BUSH DIARY SEPTEMBER 1997

BUSH DIARY SEPTEMBER 1997:

9-2:  Rather quiet with the exception of the clinical director, Dr. M, who should know better, made a mess.  He came in to get caught up and strewed medical records all over the floor.  One of our coders had come in on Sunday  to do some work and she reported that it took her over an hour to get the mess straightened up and off the floor.  What a pig.  Will be glad when the man departs the station in October.  Today is also the day were started using the superbill.  The docs check off diagnoses for the billing department.

Worked very hard today.  I had to be telephone girl at 10 am and at noon for the front desk, so I ordered Teriyaki lunch and munched and slurped whilst answering phones, urp, 'scuse me. Also had to stick around to do a last minute dictation handed to me at 5:15 and I got home late enough the husband was thinking about sending out search and rescue.

Superbill: Hold that thought.  All of the doctors objected to the Superbill because they didn't know anything about it.  So let's hold a mini workshop. I shouldn't hafta think of everything.

I reviewed the photo CD and the Kodak photo disk.  They are really nifty.  I was able to print out a fairly decent picture on plain printer paper. I printed out pictures of Jordan age 9 months Mom and Dad holding him.  Cute boy!

Dream:  The medical record department got moved and it took a bit of exploring to find it.  I also dreamed a joke, I think.  I saw Bob Hope doing a routine with a large red umbrella and every once in a while he would sidle up to someone, shake their hand, peer closely at that person's fingers and muse, "Cuticles!".  No idea.....

Off to day one of the JCAHO survey.  The fog is very thick, if the plane does not land, survey will be delayed.  
Sure enough plane did not land, landed next morning at 10 am, the team appeared here rumpled and determined to be about the business.  Monica disappeared and I pulled appropriate charts for the team to review.  Ugh.  So glad I am not on the front line.

Day two of survey:  I noticed an odd thing.  All of the kick plates have been taken off of the hallway doors. It is apparently a Life Safety issue. Nurse survey said, "Take 'em off."  Jeez.

Did not see Monica for a report about the exit interview. Saw Ron Nalikak and he reported the hospital got a score of 85 with nine type one recommendations. Not bad. 

ODD STORY BUT TRUE:  Patrick asked me to sit with him and have lunch today so he could tell me a really good story.  I asked him if was true and he said that it was. At lunch he asked me if I remembered Will Adams.  

Boy did I, he was the guy who walked into the clinic expecting to be seen on his break and was quite upset that it was not going to work that way.  Mr. Adams moved to Barrow a few months ago and got a job in the local court house in the adult probation office.  As most new residents do, they wind up at the hospital for hep B series, tetanus update, TB screening the whole thing.  

Mr. Adams made a large negative impression on the nurses he was very ignorant, whining and the southern accent came and went.

One of Patrick's roommates is one of the local district attorney's, Brian.  A few weeks ago Brian was in Anchorage and while in the airport, Mr. Adams spotted him and came over to exchange greetings as they see each other in the probation office. After Will walked away from Brian another man came up to him  and identified himself as FBI.  

He asked Brian what he knew about Will.  So Brian told him everything he knew. It turns out Will Adams is not his name.  And he had served a sentence for murder (Canary Killer Murder, he strangled a canary in addition to the main thing).  Will was also under investigation for another matter as well. Shortly thereafter Will Adams left Barrow.  

It was discovered that he had been downloading kiddy porn on the computer at work.  So happy he is elsewhere. Erk.

Whaling news:  Four whales have been struck and landed.  Two of them were 45 and 50 foot long. Unaluk (oonaluk) is fresh boiled muktuk and is a big favorite amongst the locals.

Kitty Travel:  Tim has flight booked to take Bradford for his second round of I 131 later on in October.

True Bus Story:  This morning we were all gabbing and the new lady, Gwen stated that some bus drivers were not very helpful.  Patrick over heard the remark and he started laughing and said he had a true bus story:

This involved Frankln's D's wife Anna.  Franklin works in hospital maintenance and Anna works at AC.  One morning she was on the bus waiting to be let off by the driver and there was a drunk standing behind her  Anna started down the steps, the drunk decided she was not going fast enough and gave her a push.  Anna fell face down and the drunk fell right on top of her and then vomited all over her.  (At this point were laughing and gagging at the same time). The bus driver was good enough to get out of the bus and made an attempt to brush stomach contents from the back of Anna's coat.  It would have been truly disgusting if she had landed on her back.....

9-17:  Red Skelton died.  His show and Disney on Sunday evenings were a decades long viewing staple in the Berglund household.  TV viewing has changed so much.  We never turned on TV until after dinner and we all at the the table, there was no snacking, eating at a chair or anywhere else.

Driving dream.  

9-25: Permanent fund was announced in the amount of $1296.54, I find that simply amazing.  EVER citizen gets one of those. 

Let 'em eat cake.  We have had cake every day this week  because someone has been leaving Barrow.  Urp.

Another whale was landed yesterday. That makes eight whales caught in the Fall season so far.  One of the villages donated a strike and the meat will be shared out.

Let's put September to bed now.  G'night folks.

BUSH DIARY AUGUST 1997

BUSH DIARY AUGUST 1997:

Big fat baby trip:  Flew out Saturday August 2, caught the red eye out of Anchorage which was overbooked.  They asked for volunteers to take a later trip and by the dust settled there were actually a few vacant seats.  Go figure.
Got to Boise about 10 am Mom met me and boy is it HOT in Idaho, 98 degrees kind of hot in August is gruesome.  Got everyone visited, got baby stuff shopped and got all that packed in the car.  We took off on the 9th headed south and over nighted on Lovelock and visited the Casino and made a 50 dollar profit surprisingly.  Next stop was Boomtown the Southern side of Reno and visited the casino there and won a 70 dollar jackpot there.  Cool. 

