“So are you the boss around here?”

I was sitting at a desk in the rehab office this afternoon putting the finishing touches on some evaluations when a per diem PT who comes in occasionally said that to me. She said that I had the air of a boss or director and she was pretty shocked when I said I was 4 weeks out of college. I suppose I get all gussied up every day to look as professional as possible, so maybe being confused with a nursing home director isn’t a bad thing. Hell, when I have my stethescope my more-demented patients think I’m the doctor…and who am I to correct them?

Good day at work. Not quite the fireball I was yesterday, at least not at the end. I got too chatty with some co-workers towards the end of the day right before seeing my last patient, so I could have been done a lot sooner. Stayed a half an hour late to finish most of my stuff, so that wasn’t bad. I think I had 6.5 productive hours out of 8 for the day, so that’s pretty good.

Eating something healthy then going to the gym. 199 this morning.

UPDATE: Back from a couple circuits of upper- and lower-body stuff and some intervals on the elliptical.  Pretty tired.  Not doing anything structured right now, I just don’t have it in me, but I’m keeping the intensity cranked up.  Intensity trumps all.  Gonna make me an omelet.

There is so much space on this thing…

My previous iPod held 30gb worth of music and I had a hard time filling that up.  This 80gb is enormous, I can’t really comprehend just how much information that is.  My computer doesn’t even hold that much information.  I’ve put all of my music, all of my podcasts (of which there are many), all of my downloaded episodes of The Office, all of my audiobooks, and all of my photos, and I’ve still only filled about 20%.  I suppose that means I can delete a lot of that crap from my computer to save space.  I don’t know why I would want 80gb worth of information on this, but it feels good to know that I have it available even though I’ll never use it.  I’m out of my faux-music-snob phase that lasted from last winter through the spring when I pretended to be into indie bands I never really liked that much to begin with (e.g, The Shins), so I don’t anticipate trying to put whatever I can find on here for the sake of having more music.  Looking back, I can’t really justify owning three albums by The Mountain Goats just because they were free, you know?

Though speaking of music-snob music, if anyone has seen the ad for the the new Macbook Air, the really light, thin computer, my new favorite song is by some girl named Yael Naim and the song is “New Soul.” I think it’s the new “Float On,” as in a really bouncy, happy song that just makes you feel good listening to.  We’ll probably all be sick of the song once Apple repeatedly bashes us over the head with these commercials for the next few weeks, but it’s still great.

New iPod!!

I canceled my $140 iPod service fee and bought a new one today. I was digging through some mail from a few weeks ago and found a card from my aunt Maureen who gave me $100. My mom also reminded me that they never gave me a birthday present, so they are going to give me $100, plus I had $26 left over on a mall gift card. That leaves me with a $25 price tag on a spankin’ new 80gb black iPod. It’s currently syncing and I love it already!

Good day of work, I banged through 4 hours and 10 minutes of therapy and four screens in 6 hours today and had the rest of the day to do paperwork. My mentor Chris came by and gave some advice on how to work with a couple of my more difficult patients. Let’s see if I can string together two productive, efficient days in a row.

No gym today. I was going to but I had to make a bunch of phone calls and then go by the iPod. I’ll be up and ready for tomorrow morning. Diet was great, I’m using a lot of will power, drinking a lot of water, and eating a lot of almonds.  199 tomorrow?

The Bourne Productivity

…like that allusion? See, it’s funny because I just talked about The Bourne Ultimatum while using the same title style as…oh forget it.

What really doesn’t make sense about that post title is the fact that I wasn’t very productive today. I only had 3 hours and 10 minutes on my schedule today, yet I got out a half an hour late, which is pretty poor considering. Usually at any of the meal times I have 2-3 three patients to see at once, which drives up my total units for the day, but today was only 1 person at breakfast and lunch. I also had a lot of paperwork left over from Friday that I tried to finish (close, but not quite), but still, I could have done much better. Today was all over the place, I was hoping it would go better.

It was just a sucky day overall. Nothing major happened, a couple patients were jerks (none that I had to work with, thankfully, but some people just don’t obey their bed alarms), but with the weather there were fewer people there today. A couple of the nurses were super-bitchy about my recommendations and some orders I wrote, but I have to remember that nurses and therapists never get along, especially the old nurses stuck in their ways and the young therapists like myself. We both think we get in each other’s way. In any case, hopefully tomorrow will be better. Once again I’ll try to get everyone out of the way early so I can have the afternoon for paperwork.

One of the things I’ve been struggling with lately is educating patients and families about why I’m seeing them and getting into the specifics. I feel I have a good understanding of why things are happening and what exactly I am treating and why I’m treating it, but some days I feel I need a better grasp on what I’m doing. That requires more research, more reading, more planning, and above all, more practice. I haven’t gotten as far into the cases as I feel I should and while I’m spending many hours in Bourne, it’s usually to get paperwork done.

Anyway, I’m dragging myself to the gym this evening, even though all I want to do is eat, read, and sleep. Gotta get it done.
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Now playing: Against Me! – Thrash Unreal
via FoxyTunes

UPDATE: Gym for about 45 minutes, an upper-body tri-set, a lower body superset, three times through. Treadmill intervals for 8 minutes, that was it for me.  Good to get something done.

