Hoping Next Week Can Start Bringing Better Balance

I haven't done much with my reports this past week. I think part of that is there have been so many things on my mind that are totally unrelated to the course. I think about the reports I need to be doing. For various reasons I just can't make myself stop thinking.

Today, I went to the memorial service for a very good friend of mine. She was one of those people that gathers everyone around her into "family." Not having her there anymore is going to be hard. Not just because she passed away too young and left a loving husband and 3 children behind, but also because she was so special. The church was crowded with friends and family. All with the same heartache squeezing in their chest like mine. That was one of the things that I've been thinking about.

Another thing that keeps beating on my brain like a hammer is my mother and her if/maybe/maybe not attitude about a surgery she really needs. I don't want to lose her.

I also had the evaluation from Social Security the other day. After taking an hour to ask me all sorts of questions that have been repeated over and over, I still have no idea how the evaluation went. Other than that it irritated me enormously. I was never asked about the things that were important to me. I was asked questions like "subtract 7 from 100 and keep going to 0" and "name 5 current events" and "name 5 celebrities." What the hell do those things have to do with depression? What do they have to do with why I have worked while on Disability? What does it say that I can't repeat several numbers in reverse order? What does it mean that I really don't care about any of those questions and never could do math of any kind in my head?

My kids are both sick and have been for several days. I'm very worried that they will pass these illnesses to me, or even worse, mom. I feel bad for them and want them to get better, but I feel guilty because I'm more concerned over passing it on to their grandmother. She gets sick and it could become something very serious very quickly.

There have been other things that have been concerning me. Things that I can't stop thinking about, but mostly everything just runs around and around in my head with no beginning, no middle, and no end. There are solutions to problems. I just can't see them. There are things that don't deserve the synapse firing energy. I just can't seem to make them have less weight and energy consumption.

There are a few things that I can see as positive this week though. I made a new Career Step friend. I enjoy her online company. We have a lot in common and there's potential there to have a great long-term friendship. I think making new friends is always worth it.

I also remembered that I had a weight control program that I hadn't used. I broke it open and started eating from the menu plan inside. Hopefully, this will help me with the issues of weight and energy that I have right now. It's the 6 Week Total Body Makeover. You know, the one where you blueprint your body type, figure out your goals, and then eat from specific menus for your body type. I bought it years ago, but didn't put it to real use. Between that and the swimming that I will start this next week, I think I can start getting this runaway weight gain to do a 180. I'll let you all know how it goes.

I should take some time this afternoon and work on reports. I'm just so tired and drained from the memorial service. I'll probably just take the afternoon and do some crocheting and tv watching and start over tomorrow. Just so tired.

What's Really Going to Happen If MTs Don't Exercise?

New Years Resolutions have been popping up all over the place. Some resolutioners already admitting to a backslide or two on those resolutions. I've always thought exercise should be topping my list of resolutions. Unfortunately, I really like to eat and don't have any active sports or hobbies that I pursue. Every time a new year shows up and I say to myself, "I'm going to start exercising and lose weight," I end up just picking up a potato chip and drinking from my pop. It's like the resolution part gets derailed before it's had time to settle in and become a goal.

The thing that drives me completely nuts about the whole exercising thing is that I honestly believe that healthy eating, exercise, and sports are GREAT things. No, not just good. I said GREAT! Healthy eating provides fuel, antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals. Exercise provides strong muscles and bones, energy, stamina, and a sense of well being. Sports, now that's just plain fun exercise, socializing, and an awesome tan. Of course, on a Jack and Jill type team, there's always the benefit of having some fast-moving eye candy to watch. Why do you think I really went to all my brother's baseball games during school? Sure, I cheered for him. He's my brother and I think he's awesome and fabulous and can do no wrong! How's that for loyalty? Hehe. I was also there to watch the boys.

But, watching sports and playing sports are just two totally different animals. It's like a leopard and a house cat. The only exercise in watching sports is the short walk from the car to the bleachers. Not a whole lot of benefit in it except to the person or team you're rooting for. Have you noticed I haven't mentioned watching televised sports? The only ones I watch are the Olympics and occasionally a gymnastics or ice skating event. I'm sure that would change if I had a man in my house who enjoyed watching sports on tv, but for just me? No thanks.