Got to Sonoma a bit late because I took a shortcut that was a bit longer than I remembered.  We checked into the local Best Western Sonoma.  Visited with the family first thing next day.  Got all the baby stuff assembled.  I had purchased stroller/car carrier combo as well as a high chair.  I also got them a baby monitor.  Anthony is a cutie pie and has fine dark hair.  Smoochies.

We visited with Pat and Beth but mostly hung around and took gobs of pictures.  Mom had remade Charlies baby blanket and that was a big hit.  

Sonoma to Boise: Left 14th and bid fond farewell.  We drove back through Redwood country via 101. We stopped at Mysteries of the Redwood and walked until we saw very tall trees.  Later on we stopped briefly at one of the most beautiful rode side stops called Blue Star Highway.  

Gorgeous.  We drove to Grant's Pass and stayed there.  The town was jumping with a local fair and temp was 102!!!
We drove through the south Oregon route through the dry dusty parts through Vale, Ontario and at last Emmett.  Whoa, Nellie!  Carla had flown to Boise to preview at 64 Thunderbird but it did no please her. 

Gale gave Dads ashes to Carla he will visit Seattle for a while.  We flew back together-ish.  While there we toured the Redhook Brewery, delish! Finally got home to Barrow where it raining very hard.  It felt beautifully cool.

8-28: Getting caught up at work with birth certificates and charting, transcription. We have contracted with LTD of New Jersey for transcription, doc's call in and they type and fax us copies.  Whee!!

Work drama, one of our nurses swallowed a bottle of pills, so she got sent for a little mental vacation.  Barrow is a very challenging place to have a personal crisis.

Carla got laid off from Green Garden last Friday.  She is happy to get out of that job. She won't have any trouble finding work.  But it will be a good time to finish the deck.
Labor day weekend. 

 No internet access.  Barrow.com has decided they will not provide service until Tim and the Internet decide to speak to each other once again in a more civil manner.

Nifty recipe:  Jessie's mother-in-law brought in the most delicious little dumplings.  The dumpling skins are made of all things tapioca.  It gets softened and rolled into little skins to hold meat/veggie and then get cooked.  It was delicious. Mary Jo brought her dumpling back and told Jessie that it kept getting bigger in her mouth and she could not finish it.  Uh huh, this from the girl who loves fresh boiled muktuk. The dish is called Saccu.  I thought it was pretty darn tasty.

Ok, enough about the big fat vacation and a tiny bit of work.
  
G'night folks.

BUSH DIARY JULY 1997

BUSH DIARY JULY 1997:

7-1:  Only fall out from "rogue" ASNA meeting was that Dr. M handed all of the JACHO documentation and files to Monica for HER to do it.  I think she will be able to handle it without much effort.  

7-13:  Received official email notice of change of positions  at the hospital.  One of the ASNA people is coming over to be assistant hospital administrator.  Tom "resigned". Dr. M is still on board as he signed a three year contract.  Drat!

Patrick is back, he was not job hunting just having fun.  He also took Monica's truck in for servicing in the amount of 700 bucks, some of that was for four heaters to be installed and replaced all fluids with synthetics.

Charles and Leslie have decided the baby's name will be Anthony Scott Dougherty. That is a nice sturdy name for a boy child.  

Charles also reports that Grandma LaVann is not doing well.  She is in the hospital and the doc's wanted to put her in long term care and she refused.  Went back to the ranch and she has someone there taking care of her and she is apparently on oxygen. I have many fond memories of one of the strongest willed women I have ever known. I shall send flowers at the appropriate time.

7-14; Two weird dreams:  One was where I was in a very tall place such as the Space Needle.  Also took a tour of an SPCA stable for horses. I felt so sorry for them, they had no lower legs and were lying in lots of straw.  Poor things.

Thrift plan: Reviewed the goings on with that thing, it is doing well and I will leave it all alone and let it continue to make money.  Yay.

Travel dream:  I was packing my bag getting ready to leave the hotel.  One of the hotel people asked me if I was going to show my ticket to get on the plane.  Apparently the hotel people were check in agents for the airline. That is so handy I am surprised the Sheraton has not already thought of doing that.  Although they do have an Alaska desk in the lobby it has limited people and limited hours.

Monica's truck gets put on the barge on the 29th and then she will be committed to staying in Barrow for a couple of years.  She is flying to Anchorage to make a deposition on behalf of John Morrow.

7-17-97:  Happy Birthday to Anthony Scott Dougherty.  Delivered via c-section at Community Hospital(Sutter) in Santa Rose, California. Everyone is doing well.  Must get grandma stuff.

7-18:  Local vet called to tell us that Bradford's T4 came back and he is once again hyperthyroid.  He is on Tapazole and Bradford has discovered that there are pills hidden in the cream cheese and has begun chewing very carefully.  Tim has taken to manually inserting his meds manually and checking that he has swallowed. The med is to remind the thyroid to get to work.

7-20: Sad news from California.  Grandma LaVann passed away about 9 pm on the 19th. Services will be in Santa Rosa. She will be buried next to her first husband in Colma, California, a town south of San Francisco well known for the funeral industry.  Sent flowers to Uncle Phil.

7-22: Today a former medical record clerk delivered a baby boy.  She decided to adopt the baby out.  The adoptive mom is a former medical record receptionist.  It is quite common for babies to be adopted by relatives or friends up here.  It's a cultural thing.

7-26: Mock JCAHO survey.  Two people came and surveyed the hospital. Results is that they found about 20 type I recommendations.  Our major ones were Safety, Human Resources (we recruit too much but there are reasons for that) and Leadership (there IS none at present).  We can probably clean up two thirds of those by November.

Latest nonsense at work. Dr. Bob took it upon himself to hire a rad tech, named Ellen.  She took the job, took a week off from Providence to do all the moving stuff and showed up here. Yesterday Dr. Bob brought around a new employee and introduced her as  the new x-ray manager and it was not Ellen.  ??? Dr. Bob completely skipped the ASNA HR people and things are a mess.  I smell another law suit.   Dr. Bob and family are leaving for Guam soon.  Banging head on desk.  And the new lady has to take a three month school for ultrasound.

