I started the day with a pretty negative attitude. I was feeling a weird 3-pronged sense of guilt:
Prong 1: Guilty that I had asked for a telehealth day, because our office wasn’t actually closed (though they closed at noon today).
Prong 2: Guilty that I was not really going to be able to watch my kids anyway because I’d be doing telehealth, so they’d be on screens (and if that was the case, did I even really need to be home?)
Prong 3: This storm isn’t even hitting yet so all of this like . . . for what?! Also, guilty because we aren’t getting the brunt of it (hurricane version of survivor’s guilt?)
Then we had a tornado warning (with actual tornados in the local area) and I came to my senses. ALSO I was so glad NOT to be seeing that from work with the kids at home!
So, then I realized that NONE OF THE ABOVE MATTERS, #1/2 ARE NOT WORTH WASTING ENERGY THINKING ABOUT, AND I SHOULD GET OVER MYSELF AND ALSO BE GRATEFUL WE ARE FINE.
Which, so far, we are! (I do hear some kids fighting in the background as I type this, but hey. Hopefully they can work it out.)
Trying to just embrace the positives and make the best of this time. I have a few more virtual patient visits today and then I am going to tackle my neglected gmail, which is very overdue for cleanup.
The mail still came:
Fun mail yesterday (I had preordered!). My TBR stack is reaching never-before-seen proportions. Vowing not to add anything until I make a significant dent!
16 Comments
I bet your patients’ families were also grappling with school closures, transport concerns etc so the telehealth swap likely benefited them as well as you. I moved teaching online last year because my public transport options were sketchy (flooding on train lines) and roads were bad – with a uni with a big commuter population, it felt irresponsible.
Oh man – flooded train lines is a NO! Whenever anyone else goes remote it sounds absolutely reasonable so I have no idea why I feel guilty doing it myself . . .
If I was a patient I would have appreciated telehealth under those circumstances!
Thinking of all of Florida
thank you!! can’t wait for this storm to CROSS OVER AND LEAVE!!!!
I bet your patients were happy to have their appt shift to telehealth as they potentially have other kids that are out of school/don’t have child care due to the storm and wouldn’t want to bring multiple kids in clinic for a sibling’s appt (that is how I would feel!). Try to drop the guilt if you can. You are doing the best with the information you have available.
But I’m thinking of all those in the path of this storm!
thank you Lisa!! That does makes sense. So far everyone I talked to today was super happy to be on telehealth!
I would have really appreciated a telehealth option in your patients’ shoes, so I’m glad you were able to make it work. Like you, I would much prefer to be at home with kids who are on screens rather than separated from them during scary weather. You made a good choice. Hope things go smoothly.
I’m appreciating this patient view!! Thank you! Yes there may be screen records set at our house this week. . .ahh well!
I would have been super relieved to have my provider offer a telehealth option on a day like today. Such a frightening hurricane. Stay safe and keep us updated.
you guys are making me feel much better. Thank you!!!
I am here to say how pumped I am for you with those two new book arrivals!! I had also preordered The Plan and frankly if my book buying hadn’t recently been so out of control would have preordered Oliver’s, too. Going to wait for that one on audiobook from the library…
Also I must highly, highly recommend Ina Garten’s memoir on audio if possible—she reads it and it’s excellent. One of my top books of the year for sure. I listened to a lot of it while running and loved it.
oooh i know i would LOVE that!!!!
Oooh! I got my copy of The Plan yesterday too and am SO EXCITED to read it!!! Glad you got a telehealth day and even if your kids were still on screens with you home, you were HOME if they needed you!
fully agree about remaining positive no matter the circumstances. excited about your new books. I’ll get them too.
Yes, yesterday was such a weird day! I think this was the strangest storm we’ve ever had. Terrible weather in advance of the actual hurricane, and then today it’s beautiful and breezy . Those tornadoes were SCARY. Yes, you definitely wouldn’t want the kids to be home alone (but how would we have known that would happen???) Anyway… it’s over. For us, at least. Some people are just climbing out of the rubble, ugh.
I knoow. Feeling lucky but also sad for those impacted and OVER hurricane season.