I’m very glad I resisted the leftover chocolate cake that my co-workers got for me on Friday.  I had a couple of pieces last Friday but it was still there this afternoon.  It was such good cake and I almost gave in, but it is Monday and I can’t fall off this early in the week.  As long as that cake is there I’m going to be tempted so gotta keep the will strong.

In iPod news, I’m apparently going to have to pay $140 to get mine fixed, which I’ve decided is a rip so I’m going to cancel the service request.  I even have to send it back myself, usually they just send you a box and you send it back.  I think I should be able to find another 30gb video for somewhere under $200, but I’m frustrated because I can’t find anything.  Bestbuy.com doesn’t have anything but the new ones and those are like $350.  The iPod is great, but Apple totally dicks you around by putting out another model within a year, making the one you have obsolete.  It’s a fucking racket.
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Now playing: Wolfmother – Witchcraft
via FoxyTunes

Monday Nor’Easter

It’s 5:00 AM on Monday, I just woke up after a pretty good night’s sleep and I’m already to go to the gym.  Problem is, the weather is awful right now.  The wind has been howling since last night and it’s been snowing enough that driving on the road right now is probably not a good idea.

Oh well.  At least I woke up when I was supposed to, I feel good about that.  I will to work early today and be there at 8.  That means I can be out by 4:30 and even go to the gym after.  I’ll pack my bag ahead of time.

I finished the Belichick book, it was very good.  The real interesting parts were his time with the Giants, his relationship with Bill Parcells, his failed tenure in Cleveland where he tried to act like Parcells, and his rise with the Patriots.  It felt weird to hear about the whole Bledsoe v. Brady thing and how difficult it was that year, despite the fact that it wasn’t really a contest in hindsight.  Now that I’m finished with that (I read 100 pages yesterday to finish it off), I’m going back to fiction with a John Grisham novel I started a couple years ago and forgot about, The Broker.  I went back a few chapters so I’d remember what was going on, but I like it.

After hearing a song on the radio and reading some good reviews, I bought the album New Wave by Against Me! (exclamation point is in the band’s name, not how excited I am about it).  I’ve never really been into punk, and this isn’t doing a ton to change my opinion, but I do love one song, “Thrash Unreal,” and another is really good, “White People for Peace.”  It has a Springsteen-ish sound it to it, almost if the Dropkick Murphys (who I hate) were playing Bruce songs.  Anyway, download “Thrash Unreal.”

It’s now 5:20 AM, I should probably start my day.

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Weekend

After my big weigh-in Friday morning I’ve celebrated by eating everything in sight.  Not quite, but a little cake here, some pizza there, some wine pretty much all the time…I’ll be okay, I had fun.

Friday night was a miserable drive to MGH IHP for Jaylynn’s graduating class’ get-together.  I missed made the wrong turn twice (I won’t say whose fault that was, but I’ll give a hint: She’s 5′3″, brown hair, and recently had knee surgery), and got there 45 minutes late.  I am the worst Boston driver in the history of Boston drivers and I fear the day I have to do it again.  Good time at the party, though.  A couple glasses of wine and dinner at the Tavern on the Water.

On Saturday Jaylynn and I actually did something on our date instead of going to the movies or reading magazines: We went bowling in Shrewsbury.  I started off well, beating her 115-78 in the first game, but then the wheels fell off and I had one of the worst collapses in modern sports.  I lost the next two games after rolling gutter ball after gutter ball, while she stayed relatively consistent.  I’ve always been a terrible bowler but I had myself fooled during that first game.  I’ll get her next time.  Next Saturday we’re apparently making pottery at a place in Worcester.

We had dinner at our favorite restaurant, Amici’s Trattoria in Shrewsbury, and spent the entire $75 gift card her parents got me for Christmas.  I had a nice Pinot Noir, buffalo chicken pizza, and a caramel-covered cannoli called “The Dynamite Stick.”  It was awesome, I love going to Amici’s.  Next time we’re going to do the steakhouse next door.  I love me some steaks.

We also watched The Bourne Ultimatum last night, and while it wasn’t a total clunker, I was really bored.  How many times do we have to watch Matt Damon try to find out his past (and by the way, didn’t we figure that out by the end of the first movie?) and get into car chases in New York City before people stop seeing these films? I thought The Bourne Identity was a great movie, The Bourne Supremacy was forgettable (evidenced by the fact that I forget most of what happened in it), and Ultimatum wasn’t anything really different than those two.  The only real difference is the city where all the shit happens and the CIA chief who is trying to kill him.  First it was Zurich and Chris Cooper, then India and the blond, and now this guy with glasses in New York.  I’ll put money on The Bourne Legacy being a series of car chases in the Czech Republic and somebody like Willem Defoe will want Bourne in a body bag by sundown.  That’s my Pontiac Prediction of the Week.

Back to the gym and work tomorrow.  I’m drinking a ton of water, getting a good night’s rest, and doing whatever I want to in terms of working out.

I think my scale is broken.