Summer building boom is nuts. The Cultural Center is going up very quickly.  It is a huge building and will be handy for many of the events held in town. 

There is a new hotel across the street from Alaska Airlines. 

 Still no expansion at Alaska Airlines, their itty bitty terminal is very crowded. People stand around the baggage area and someone in the crowd yells, hey that is my bag, pass it back, so someone in front grabs that bag and hands it overhead to the back.
  
Mary Jo Santos got the keys to move into her new house.  She got her keys one evening and then promptly lost them while visiting on the Canadian ice cutter.  The crew found the keys  and returned them to her the next day.

The Martha Black is moored just off shore.  They are in town to discuss Salmon Treaty stuff.  They had an open house and tons of people went out.  Monica went to lunch with the captain.  Woot!

Another big build is the gigantic multi-million gallon water tank going up just behind the hospital.

Taking the red eye this coming Saturday, one drink and its lights out.

Update on JACHO survey. For some damn reason it has been scheduled for September.  Oh bother.

July is almost over, it is very noisy here in the summer.  I keep my fan going in the window for ambient noise.  Ah, sleep.  

G'night folks.

BUSH DIARYJUNE 1997:

BUSH DIARY JUNE 1997:

Red Alert:  Our billing concerns mentioned in the previous posting ie; Dr M's insisting that one ICD9 code from page one and one CPT code from page two was adequate and if the diagonsis of the actual medical record did not match?  No big deal.

Um, yeah it is a big deal.  Our main third party payor, Pacific Care, has put the hospital billing on Red Alert.  That means that all bills are being automatically rejected for review of coding and/or diagnoses. Aetna is next, then Medicare, then OIG.  Fortunately Monica has extensive documentation of the objections to the physician driven coding.  Oy, Paperwork!!!

Dreaming:  Toured a high end manufacturing facility.  Also shopping dream.  I was shopping for angels with not much luck.

Chat rooms:  I shall eschew them not having found intelligent life.

6-17:  Gruesome morning. Two car collision and young man and young woman involved, the girl was killed.  She was the daughter of a former medical record clerk.

Nalukatuk is this week, I shall take the afternoon off and go take a lookie loo, it is much fun. Sometimes a tourist lands wrong and the hospital gets some business. Oy.

6-26: Gorgeous day.  Plus 50 degrees, blue skies, tons of walk-in's. Hmmm.

Potluck at work today:  The inpatient manager is leaving for ANMC.  The pharmacist and his wife are leaving for Oklahoma.  He just made captain in the corps and they are both pleased.

Gossip; Heard that the assistant hospital administrator, is shacking up with one of the nurses.  A person must be careful about things like that because we all sort of live in a fish bowl and most every naughty thing quickly becomes a topic of conversation at coffee break.

6-27:  Monica took several concerns from the hospital to ASNA.  One specific item was the assistant hospital administrator wanted to start storing supplies off site.  Um, no that is not workable especially if someone runs out of something and it is not  readily available.  AND Dr. P complained that Dr. M had a lack of experience as a clinical director.  Lots of venting and a promise from ASNA to take a closer look at concerns.  That is pretty fair.

Baby news:  Charlie said they are going to have a baby boy.  Name discussion ensued.  Mom and I will be driving down in August for a visit.  Yay!

June 30:  Dr. M handed over all of the JCAHO stuff to Monica.  She will get it done right.  The assistant hospital administrator had a very loud and unintelligible conversation in his office with Monica.  He is going to personally see that everyone attending the "rogue" meeting with ASNA would be fired.  


Patrick has quietly extended his vacation. if he is interviewing I will scalp him!  He better just be chasing girls!
Boy that had better be quite enough from you, June!

G'night folks.

BUSH DIARY MAY 1997

BUSH DIARY MAY 1997:

5-1:  Have the recently purchased Dell computer set up and running.  Have signed up with Barrow Cable TV for online service.  That gives us access to the internet.  I was given a disc with Juno  on it and we are signed up for that. It works like this.  You compose a message off line and then go on to Juno to transmit the email via modem screew, scrawww, booooo, beeee, scrawww.  Eee.  

Playing with the scanner not happy with results so far.   Am collecting sibling and family emails as they occur to the connected members. 

Tim called, his Horizon flight got cancelled so he stayed in Seattle  and will not get into Boise to get the car and will just rent  local.  Good plan.

Monica is gone the next three weeks; to Albuquerque for IHS stuff, Anchorage for orientation to ANMC and JACHO stuff.  I get to acting behotch what's in charge.

Wash token update:  It is official the cost per token will go up one dollar to three dollars each which is one load of wash.  The tokens are different shaped now. l The round ones have been changed to star shaped one.  Which will probably jam in the slide thing easier.  Oh yay.  We exchanged our bunch of old tokens and got 30 bucks for them.  

5-15:  A total of seven whales were taken this Spring.  Muktuk everywhere.  And it is evident from the clinic that everyone has eaten plenty of muktuk, the smell of whale farts is most abundant.  Somebody open a window!

5-17:  While Tim is gone I shall take the opportunity to clean out some empty cardboard boxes, still have the original eight that I originally shipped up here.  Why, dunno, but they are going to the dumpster.  Sold the old computer to Monica's daughter, Tasha.

I have been playing a CD-ROM disc of the game "Myst".  It has very graphic and pretty scenery.  You wander all over an island and solve puzzles, at which I am abysmal, but it is very pretty.

I got lonesome and booked a flight to Seattle. Tim met me and we visited with Carla.  We ate at Cucina! Cuchina! good food, very noisy. We drove to Albany and Carolyn and her husband drove us to look at some property they own in Coquille.  The house was jam packed with a couple families, packed to the ceiling in the center hallway and the sunroom and there was a narrow hallway through the living room and dining room.  Upstairs, had all three bedrooms busy with people and their computers.  Attic has a couple mattresses for the kids to sleep on.  Very crowded house. 

