February 5: At work, we are finally “going live” with a new Electronic Health Record system. In our morning huddle the vibe is intense. The teams are anxious, wide-eyed and seem to be barely breathing. I am running up and down stairs, between the lobby and our team rooms all morning to help solve equipment problems, connecting staff with IT help, with brief breaks to help with data entry. Some kind souls from Admin mention they are ordering lunch and ask if they can get me something. I share sweet potato fries with one of my teammates while we enter client records.
When I get home, I am a puddle. My son has lost a tooth and is elated that it is no longer flapping about and in the way whenever he chews. He grins to show me the giant gap in his smile.
February 6-7: The second & third days of go-live are better. I get to stand in the lobby and explain that our staff is learning a new computer system and ask patients for their patience! I also get to offer them coffee and donuts which keeps everyone in good spirits, including me. The exectutive leadership team provides lunch for the whole staff.
February 8: I join the team that is struggling the most with the EHR switch to offer moral support and what little bit of technical assistance I can. On day four, they still have hundreds of charts to enter, so I assist with some data entry. I completely neglected to plan for lunch, thinking it was being provided again today. Courtney and I walk to the food carts for the first time in weeks and order from the taco truck. $12. A Tito’s burrito has never tasted better.
February 9: The week ends on a positive note – the teams have all pulled together and all of the patient records are finished. Courtney orders pizza for the teams.
February 10: We haven’t gone out to eat as a family since December. We drive accross the river to the West side and go for a short hike in Forest Park, then head to a Burmese restaurant with the attraction of robot servers. But it seems one needs a reservation here on a Saturday night, so we walk across the street to a Thai place that turns out to have the best salad rolls and peanut sauce ever. For $70, the 4 of us have a lovely meal together and leftovers the next day. Afterwards we walk up and down 23rd Avenue and get ice cream for dessert, $17.
February 11: A typical Sunday: sleeping in, meal planning, ordering groceries, dishes & laundry, the kids have play dates, and we make a run to the library. On the way back Nate wants to stop for some socks at Columbia. He grumbles that the ones he likes (with a high cotton content) are not on sale anymore, but I convince him to buy them anyway because he really does need them – 3 pairs for $20. The kids’ socks and underwear are also getting holes in them. I place an online order for $40. It’s a bit more than I would usually spend on kids basics, but not having to walk into a big box store where things would be a bit cheaper feels worth it.
I look back over my habit tracker for the week: I’ve done an abysmal job keeping up my self care habits: sleep, my morning walks, keeping house, reading, tracking my finances: many of my daily practices gave way to exhaustion and television. I can’t quite figure out why, despite being absolutely bone-tired, I stayed up so late! I also woke up in the wee hours a few times and couldn’t get back to sleep, something common for me in times of high stress. At least, I think, I didn’t stress shop.
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