Hellooooo, Monday.
Jun. 3rd, 2002 04:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaThe third of the month is Check Day. That's when disability checks and Temporary Emergency Assistance checks arrive, and people who have been broke for a week or more suddenly have money in their pockets again. Some of them spend the third getting money orders or paying their bills in person, because they don't have checking accounts and don't have any other way to take care of their business. Some of them spend the third getting high. Few of them spend the third keeping their clinic appointments. Check Day means phenomenally high no-show rates.
So I spent the morning sitting around, waiting for clinic patients who might also want to be research participants, and only managing to recruit one solitary person. Yawning. Reading two-year-old copies of People.
Back at the institute, suddenly a breathless research nurse was knocking at my door. She had a former study participant on the phone - desperate, sobbing, talking wildly. What should she do? Could I help? And so I found myself unexpectedly on the phone with a suicidal stranger, doing my best to calm her and assess for dangerousness and convince her to be hospitalized and marshall resources to keep her safe in the meantime. And then coordinating her transportation to the hospital, and calling ahead to the psychiatric ER, and getting the background information they'd need from the research nurse.
The strange thing, in retrospect, is how ordinary it seemed. I wasn't scared. I didn't have that oh-god-what-do-I-do feeling I used to have in psychiatric emergencies. It was just a matter of "okay, here's what needs to be done" - and I did it. She's at the hospital right now, getting the care she needs.
And now, in the late afternoon, a semi- research emergency: a grant due next week of which we have suddenly become a part, and a stack of 80 18-page documents from which I need to extract data to support the grant application. I wish I had some of those slack morning hours back...
Whew. And then I'll be on to physical therapy, and then making dinner at high speed so we can leave on time for English Country Dance. And then two hours of dancing to finish off the night. Helloooooo, Monday.
So I spent the morning sitting around, waiting for clinic patients who might also want to be research participants, and only managing to recruit one solitary person. Yawning. Reading two-year-old copies of People.
Back at the institute, suddenly a breathless research nurse was knocking at my door. She had a former study participant on the phone - desperate, sobbing, talking wildly. What should she do? Could I help? And so I found myself unexpectedly on the phone with a suicidal stranger, doing my best to calm her and assess for dangerousness and convince her to be hospitalized and marshall resources to keep her safe in the meantime. And then coordinating her transportation to the hospital, and calling ahead to the psychiatric ER, and getting the background information they'd need from the research nurse.
The strange thing, in retrospect, is how ordinary it seemed. I wasn't scared. I didn't have that oh-god-what-do-I-do feeling I used to have in psychiatric emergencies. It was just a matter of "okay, here's what needs to be done" - and I did it. She's at the hospital right now, getting the care she needs.
And now, in the late afternoon, a semi- research emergency: a grant due next week of which we have suddenly become a part, and a stack of 80 18-page documents from which I need to extract data to support the grant application. I wish I had some of those slack morning hours back...
Whew. And then I'll be on to physical therapy, and then making dinner at high speed so we can leave on time for English Country Dance. And then two hours of dancing to finish off the night. Helloooooo, Monday.
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Re: Speechless
Date: 2002-06-06 08:38 am (UTC)