We picked up Bradford from the Vet on Tuesday and drove north, stayed overnight at Carla's and flew to Barrow next day.  Bradfords T4 dropped from 29 to 12, normal is 8 or so. Will do follow up test in a couple weeks.

Chatted with Charles and Leslie looks like due date is 7-19.  Have tickets booked for an August baby viewing.

5-10 Traveling dream. well of course.

And are my arms ever tired.  G'night folks.

BUSH DIARY APRIL 1997:

Christmas Mystery solved.  I received a mystery gift 1995, some one sent me a large sheet of plastic angels, the kind you use as decals.  It came from a Mail Boxes in Boise, Idaho.  No return address and no idear from whom this largess had come. Last Sunday, Barbara Whelan called to chat and asked if I had received a tube from her.  I told her the only tube I had received was 1995 Holiday Season.  She said that yes that was her.  Thank you Baba Wawa!!

O Jeez our coders are becoming an endangered species. The new head of the clinic, Dr M has a business degree as well as an MD.  He believes that choosing an IDC9 code from page one of the superbill and CPT code from page two is sufficient.  Thus the coders have been hammered with superbills.  Billing has noted, thank god, that the doctor assigned codes do not match the codes on the medical record.  Um, well change it says Dr. M.  Um, nope that constitutes fraud with a capital Fra!! Monica is going through the whole pile.  Somebody gonna get mad and quit and the sooner the better.  Also there is the looming threat that our coders will get moved to the new ASNA building.  Um, coding from pinks, don't think so. Why couldn't the man own a winery like all quasi God-like self assured MD's. I ax youse.

Interesting morning. Monica stayed home with a case of the Barrow crud.  I attended a big deal meeting.  John Morrow CEO announced that he is going to ASNA as he does not agree with the bottom line mentality.  Dr. M will become the hospital administrator????  Eeesh gawd.  John will be paid full salary by ASNS until he retires.

Monica came in later that day and was nearly knocked over about John's leaving. She said she would have NEVER come to Barrow if she knew he was not going to be here.  Tim and I even discussed whether or not to move if everyone quits, I am not quite ready to give up the present salary so we shall take a wait and see attitude.

Shopping dream. I purchased a set of weird nesting salad spoons and forks.  They came preloaded with straws as soon as the fork and spoon separated, a straw popped out.  Hmm is that handy?  Not sure.

Work shop in Anchorage:  I will be attending tne State Medical Record meeting on May 1-3. I will be camping out the Sheraton where I shall enjoy room service.

Spring Festival has been cancelled. A small plane went down near Wainwright.  Search and Rescue could not go due to fog.  They went out the next day, found the wreck and think the fuel line froze and flew straight into the ice.  I am doing all five death certificates.  Doctors have documented death by trauma.   What a tragedy.

Bradford is going to get irradiated for his hyperthyroidism.  The medication is no longer keeping him stable.  Tim is calling around to find a Vet who does the Iodine 131 treatment.  When this has all been ironed out we will be scheduling a three week trip to get this all done.

4-17:  This is a three by three foot opening just outside medical records that is an access hatch to the lower workings of the hospital.  One of the maintenance guys had the hatch open, there were warning codes posted and he walked away and then walked back right into the hatch and fell a good ten feet. He stayed there until the ambulance crew arrived and hauled him out of the hole. 

Embarrassing day.  I called the pilot's widow about details for the death certificate to get some details and she said that he had been cremated and that she already had a certificate.  So I kept on checking details and mine were not agreeing with hers until we got to the middle name.  Two different patients, same name, same DOB, ugh.  I apologized profusely and hung up the phone..  Note to self, put SAME NAME warning label in system for a heads up.  Duh.

Spring Festival is this weekend.  Tim is going to sign up for the ping pong tournament.  We should see some snow mobile racing as viewed from the lab window.  The parade was broadcast on the radio and consisted of sixteen trucks with balloons.  The honey bucket truck got special attention.

Boy, that is enough about April 1997.

G'night folks.

COOKING...sorta

I adore watching PBS America's Test Kitchen.  One of my favorite programs was one where the host decided to cook a holiday dinner from a very early 18th century cookbook.  He even went to far to purchase and install a very high tech, for the day, wood cooking stove.  It had all the bells and whistles that included a water reservoir to heat water either for cooking, washing dishes, washing clothes or Saturday night bathtub use.  

I have been testing,yeah that's a good word, testing the time honored family recipe for pumpkin pie. 

I made two pies for Thanksgiving and froze one for later use.  For this recipe I had used the usual peel and stick pie crust.  I was not happy with the doneness of the crust for this bake and decided to change things up next time.  I also dragged out the frozen one and donated it to the Tuesday morning garbage pick up.  Enjoy!!

I had also substituted the 1 1/2 cups of sugar with same amount of Splenda.  Results?  It tasted half as sweet and was distinctly missing something in the flavor as a result.

This time I decided to pre-bake the pie crust.  I unrolled the pie  crust in the very large glass pyrex plates.  I put fork marks all over the bottom of the pie and decided to sit the smaller pie plates on top of the crust as it baked.  I prepared two of these and baked them at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.  They were still light brown and I left them in another 15 minutes.  I allowed the plates to cool.  The results were less than satisfactory.  I should have gone with a bag of dried beans because the crust actually stuck to one plate and I had to scrape bits back into the bigger plate.  Also for some reason one crust shifted a bit so that there was zero crust on one side and it skewed very high on the other side.  But I will try pre-baking again.

Now I had decided to use tofu this time.  I also snagged a pint of black treacle syrup to use as sugar.  I mixed with together with the 2 cups of pumpkin, 4 eggs, 1/2 cup of almond milk and the appropriate amounts of cinnamon and allspice.

I used the small mixer to stir this all together.  I did not like the texture of the tofu.  I should have processed the tofu in a blender to get it past the cottage cheese looking stage.  The taste was very nice, it was pumpkiny, sharp molasses and spiced well.  I poured the mix into the two pie plates and patted it down like a very thick mix.  It looked like a cross between a brownie and a chocolate cake.  I checked it at 45 minutes and it was not done.     I let it go another 15 minutes and then turned off the oven.