A little background in my own health adventures is probably called for here. I love food. Momma never had trouble getting little Renae to choke down the veggies, squash, ice cream, pizza, pasta, chocolate cake, strawberries, bananas, etc. There was that time I sat for four hours at the dinner table trying to eat a 3 inch piece of liver, but other than that and that escargot I was offered once, getting me to eat was never a problem. Healthy or not healthy didn't matter to me.

So, all this lovely food made for a mildly chubby little Renae. Momma, once again being the clever lady she was, insisted on summer swimming lessons and swimming pool passes, school sports, and boys and girls club activities. There was even a summer camp and several years at NYSP. That's National Youth Sports Program. Summer camp, NYSP, and swimming every day all day kept all that wonderful food from getting too friendly with my tummy and thighs. I was strong, solid, and could do anything.

I played every sport that came my way and pined for the sports that weren't available because of money or facilities. No, it didn't mean I was any good at them. Shoot, I was probably the least athletic kid in my school. Even one of my very good friends, who had the same wide width from shoulders to ankles could run faster than me. Never could do that. But, I loved the feeling of being involved, being on the move, the occasional sport where I could excel like swimming or volleyball. Dang, I had a beautiful swim stroke, I could float a ball just barely above the net and make it wobble at the opposing team like it couldn't make up it's mind who it wanted to humiliate. It just makes me smile to remember that.

A car accident when I was 16 injured my low back. We all pretty much ignored it for years. It came back to haunt me later.

I had a friend that lived at the bottom of a long, steep hill. Trust me, walking that hill several times a day in both directions definitely had a very beneficial effect on my food-loving anatomy. I've never been skinny. Just solid to solid and slightly chunky. Heck, I don't even have a slender to my history. Just solid. Do you know, I'd give my weight in gold to be solid now?

There's only one time as an adult that I've been a healthy, strong weight. I was 18 and worked at a bakery throwing 50 pounds of this and that and running for 8 to 14 hours a day. Trust me, you burn calories and build massive amounts of muscle doing that! It's my all-you-can-eat weight loss plan. I ate cake and cookies, bread, pie, donuts, glaze, icing. I could not get enough calories into me!

Well, then I had to go and get a sit-down job, two pregnancies, and another sit-down job, a couple of standing-but-in-one-place jobs, and a sit-down-drive-then-work-like-a-beast-for-15-minutes job. Whew! During all of this time, basically 22 years of employment history, not one sport, exercise program, healthy eating, or anything more energetic than the occasional weekend helping a friend move.

In that 22 years, why have I not done anything about the weight that has been steadily attaching itself to me? The honest answer? I'm LAZY! There. I said it. Dang, that hurt. No one wants to admit that the last 22 years have been a series of years and years of wasted opportunities to be healthy. It's not that I don't want to. But, I like watching tv, being on the computer, and sitting. Do you know why I enjoy those sedentary activities so much? Because moving HURTS! My back has 3 herniated discs from that car accident, my left side is a list of injuries that never quite go away.

What I need to decide is this. Is the fact that sitting at the computer all day every day is going to allow the weight that I have managed to fight for all those years to move in and get comfy? Or, am I going to make a real decision to get off my butt and get some kind of activity so that I can keep on fighting that weight like I've been doing for all these years? I know I'm not giving up food. Fahgettahboutit! I know I'm going to hurt. Those are givens and facts. I can't do a lot of things that I wouldn't have blinked twice about when I was younger. But, what can I do?

Swimming? Join a gym? Walk? At least not for a while. Volleyball? That's only during certain times of the year. Skating? If I fell, I wouldn't move for a month. Get some workout videos and just bounce around my tiny living room? Wait, knee, back, and ankle. No bouncing.

Do you see what I'm dealing with? I weigh more right this minute that I did at my heaviest 2nd pregnancy weight. I've got injuries that limit some common activities. I'm inherently lazy. And, I love food!

It's like this weirdly personal and personally universal problem that only the select few ever figure out. I would seriously doubt that as an MT or an MT in training that weight wouldn't be an issue. We've got so much time sitting and the presence or constant availability of food. If I'm having these issues now, what's going to happen in a year? Two years? Five? Ten? Twenty-Five? If something doesn't change very soon and I mean NOW, I can actually see myself being forklifted through the huge hole in my house they had to make when I finally pass away. Sooner than later, if I let it get that bad.