Weighed myself the last two days and rather than feel happy and accomplished, I’m confused.  After weighing 204 pounds last week and thinking it was odd because it was after the holidays and I hadn’t been diligent about the gym or my diet, I weighed myself again yesterday…202 pounds.  Hmm, I thought, this is interesting.  I have been good about TNT this week and even when I wasn’t sticking to it, my calories were under control.   I’m back in the habit of eating almonds (my secret weapon because they fill me up, low-carb, high-protein and high-fat, and I don’t quite like them enough to eat more than I should) and I’m drinking much more water (which I hadn’t been for a while).  Then just now before getting in the shower on Friday morning, I was 200 pounds. I should feel happier about it, this is the first major goal I set for myself in the fall and while it’s a little late (I wanted January 1), I still got there during a very new and hectic time in my life.

It just doesn’t feel very real.  I mean, I’ve been working out 1-2 times  a week, albeit very intensely, and my diet has been good, but not great.  It’s not possible I’m losing muscle this quickly, it just doesn’t happen that way, but I’m guessing the main culprit is water weight rather than fat.  I’ve been drinking a lot more water lately in an effort to wake up earlier (which worked that one time, and not since), and while I don’t really know the science well (or at all), I feel like drinking more water is causing me to retain less? Jesus, I don’t know, but whatever it is it doesn’t feel too authentic.  While the scale weight has been more important in my eyes than it should be, I know that the body composition is really what matters in terms of how I look, and since I haven’t been working out much, I feel like this isn’t a real result, just a numerical anomaly.

In any case, I do think I look better.  My clothes are fitting very well (even a little baggy), I’m seeing more abs in the mirror, and once I FINALLY get this whole gym schedule down (now thinking it’s better to work early and then go to the gym, I might give it a shot next week), I can get back to the effort portion of this whole process and then hopefully some more believable results will come.

Working earlier today then to MGH for Jaylynn’s graduation party.

Back in the Saddle

I was supposed to wake up at 5, but I woke up at 6.  I came extremely close to skipping the gym but I finally got out of bed at 6:30, went to the gym for 6:45, and was back home by 7:45.  Nothing structured today, just 3 supersets of incline dumbbell bench and cable rows plus 3 supersets of goblet squats and Bulgarian split squats with no rest in between.  I did 10 minutes of intervals on the elliptical machine and headed out of there.  I feel great.  The drinking-water-before-bed thing definitely works, except I woke up at 3 and then fell back asleep till 6.  Some upper body, some lower body, some cardio.  Good enough for today.

I weighed myself on a whim today after breakfast and a ton of water, which is never a good idea.  It’s usually a morale-killer if I don’t get an accurate reading…and then the scale said I was 203.  This makes no sense, though I really think I look skinner in my work clothes today.  Maybe it’s a water-weight thing (usually is when I haven’t been working out), but today is going to be a great diet day because I don’t want to blow this.  199 is so close…

I’m going to be as efficient today as I was yesterday, if not more so.  That’s my goal in addition to eating right.

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Now playing: Bruce Springsteen – Waitin’ On A Sunny Day
via FoxyTunes

Short Day!

I got out a half hour early today! Yes!

I was extremely efficient today and doing all my notes during or immediately after each session was incredibly smart.  I don’t why I hadn’t done it earlier, it’s what all the other therapists do.

My boss also mixed my schedule around a little bit so Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays aren’t as killer as they were (some people I have three times a week, others five, so those days were getting too crazy) so that everything is pretty even.  It was a good day.

Okay, so my plan for the evening is to drink a few glasses of water before bed so I’ll be forced to wake up and pee, then I can go to the gym.  It’s a plan I’ve used before to get going before, maybe it will work now.  I don’t care what I do if I get there tomorrow, I just need to do something.

Diet was good, a few almonds as a snack in between a couple of shakes and some meatballs for dinner.

Drinking water, then going to bed.

Really, really long day

Worked 9:20 AM-8:20 PM today.  I knew I would have to stay late because of the paperwork I left on Friday.  Not a bad day, just really long.  I get kind of frustrated when my boss shows me something else that I have to do (apparently I need to screen every patient that comes into the home, not just the ones I have orders for), but that’s how it is and I’m continuing to adjust.  I’m being professional.

Starting tomorrow, I’m going to start writing my notes and evals (or as much of them as I can) during my sessions as opposed to waiting till the end of the day.  That’s 90% of the reason I have to stay late every night, so this can at least cut down on a lot of that time.

Work is going well despite how much extra time I have to spend there.  It’s just a matter of becoming more efficient all the time, writing notes and evals faster, taking less time between sessions, reviewing charts better, etc.  It’s a work in progress.  I’ll spend less and less extra time at night, and hopefully in a few weeks I’ll be working a traditional 40-hour week.

I do think some organization around the place could be better.  We need a better system for new admissions, who has what orders, when those orders need to be fulfilled, etc.  I’m asking a lot of questions and I feel like I’m not getting straight answers.  One of the new OTs and I are both new and both just out of a college, so we’re in the same boat and can commiserate on some of these issues.

Diet was a shake, another shake, an omelet, and 3 Milano cookies.  Good enough for today.