I sliced and tasted a piece with some whipped cream on top.  This is a weird looking pie, it truly looks like a chocolate cake pie with bits of cottage cheese on top. I gotta fix the optics on this and I will have a much smoother pie next time.  And maybe cut back on the black treacle and use half Splenda. I froze the other pie.  And I am officially sick of making pies.

Today I plan to get the dressing out of the way.  Last night I pried out a bag of frozen turkey stock and it is half thawed this morning.  I will chop up a whole onion, add the usual spices. I have some fresh frozen Rosemary that I will toss in, if I remember and I might put on my lighted helmet thingie and go looking in the bottom cupboard for a can of hominy. This should be tasty.  Husband really loves my dressing.

The meat dish for Christmas dinner is some tasty looking deluxe version of chicken sticks.  Pass the toothpicks please.

BUSH DIARY MARCH 1997

 BUSH DIARY MARCH 1997:

3-2: Got up early because the next door neighbor was in her bathroom tuning up her smoker's cough.  I like doing wash early Sunday morning, usually have the place to myself unless someone is sleeping it off in a warm spot.  Only mishap has been the instance in which a neighbor quickly started a load of wash before I had entirely emptied the washer of my tattier unmentionables.  I explained the problem and the gentleman allowed me to extract my delicates from his far studier wash load.  Phew!!

Official renaming ceremony. ASNA has decided to rename the hospital The Samuel Simmonds Memorial Hospital. Quite a blow out.  Many testimonials regarding Mr. Simmonds.  NSB announced that an entire collection of Mr. Simmonds ivory carvings had been collected and will be on display when the Cultural Center is built.  Mr. Simmonds has a distinct style, one always knows his pieces.  All of the heads are slightly rounded off squares.  In my opinion the best one depicts a hunter lying on the snow behind a pile of ice blocks waiting to throw a spear at a group of seals.

One of the elders told a story about Samuel and his cousin, Arnold when they were both young men.  One summer their job was to herd reindeer.  The herd was split and went east and west.  The boys packed their sleds and took off with their dogs. Samuel missed his cousin and named one his dogs after Arnold.  He would talk to the dog, Arnold, every day and when things didn't go well, the dog got a boot in the tail.  The two cousins met at round up and greeted each other and began catching up with each other's summer.  A couple of the dogs started growling and snarling at each other.  Both men turned at the same time and shouted.
"Arnold, get over here!"
"Samuel, get over here!"
Everyone laughed.

House dream with a nice collection of water bowls, the kind that nest together and make a sort of fountain.  

3-3: Computer system not working this Monday morning.  The disk is full. It took IT until 11 am to fix things. 

 While working on a birth certificate I noted the baby boy's middle name was McCord.  This was in honor of the physician who was presumed lost in the blizzard.  The Inupiat do not name their children after living people, so there will not be any little Royce's running around in Barrow.  One of the medical record ladies gave her baby girl a middle name of Daphne, after Dr. Perez' wife who was killed in a whaling accident.

3-5:  A young man, 20, shot himself in the abdomen and died.  He was brought into ER but he could not be saved. The ME refused the case as it was clear this was a suicide.

The Future System people have been here setting up the accounting package on the computer.  This is a halting step forward in better billing. Will keep fingers crossed.  While I do not officially have anything to do with billing I have gotten interested in the providing the CPT codes and ICD9 codes part of the billing package. Idle fingers syndrome. 

3-6: One employee out with sick kid, ASNA provided emergency short term phone answering person.  That worked out well. 

 Kept getting interrupted by Husky looking for his person.  I was looking at his collar and he actually knocked me over....I felt so uncharacteristically delicate. Called the Vets and they came over and secured the overly friendly canine.  I had to write a damn incident report about the dog, etc.  He was very polite, did not bark.

3-8-97:  Sat news from Pendleton.  Tim's sister Better called to say that his Dad had died at home.  The church became concerned when he did not show up as usual.  They think it was a heart attack. Tim will fly down to help with things.  His name full name was Vesterlide Alden, his nickname was Buster. He was named after a battleship.  The funeral will be Wednesday, I will send flowers. 

Today at work I learned how to make a macro.  Hold the F12 key and now most of Dr. M's perfectly dreadful physical exam spits out on the screen before he is through talking.  Yay me!

Hospital drama:  One of the nurse's husband came home from his first day on the job at the post office.  He sort of went postal, he started waving a hand gun around. She took the kids and left calling PSO. It took PSO about 7 hours to talk him into giving up the gun and not shooting anyone.  PSO had evacuated the entire quarters and everyone huddled in commons.  He was admitted for evaluation and observation.  The psych people said he was okay to discharge. PSO did keep the gun.

Had a newbie come in to be seen in ER as a walk-in. He was upset that the process took so long.  I explained that he needed to make an actual appointment for the morning and it was show up as walk-in for everyone in the afternoon.  The guy came over on his break thinking that it would go swiftly. Um, nope.  Have a seat.

3-11:  Martin Buser won the Idatarod.  Got to watch a lot of it on ABC.  He has loved the Iditarod so much that he named two of his kids after villages that he has driven through; Nicolai and Kaltag.  Hopefully if he has a little girl she won't be named Safety or Unalakleet.

Heard from husband, the funeral went well and all of the siblings participated in a grief counseling session.  There may be a tussle over the "will"  I have seen the last will and testament and it is a mess. There are a dozen or more changes all notarized.  I think they need a legal opinion on whether or not the thing is even valid. I think the Seventh Day Adventist will get the house and there are some small cash disbursements basically.  So we shall see.

Potential purchases;  Husband and I are thinking of purchasing a new computer with all the bells and whistles.

Shopping dream: Dress shopping.  I wanted some of the special shoes, they turned color to match the dress!!

3-27: Traveling dream.  Toured some nifty bathrooms that had marble walls.  I wandered around and found five years worth of mail waiting for me.  Argh, gotta get to the PO more often I am guessing.