This is serious people! If you're not active, get active! If you're not at least thinking about this! Start! We've got one of the few professions where early obesity, muscle loss, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, cardiac problems, circulatory issues, gastric issues and OMG! PALE SKIN! ACNE! are almost guaranteed. Unless you have some very generous genetic abnormalities, (Ummm...Gifts) that you have most selfishly not shared with the rest of us... You Mutant!... Then we are not in a position to ignore the health warnings of a sedentary life. Hell, you don't even have to walk from the parking lot to an office to get exercise! It's just down the hall from your very own personal fridge, bathroom, bed, television, etc. If you have really nice friends and family, you may never leave the house on your own two feet again! AAAAAHHHHH!

Have I scared you into thinking about diet and exercise yet? I think I scared myself!

Apparently, from the pictures, I've decided to look into swimming as a low-impact enjoyable activity. Not great for building muscle (which I really miss) but great cardiovascular exercise. Not to mention, I really am a great swimmer and miss it immensely. Now, it's just a matter of bundling up and getting to the pool.

The New Year

So sorry that I've been MIA. Life threw a few curve balls at me and I've been processing them.

I'm finishing up Basic Acute Care in school. It's amazing that I've been able to come so far with everything that keeps happening around me. (Not so much me, but the people I love.) Advanced Acute Care is scaring the tar out of me. There are so many people who have posted in the forum about how difficult it is and about how they feel so discouraged through this section of reports. All I can do is hope to maintain my equilibrium and not get discouraged by the red I truly expect to see in that module.

I've still got the Editing module to go through as well. So, I can't even say that I'm looking at the end of the tunnel! Ah well. Let me be Zen.

The first curve ball was the death of one of my friends. I hadn't seen her in a while and had minimal contact with her over the last several months. I only knew that she had been sick, had spent some time in the hospital and was out again and living life. Then, I was informed that she was VERY sick and it did not look good. She held on for several weeks before passing a few days before Christmas. Her husband has chosen to wait for the memorial until after all of the holidays because he didn't want to damage Christmas for their 3 kids. The oldest is only 14. My friend was the kind of person who would open her heart and home to anyone who needed help. If you needed a shoulder, she was there. God took her straight to heaven and gave her wings.

The next curve ball was a discussion with my mother about the results of her kidney ultrasound, heart ultrasound and EKG. All I can say is that the results weren't good and it's possible that she will choose not to have a surgery that could save her life. Her decision isn't final, but it's been very emotional for me. Her rationale is solid and I can't argue her rights. I just really don't have to like it!

Christmas day passed without any drama except the good kinds. Good food, happy family, rest and relaxation. All this made for a contented Momma Bear.

New Years' Eve was probably the most boring I have ever spent. I did nothing but watch television with Mom. You might think this would make me sad. It does. A bit. I am determined to spend as much time as possible with my mother before her heart takes her from me. If that means not making plans for holidays or even weekends, then so be it.

I look at my kids and pray that this year they will prove themselves to be the people I know them to be. I look at my mother and pray for her comfort and peace. I look at my friends and pray that their hearts will heal and they will be given strength throughout their journeys. And... I look at myself. I pray for strength, endurance, kindness, compassion, and love. For now, that's the best I'm able to do.

Small Space Organization

You know, it’s harder than I thought to write about organizing. However, I did promise. So, here goes.


I have an extremely tight area for working on reports. It’s not ideal, but I am working on it. I think the key to working in a small space and keeping it organized is to make sure that you are only keeping the items you need in the space. I currently have my monitor, speakers, headphones, telephone, coffee mug, pencil holder, and three-ring binder on my desktop. Luckily, my desk does have a sliding shelf for the keyboard and mouse that keeps them tucked out of the way when I’m not using them. Considering how much I use my mouse and keyboard, they tend to stay accessible except when I’m away from my desk.

My desk is very close to a large bookcase, so that adds more opportunity for clutter to gather. Umm…I mean storage options. As a bookcase, it’s quite acceptable for holding my reference materials and CDs. But, I also use it to hold the boxes with my office supplies, storage container holding my excess cords and cables, and my printer. Nothing is quite within easy reach, but it’s not on top of my desk surface. A shift of my chair and everything I need is within finger reach.

In order to organize my desk, I first had to take it down to the basics. Then, adding piece by piece only the things I use EVERY DAY. Anything else was tossed in the trash (difficult for a pack rat), dealt with, or saved in a folder to deal with in the future. Books and folders hold all the important papers. Out of sight, but not completely out of mind.

Every organization tipster out there has three basics they use for organizing. Light, clean, and a space for everything.

