Hey...would you look into my world?

Today I wanted to write about a typical day at work. Because of HIPPA laws(privacy laws), the pictures I am posting are not actually my patients, but they resemble the people I see.

I spend the day typing reports, trying to make sure I am JCAHO compliant, Medicare compliant, and "every other governing body" compliant, making sure we are meeting our sales goals, checking the billing reports, and numerous other "paper pushing" activities. Every now and then I am cursed and blessed with driving a route to deliver to patients.

I have been out on the routes for the past three weeks(yes, I have hired someone and I am waiting on all the background information to be processed so he can take over this driving), and I have had the blessing to visit with our patients, meet new patients and cry.

Yes, I cry and cry on some days when I leave the patients home. Last Friday I jumped in the car and headed out to deliver a walker and come right back, "shouldn't be gone long" I told Kelly as I was running out the door. I never made it back to the office that afternoon. I arrived at the patients home out on a ranch 60 miles from Clovis.

I knocked on the door and the lady waved me in. There sat a lovely 90 year old couple at their kitchen table. "won't you sit down and have a piece of banana bread with us?", "no thank you" I told them and then proceeded to lay the paperwork on the table and adjust the walker to the gentlemans height. As I was doing my "stuff", they started talking, what is your name, where are you from, how many children do you have, where do they live, do you have grandchildren...? Somewhere in the first five minutes of the dialogue, my "stuff" went by the wayside and I just sat back and started visiting.

We sliced the banana bread and I heard how they met, I learned that the 92 year old gentleman was born across the road from where we sat and that they had built their current home in 1950 and had raised their family there. The lady took me on a tour of their home and showed me all that they cherished. The reason I know this is what they "cherish" is because this is what she showed me. Pictures and pictures of their children, grandchildren, neighbors and friends, antiques left to them by their parents and their kids high school sports trophies.

Why did I cry? I cried when I left because God has blessed them with alert minds, I cried because they are concerned about finances, I cried because they want so much to be able to stay on the farm and not be forced to live in a home somewhere. I cried because they have had such a full life with many many happy memories and even some hurtful times which she told me about. I cried because she held up the orthopedic shoes she recently bought and she was so wishing they were "prettier", now that she has health issues she has to wear the ugly shoes.

They want to know when I am coming back. I don't know when I am coming back, I have so many many patients and so many reports to fill out and so much to do.... I wish I were going back tomorrow.

That isn't the case with all my patients, some can't see, some can't remember, some can't hardly breath, some can't walk at all. I see tired broken bodies, but I feel that many of them are saying..

"hey, would you look into my world"?