Lots of conversations yesterday at work, no one got fired but there was alot of loud discussion regarding reports and stuff. Works out that the organization chart has changed slightly medical records now reports to Finance rather than administration.  Okey dokey.

Got to pick up Monica, Tasha and two cats.  We got her into her apartment, no gas , no phone.  I took hammer, screw driver and plyers  just in case and needed them, some things needed assembly.  I will call her a cab for Monday morning and she will be on the look out.  Thank God, she is here.  I can stop worrying about stuff, kind of.  We will run around Monday getting Tasha enrolled and utilities started.
 Monica reported that the longest ten hours and 150 miles was the part they drove from Haines to Haines Junction. The road was drifted most of the way and the only marker was pole markers by the side of the road.  She did this in her cute little KIA.  Just shoot me'.

That's all the excitement for March.  G'night folks.

BUSH DIARY FEBRUARY 1997

BUSH DIARY FEBRUARY 1997:

2-13:  Woke up from busy and lengthy dream.  Travel on a ferry (how fun!) The ferry was two stories. My cabin was upstairs.  I always had trouble closing and locking the door. There were lots of passengers.  I cautioned one little boy about being careful while playing with the ship's dog, an old wrinkled blood hound.   The ferry went through some sort of canal to cross an isthmus of land in the middle of where ever. I was talking to the ship's photography and leafing through the catalog and spotted a picture of Dad!  I recognized the picture from a trip he took to Chicago.  I asked the photographer for a copy and then I woke up.

Busted:  2-14:  Happy Valentines Day.  All the ladies were given a lovely fresh rose from John Morrow our CEO.  Thanks John!!

Mary P our RN from OPD called in sick today.  The day progressed and one of the girls in the department told me that Mary made the local paper. Oh let me see!  She was charged with importation of alcohol! WHAT!!?? Mary is the nicest, hardest working person.  I do not know the whole story but I will bet ten bucks that the whole situation has to do with her significant other, a raging alcoholic.  She took the hit.  I hope she isn't so embarrassed that she quits her job.  What usually happens with high status locals is that they issue a public apology for not setting a good example.

Roller Rink at old Ipalook School.  With the cooperation of City of Barrow, NSB School District and North Slope Borough the old Ipalook school gymnasium has been converted to an indoor roller rink. What a great idea!! They have roller blade rentals, helmets, knee pads, elbow pads and have set times on the rink so big kids do not knock over little kids.  They had a trial run over Christmas. The skates cost three dollars and each session lasts three hours.

They started up this week and we had a rash of ER visits from kids with various roller blade injuries.  They have a music system to rock the hall and the biggest over head glitter ball for light effects.  It is going to be a very popular place.

Work week Feb 17 through 21:  We had Presidents Day off but half the crew came in to make up for lost work.  I went in to the incomplete chart count.  Our new clinical director is 100 out patient charts in arrears.  He is a nice guy but a tad arrogant and probably won't sign them.
  
Mary Jo:  Our occasionally unreliable receptionist disappeared from Barrow all this week and did not call in or has an aunt or grandmother heard from her or seen her.  I have called her number, no luck.

On Friday John Morrow called me to his office he was sitting there with the administrative assistant, Tom. They wanted to know what I was doing about Mary Jo, because people were bugging Tom about how she got to be away without penalty.  It outlined all of the steps I had taken.  I am worried that she is having a stress related absence.  A couple years ago she went to Anchorage during her high risk pregnancy.  While there she was attacked and raped. The guy got two years.  She got a notice recently that he was out of prison, she may be hiding.  I hope she is okay.  When she is on the job and healthy she is just the best.

2-24:  Mary Jo called me and resigned.  Crap.  Now I have to find someone foolish enough to want to sit at the phones and treat everyone like a Queen, King, Prince or Princess.  Crud.

John Morrow gave me a program that makes organizational charts and begged me to make one quickly for the board meeting tomorrow.  Shoot me.  It will take about a week to make a nice slick one but I cobbled together one that at least shows who reports to whom.  Gahhhhh.

One of the doctors kept waving the microphone while dictating.  My ears were getting dizzy.

There was a baby born over the weekend and I didn't get a chance to interview the Mom, so paper chase is ensuing.

I finally got the Satisfaction Survey more or less figured out on yet another computer program. Turns out the scanner still doesn't work so pretty much so had to do massive amounts of key entry.  Makes a nifty report WHEN YOU GET IT DONE.

Going Away Party:  Dr. Maria Freeman hosted a party for Glo Andrews in her apartment.  Glo stayed here to get her five years in with NSB and she leaves Friday. Her daughter married and has been living in Wasilla. Glo is eager to move there.  They both own property in Homer but had decided to sell it for a tidy sum.  Apparently Homer is turning into the Sun Valley of Alaska.  All sorts of famous people are buying property.  The view there is the most beautiful I have ever seen.

New Pet Policy for quarters.  Starting 3-1 no pets will be allowed in quarters.  The ones already there will be grandfathered in.

Monica got hired!  Hooray!  She will not live in the hospital quarters because of their two cats and they will be here the end of March. I am thrilled.

Another program another day.  The head nurse asked me to tackle an organization chart for nursing.  Ok.  I shudder and shake and it looks nasty but it does work.

Weird incident report:  Carolyn was cleaning out her office in November and shared an incident report.  A few years ago, an inebriated villager decided to give himself a circumcision with his shotgun.  He didn't miss by much but bled like a stuck pig.  He shrieked, "I'm bleeding like a woman!"  The incident report written by the nurse was that she thought he was given a wrong dose of pain killer.  Like Carolyn has often said, "I could write a book!".

Got a mysterious error message, must go pretend I yam an IT professional.

G'night folks.

BUSH DIARY JANUARY 1997

BUSH DIARY JANUARY 1997:

1-10-97:  Happy Second Year Anniversary:  Husband and I walked to the next block where the Northern Lights Restaurant is located.  I had garlic chicken and husband sawed away manfully at a well gristled steaklet.  Sadly, no left overs.   sigh...

