - if you don't try you won't know. So that is what I am doing.

Trying something new - professionally

You probably noticed it has been a while since my last entry. The reason for this began in December when I received an email from my national association (Canadian Health Information Management Association - CHIMA) as well as from my national database (Canadian Institute of Health Information - CIHI). In the email they were asking coders to apply to take part in a reabstraction study (this is year 2 of a 5-year study). I had applied last year but did not have enough experience in inpatient coding. In January I received my phone call asking for an interview. After the 35 min interview I had 24 hours to complete 4 case studies and fax it back to CIHI. In February I received my letter inviting me to the training session where I will still have to write a coding test before being chosen. So this past week (March 17-20th), I have been in Ottawa at the training session.

It has been a great 4 days meeting 10 other ladies from across Canada (1 each from BC, SASK, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland & Labrador, and the remainder from ONT). I was the one representing AB. I have heard from the others that there were originally 50 applicants, so being one of the 11 chosen is such an honour for me. It was definitely a learning experience professionally - found a few mistakes I have been making - have been able to make a suggestion to my director on an issue that has been our achilles heel at the FMC site.

The coding test was long - 16 case studies and we had to code it like we were out in the field doing this study. We had to rework our brains to think 2006 coding standards and focusing only on the study goals for this study. After learning of some gliches they had to determine if we passed or failed - we learned about 1.5 hours before leaving that we had all passed!!!

So this means that I will be heading back to Ontario (BC and AB are the other two provinces taking part in the study) for the month of April. There are 17 hospitals in Ontario participating in the study. Each week I would be at a different hospital (as well as maybe with another coder) and I have to do at least 120 charts per day (about 24 per day). I had asked for Ontario as maybe on weekends I can visit family and friends that live in those areas.

I will do my best to keep my blog up to date while in Ontario.

Happy Birthday Jon!!

This afternoon some of us were ablet o match up our schedules and go out to a movie and dinner to celebrate Jon's birthday. Jon, Peter, Char, Sara, Casendra and myself went to the movie Spiderwick Chronicles. It is a fantasy-like movie based a book series. For me by the time I finally got my head around what was going on and who the players were, the movie was finishing up. Must be slow in the uptake with those types of movies. We then headed to The Keg for finner and time for visiting.

Happy Birthday Jon!!! Hope you had a great day Jon. The above photo of Jon with his mom Char was actually taken by Jon's niece Sierra. Great job Sierra!!

Random Photos from Today

Sierra took this photo of her mom Sara

Casendra with her eyes open - they are beautiful

Before leaving for the movie, Spiderwick Chronicles, we all met at Andy and Char's place. I caught a quiet moment between Ocean and her Uncle Peter

Budding Photographers!!!

Both Sierra and Ethan took a turn taking photos with my camera. I must say they took some great shots of the party. With the help of his dad, John, Ethan took these first two photos. John helped by keeping the camera steady while Ethan shot the photo.

Ethan's Uncle Jon (the birthday boy) and Grandma Char who is holding baby Casendra (Ethan's little sister)

Myself with Sierra

The next couple of photos were taken by Sierra.

This is Nelson, their International student from Hong Kong (we learned at dinner that he was actually born right here in Calgary at the PLC!!!)

Here is Sierra's dad with her brother Ethan

Sleeping Casendra

Tooke a couple of photos of Casendra while she was sleeping. The top phots is of her almost falling asleep (Sierra took that photo). She had just been fed so she was quite content now to have a snooze.

Casendra is having a snooze while her Uncle Peter holds her.

Guy Talk

Ethan is having a "man to man" talk with his Uncle Peter

While waiting for our orders, from my end of the table, looks like that Andy, Jon and Peter were having a deep conversation about something.