Taking the first thing, light, you need to decide if the light you have is adequate. Is it bright enough to help but not directly in your eyes? You also need to decide if your desk space is going to get natural light in sufficient quantity to be useful or hurtful. My desk currently faces the western wall of my house. It’s not directly in front of the window, but it’s perfect for afternoon sun to come in and glare at me. Good curtains on that window definitely are a must for the afternoon!

Next is clean. I’m not sure if it’s just me or not, but I love the feel of clean surfaces under my fingers and hands. There’s something very distracting about dust particles under my skin. Sometimes I wonder if I’m related to the princess from “The Princess and the Pea.” Dust, dirt, food crumbs, even the occasional hair all feel like a major obstacle to smoothly running my hands over the keyboard or piece of paper I’m using.

Grandma’s advice of “a place for everything and everything in its place” really comes home when you’re trying to function efficiently. Are your pens and pencils scattered everywhere? Is your mail just a pile on top of your desk? Do your headphones have a home? Are your supplies like paper, extra pens, stapler, binders, erasers, scissors in their homes? If you’re more like me they tend to just kind of wander around without rhyme or reason. Kind of like the Alzheimer lady that keeps getting lost in my neighborhood. I have now multitasked a makeup brush holder for my smaller every day tools. My supply holder is attached to the edge of my desk and keeps all the little stuff from wandering. It is amazing how quickly your hands get used to pulling something from the same place each time. Now, it is about training them to put things back too.

Of course, the true test of your organizational efforts is how efficiently you can get things accomplished. Handle things as little as possible until they are given their final placement. Trash what you have not looked at or touched in a while, use file folders, and a cabinet, label everything so you KNOW what is what and where it is supposed to be.

Finally, once you have found your little Alzheimer patients their homes, keep them there. You will be less stressed, more efficient, and ultimately more productive. Isn’t productivity the name of this game?

Motivation

What is Motivation?

Miller (1962) described motivation as

“the study of all those pushes and prods – biological, social and psychological – that defeat our laziness and move us, either eagerly or reluctantly, to action.”

The Encarta World English Dictionary defines motivation as “giving of reason to act: the act of giving somebody a reason or incentive to do something.”

The American Heritage Dictionary provides “motive: An emotion, desire, need, or similar impulse that causes one to act in a particular way.”

The Merriam-Webster Thesaurus says the synonym for motivation is “Stimulus: Something that rouses the mind or spirits or incites to activity.” Other synonyms are catalyst, goad, impetus, impulse, incentive, incitation, instigation, propellant, provocative, push, spur, stimulant.

How do we remind ourselves of the purpose or stimulus behind getting involved in Medical Transcription training? It’s important that we do remind ourselves sometimes in order to stay motivated. When you jumped into training with both feet, what was your reason? What was your emotion? Desire? Need? What finally pushed you into contacting the school and signing up? Was it a way to provide for your family while still taking care of them? Being present for all the various events and milestones? Was it health issues that limit how you can work?

Answer those questions, find a picture of what they mean to you, a poster, something and place it close to where you are working at your computer. Leave it there, but don't forget to look at it. It's important.

I had a NEED. I had catalogued my own abilities and knew that working from home via computer was a reasonable alternative to working outside the home. I NEED to work. Not just for money, though that’s nice. I NEED to work for my own emotional and psychological health. Without a reason to get out of bed, some days it’s almost impossible. I NEED to show my kids that working and providing for your family is important, that getting a little creative is sometimes necessary. I NEED to show my kids that when life throws rocks at your head, you don’t have to give up. I NEED to show my mom that she is important enough to change my lifestyle.

When I’m feeling less-than-motivated, I remind myself of my purpose, my reason(s) for doing this training. Some days it’s easier than others, and there are always excuses for not working on reports, usually a combination of environmental factors that I MUST figure out how to work around. But, I’ve got it stuck in my head that I can be really good at this. That pride in my skills and my intelligence really is quite a motivator. We’ll see whether I’m full of hot air when the final scores are in, but I like feeling empowered.

I do feel empowered. Living so many years feeling like I had no control over what happens to me, around me, or effecting me; this course gives me the opportunity to really take the bull by the horns. I’m in competition with myself. I may be doing this ultimately to provide for my family, but I’ve learned something along the way. I do have the ability to control something. My own mind. It’s a little shaky at times, but I always come back around to the belief that I made a good decision for me. I’m the one who will truly benefit from continuing on… and beating this course into submission. It took a long time to come to the conclusion that it’s okay for me to fight for this. The fight may be with myself, but it’s on!