Price shocker.  Got a notice that the washing machine tokens are going to go up in price from two dollars each to three dollars.  And the limit is 15 tokens per month.  If you need EXTRA tokens they cost $7.50 each.  That would encourage conservation of water all right.

Tweaking PC at work.  The IT guy has me hooked up to both Barrow and Anchorage so I can work in two places if I wanna.  Also got a scanner hooked up, it does pictures much better than text.

Housing is busy making arrangements for a two bedroom apartment for Monica and Tasha.  

AHIMA meeting will be in Anchorage in May, putting in my bid to attend for that week.

Book mention:  Finished reading "A Monstrous Regiment of Women" by Laurie R. King.  Her first book was "The Beekeepers Apprentice".  Sherlock meets a very young lady genius and things go from there.
  
1-22-97:  The sun officially rose above the horizon today in Barrow.  Weather man calculated the sun would be up for 29 minutes. It is overcast so we didn't see much except it cleared up enough that by 5 pm we could see a gorgeous deep blue and a great big fat full moon.

Thin walls: Somewhere in our building someone has a remote control on the same frequency as ours.  Two days in a row the unit came on by itself. Husband responded by pointing the clicker thing at the wall in an attempt to return the favor.

1-30-97:  The Great Barrow Taxi Cab Strike:  I got a call Thursday morning from Danny Abasolo one of my regular drivers at City Cab. He called to let me know no one was running this morning. Ugh.  Thanks, Danny.  I thanked him and bundled up and walked to work.  I did see a bus enroute but both times it was going the wrong way so I just kept walking.  It was only 20 below and I was well wrapped and had worked up a bit of a sweat by the time I trudged up the steps at the hospital.  The cab drivers are all upset with City Hall. The City charges each company 5000 dollars for the yearly license and each driver must take a CDL test each year and the market is saturated with cabs. There is not enough commuters to keep  50 cabs busy 24/7.  The cabs were all back on the road by the end of day.  Update:  Eskimo channel had notice that cab rides now go from 4 dollars one way to 5 dollars one way in town.  I will still get a dollar discount for work, so thanks gentleman.

I received a magnetic David and Venus with stick on clothing.  I decided to take them to work and stick them up on the metal lockers at work.  All of the ladies like to "play dolls" with the magnets. It is a lot of fun.

New Coffee House in town.  Polar Coffee Haven, just dial 852-BEAN opened this last Saturday.  It is close to the Post Office. I stopped by and picked up a large mocha with whipped cream and two almond biscotti for 7 bucks.  Watch out Starbucks!

Talked with Charlie they would love to have us come for a visit closer to Christmas to dandle baby on my knee.  Will do some travel plans.

That is all for January,  G' night folks.

BUSH DIARY DECEMBER 1996:

12-3-96:  Charlie called over Thanksgiving to let me know that I will be a grandma in a few months.  Hooray!!

Apartment dream.  Tim mowed the lawn.  

Might get Monica Back!  Hazzah! ASNA has decided to hire an RRA for the medical records manager.  I have been officially acting in that capacity.  I have been on the horn with ASNA personnel and am trying to remodel and get a desk squeezed back into the department.  Might not get her until April but I am happy to wait.

We upgraded the Email system and now have more icons to do more stuff.

House dream: Rented a house belonging to Dean Coltrin.  The house had a very large black cat there and Dean said he forgot and would come get it.

12-3-96: Today is my sixth year of working in Barrow, that makes me practically a senior citizen on the medical records crew.

12-6-96:  Terrible news today.  I picked up the phone in admin and it was someone trying to contact Clara Steimetz significant other.  He was working in one of the villages.  She had died in her sleep. Dr. Perez said she was depressed and probably committed suicide. 

12-7:  Chatted with Charles and Leslie, July 4 is their due date. They have both quit smoking.

12-14:  Craft fair at Ipalook grade school. I went specifically for mittens.  Bought a brand new pair of spotted seal skin outer and lined with shearling lamb, fancy inset on wrist of calf skin, cuff made of beaver and the idiot strings attached for a total 130 dollars.  They are so warm.  The first pair I purchased was 85 dollars.

Interesting gossip:  One of the doctors was talking about an arrest that happened on Alaska Airlines.  A woman passenger was returning to Barrow and decided she needed a smoke.  She went into the bathroom, tampered with the smoke detector and was met at the airport by the cops.  Naughty. Federal offense for crying in a bucket. The fine will be 2000 dollars.

12-19-96:  First ASNA Christmas Party. It was a potluck and ASNS furnished the turkey, yummy.  We got individual gift bags of coffee mug, coffee beans, instant tear and other goodies. very nice
.
Price shocker at the craft fair.  I caressed a home knitted sweater made from musk ox wool.  It was lovely and was 2000 dollars.  Sigh...

Price shocker of the week. Saw a small carton of Bing cherries imported from Chile, six dollars. Drool.

New twist at work. If you want daily lunch you must sign up for each meal by 10:30 a.m.  Well I forget and the tuna is not worth signing up for.

Death certificate;  A man froze to death when his snow machine broke down. The weather was awful and we had another blizzard.

Customer relations NOT:  We had a civilian blow in and essentially demand services, would not cooperate with any of the information other than her name.   There was much explanation etc and eventually she was given something and she explained that she was a member of Mensa and no one had to explain anything to her and she refused the service.  Thank you, Smart Lady.

Christmas 12-25:  We had a quiet day and exchanged gifts.  I had almost forgotten  one gift for Tim. He had been complaining about how there was never ping pong balls at the Teen Center.  I fixed that one.

That's it for December 1996:  G'night folks.

OUR LADY OF THE SKY

I was determined to find a prayer for flying just in case I ever hit air turbulence or get a hang nail or something untoward.  Took a lot of Google effort.  Finally went Catholic and the following is beautiful.  I cut short the salutation and the following is quite wonderful.

