My Stress

Before I begin, let me state for the record that my stressors are barely a blip compared to some others I know. Every patient I see is having a worse day than I, or so they believe. And I have come to believe that most of the belief of having a bad day is in ones head a lot of the time.

So, here's what's got me stressed, in no particular order...

1) The tanking economy.
2) The Upcoming Presidential elections.
3) Scheduling conflicts with the Wife.
4) The cost of the Great Wall Repair. (didn't even call it a fiasco!)
5) The sometimes futile aspects of my job.
6) What comes after death.
7) Having many things I want to be doing and not having the time to do them.

Let's break it down into two categories.

Category A = things I can't do a dang thing about.
That would be 1, 2, 4, and 6.

Category B = things I can do something about.
That would be 3, 5, and 7 respectively.

First, the A category...

Economy - like a wave over a coral reef, nothing I can do here but hang on and hope for the eventual best. Guess I can try to leave this out of my daily worries.

Presidential Election - I do believe that either way, the next President will be exponentially better than our current Lame Duck. What really bothers me is the decidedly negative turn the McCain/Palin folks have taken. Talk about divisive. It also scares me a little bit that some folks that I love and respect are buying into that BS. I suppose if you can't win on issues, best to try and scare people into voting for you. But again. The sun comes up and the days go by. I'm casting an absentee vote this week (I work all day on the 4th) and then there's nothing to do but see who wins on the 5th. So, less stress there is possible.

The Great Wall - steep price, but still less than any other estimates. I'm wishing I could have done it myself or with a few helpers. Ah well. I'm going to love it when it's done.

After Death - This gets a posting all it's own... more on that later.

As for the Category B stressors

Scheduling conflicts - There are things in the works... I'll update when we know more. This works for number 7 as well.

Futile aspects of my job - helping people who aren't that sick, but really want to be. Having "tasks" around the hospital that should be done by someone else, but "that's the way it's always been done". The constant dance with real illness, trauma and death that puts life into pretty clear perspective. I can see why there is burnout in this job. Dark humor and poking fun at patients (always well behind the lines, of course) It helps to maintain some distance from the sludge. But it still sticks and colors all I do outside of work as well. I find myself people watching and checking peoples hand veins to see how easy IV access would be. When I see someone speeding around me in traffic and rain, I don't get mad, I just think "job security". I have gone from thinking that every life is sacred and useful, to thinking, well... maybe not so much.

Sacred, yeah. I can still buy into that. But I see how people desecrate that divine spark. And like a bible buried in manure, I think it's ok to get rid of that one and get a new one.

I'm about to delve into death, so More Later