Making Progress

After 2 days and multiple "suggestions" that maybe "that" shouldn't go there because "this" will happen, the house looks gorgeous and Christmas-like. I commented to mom that it wasn't "how I would have done it", but I like it. It's bright and festive and feels like Christmas. All I can say is LOVELY!

One of the places that I sent an application for General Transcription wanted some testing done. The first part was grammar stuff and spelling. You know, the kinds of things that trip everybody up. There were misspellings and sound-alikes and awkward phrasings. After that was reviewed I was given a link to download a dictation file and transcribe it. I sent that back last night/early this morning. I'm not really getting my hopes up, but I feel like I did well with it. It would be nice to see where it will go. Of course, this being Christmas week, I might not hear back from anyone for a while. That's all right.

I have also been going through a lot of the sites for transcription jobs like Elance and MTJobs. I'm not sure if I'm ready to try bidding on a transcription job, but they are definitely out there. There's also a lot of competition for them. There are numerous sites for job seekers giving advice, tips, to-do's, and not-to-do's. A search under "transcription jobs", "transcription at home", "general transcription" on google or bing gives a lot of options. Sometimes opening one of them brings small blogs or articles to you getting more in-depth on the subject your researching.

WARNING: Make sure your virus and spyware is operating efficiently. These searches tend to bring a lot of "undesirables" with them. Not viruses necessarily, but a lot of spyware. My Norton 360 is catching them nicely, but it's getting a workout.

During the last few days of household upheaval, it's been kind of difficult to get time to work on reports steadily, but I have done a few. I've even gotten decent scores on them first time through. I love it when that happens. I had one that was over 9 minutes. I thought, "Oh, no!" But, it really turned into no big deal. The dictation was clear and no major difficulties cropped up in it.

I don't look at the progress bar on the audio anymore. It's easy to let it distract me into thinking, "When is this going to end?" and popping my eyes off the report to check on it. I decided that I don't need to know. Concentrating on the audio and getting the report done correctly is more important than how long it takes. This is especially important on dictations where the audio is, shall we say, less than stellar.

I'm going to come back later and write up some information on organizing, health issues, and motivation.
Watch this space!

More Than One Way

I really thought that I would be finished with school by now. I plowed my way through the objective portion in a month. Of course I thought that the practicum would fly by as well. Part of slowing down was just trying to figure out the dictations. Poor audio quality and learning medical terminology is not in any way conducive to making things go quickly.

It may be frustrating to me that I'm not finished yet, but I'm learning that I have options I may not have had before starting the course.

Huh? What options could there be? You're only 2/3 through the transcriptions and have the editor modules to do as well. What are you talking about? You're stuck!

Oh, not so! Not so at all. I'm very comfortable sitting at my desk with my headphones attached to my head. My fingers quite confidently tap the keys that I want them to. My hands only ache during weather changes I've noticed. That is something I can deal with as needed. So what am I talking about?

Transcription. Who said that we're only supposed to do one kind of transcription in order to earn our living? I need to be working now. Two or three months from now, my money situation isn't going to get any better unless I do something about it.

I've put together a very rudimentary resume and started putting out feelers to companies that have general transcription services. I KNOW I can type these. It's just a matter of identifying more than one voice at a time and dealing with audio issues. Yes, that's a very simplistic viewpoint. The hardest thing about medical transcription is the getting values, lab data, procedures, and terminology correct. At least, those are the most difficult things for me. Please don't remind me about the East Indian ESLs.

With general transcription there will be specialized terminology based on the dictation type, but this is okay. I've got one humdinger of a vocabulary! I love new words. Once I get one in my head and have looked it up, it's usually going to stick for a while, especially when I use it more than once or twice during one report and don't see it again for a while.

Look, the way I see it, I'll be doing myself a favor. I can't stand not working and providing for my family, and I'm no longer able to work outside the home. I've got two options. I can work solely on my reports for the course and limit my ability to provide by only applying for Medical Transcription. Or, I can start getting off my duff and TCB! With General Transcription jobs, I can start getting my feet wet with transcribing, still work on the course, and provide some much-needed income.

Of course, this really depends on whether or not anyone is hiring for general typing jobs and whether or not they're interested in hiring a qualified and potentially amazing new transcriptionist. I've seen too many general typing jobs advertised to not start throwing applications at them!

I'm not giving up on MT! I'm just adding another layer of skills and experience. I'm good with multitasking!