Our Lady of the Sky

Our Lady of the Sky, protect we pray thee, the wings made 

by men to which we entrust ourselves when crossing the spaces above plains, mountains and seas. 

Protect our flight, and may we have a greater realization of God’s love and glory reflected in the beauties of the heavens and the earth. 

Be thou our help every moment of our aerial journey, preserve us from all perils, and restore us safe and sound to our dear ones. 

Obtain also for minds and hearts, O Lady of the Sky, the grace to rise towards the things of heaven, and soar above the errors and meanness of this world, far from the darkness and mire of evil, so that we may at the end of our earthly life enter into the everlasting abode of rest and happiness, and enjoy with the glory of God, with the Angels and Saints, amen.

BUSH DIARY OCTOBER/ NOVEMBER 1996

BUSH DIARY OCTOBER  AND NOVEMBER 1996:

10-1:  Went to vote didn't have to wait too long to get that completed.
         ALSO was notified that Beloved Leader would be departing.  She disappeared about noon.  She has ten days to vacate her quarters.

10-2:  The HR guy at ASNA asked me to consider taking the manager job.  Horoscope today said, "Don't take first offer."  Huh.

Just read in the local paper that this years Dividend Fund check was in the amount of 1130 dollars.  Well.  Alaska Airlines is offering four rides and upgrades to first class. Me! Me! Me!

We all got the day off as thanks from the Mayor for the election.

I see in the Anchorage newspaper that the Colville River site has been estimated by ARCO geologists to be capable of producing 60k barrels of oil per day when the field is developed in 2000.  The field should last for 25 years.

I am official caught up at work. Got all the uncoded inpatient discharges rounded up and completed. What a relief.

More oil bidness:  The Russians are apparently shipping to the Tesoro refinery.  The Russian oil is sweeter than North Slope crude and makes better and higher octane fuel.  Comrade!!

10-5:  Went to breakfast at Pepe's.  The waitress asked if we wanted the usual and we yepped.  It was delicious.

We ordered large Sony TV from AC and it was delivered Saturday.  The old went to the foyer with a "free" sign on it.  It promptly went to a new home somewhere.

10-9: Beloved Leader took the evening jet. 
Moving some furniture at work, rearranged a few things and consolidated a few things and squeezed out a little more elbow room. 

10-11: Carolyn McClintock turned in her resignation.  She will be gone 12-20:  She has commuted nine years to Barrow and she and Lloyd need to rebuild their house in Big Lake.  She got us through the conversion from IHS to ASNA and now it is time to go. I will miss her very much.  Hope who ever replaces her is nearly as funny, compassionate and rock steady.

Lois Anderson came through the department with a three masted ship made of baleen.  I think that will make a nice going away present for Carolyn.

10-14: Columbus Day Holiday. Feds only. Which means that everyone and their sick canine will come to the clinic.  Oy!!  

Have started training Patrick on the inpatient coding as well as the census. Jeanne just got back from PI.  Thank you!!
David White wants me to write a proposal for outsourcing transcription services.  Ok.

I asked if I could get raises for the medical record folk and Mr. White said to submit the paper work and it was approved.  Heady sense of power.   Also ASNA is offering to send me back to school for the R.R.A. (two more years).  I will think it over.  I feel like I have been doling out bits and pieces of my job and ASNA wants to take a look at my salary as I was making more than Beloved Leader.  Hope I don't  have to give any back.

Tim has been going to the local Teen center to play ping pong.  He goes up against one of the local cab drivers, Edgar. There is a pool table there but only one grubby pool stick.  What!?

10-22: So dry I got a nose bleed.  Real pumper.  Was seen in a room and Dr. Freeman applied a silver nitrate stick to cauterize.  Gug.

Kitty news;  Bradfords thyroid meds have been adjusted upward.

Weather: 5 below zero. Polar bear shot by one of the workers from the hospital.  The guy is going to feed the meet to his dogs.  

Talked to Charlie.  He called to thank me for his early birthday card.  He also said he was assaulted and broke his elbow.  He was at a friends house and was on the phone. Someone there took exception to something Charlie said and the battle ensued. He will be in a sling for about six weeks. Kids.

Blizzard: Monday was a complete white out.  NSB shut down and told everyone but essential personnel stay at home.  I was already there and decided to stay.  Very quiet but the suffering souls managed to stagger out in a fairly decent show.  We had 29 walk-in's by 5 pm...an average day.

Lost on the Tundra.  Dr. Paul McCord drove a ski-do to Wainwright on 10-26 and has not showed up.  Search and Rescue went to one site but did not find anything.  His beeper is no longer working may have frozen.  It looks bad a C150 went looking and found nothing.  This has been a terrible thing for almost everyone.  His wife works here as a teacher.  He is a very popular doctor.  And we are now down to one doctor.  Worried gloom.
Transcription service has been approved.  

11-4: Search and Rescue officially called off the search for Dr. McCord.  A debriefing crew is coming up from ANMC.  There will be some sort of memorial.  A grim fact of life in Alaska is that it does not take 7 years for a missing person to be declared dead.  C

arolyn McClintock has resigned effective immediately due to the stresses.

We ordered a nifty high tech air mist humidifier.  Works very well.  Can almost stave off the nose bleeds. 

11-5: Voted for president.  I voted to Nader just to give him a little encouragement.

Dr. McCord's Memorial Service was 11-6 at the high school, it was very long and very well done.  So sad.  One of the doctors asked me to find a transcription tape with his voice on it for his wife, Amy.  Okay, here you go.  I had to go in and erase the patients name.

11-13:  Got a new PC at work today, mini tower, fancy monitor.  So fast I has nosebleed.

Had to go in over the weekend to shut down computer system because they were on back up due to a power failure.  Power is pretty dirty so shut it down.
  
11-22: ASNA handed out turkeys for the holiday!  Thank you!Cooked turkey, made all the fixings.  Yummy.
We purchased Toy Story.  Which should be fun.

 That's it apparently for October and November. Somebody shut me up!

G'night folks.