Go K Go

Yes! Where one door closes, another will open. I just know there are going to be much better things ahead! Lots of hugs!

Kira--Only one was against you.  Many are FOR you.  Keep the faith.  Becky

Thank you! I saw the thread, didn't know who it meant. Shows how sharp I am....

Outfield: the rad onc was delusional about the kind rad onc he fired, and would come to my office looking for support while saying absolutely crude and unprofessional things about him. So, when he was gone, I was next. When the kind rad onc called me, he told me about the rad onc before him, who was amazing and he fired him also. It's this guy's pattern. Just hard to be on the receiving end.

It's a small state, and I've been working here for many years. I just need to not get all frantic and grab something just to fill the void.

I teach at the med school today, and I'm not sharing this with my first year students, they'd heard me talk about the stress, but until I've fully processed this, they don't need to know.

My co-teacher is a psychologist who runs the autism program, and he said "another door will open, just don't let it be held by a jerk"

I set up these interviews, but need to remember I'm not obligated to do anything right now.

Carol, I see you wrote that just above.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I'd written Binney that if he hadn't gone after me, I'd still be there, but she was very clear that it wasn't good for me to be humiliated on a daily basis. Yah think???

It just occurred to me that there's a great oncology group in a town nearby that I hadn't even thought of contacting. Onward! And try and do it in a calm, thoughtful manner.

You guys are the best.

Kira

Kira, how is your mother doing?  Oddly, a very good friend's mother fell and broke her hip on Saturday, and I'm hearing all kinds of frustration from her about the difficulties of convincing her mom on needed care elements.  You must be dealing with similar concerns.  I hope that's going as well as possible.  Job interviews and related decision-making are stressful enough without added concern about family elders' health.

I hope you're doing lots of walking with your dog, which seems to me a great way to zap stress and clear out some emotional cobwebs so you can have a good shot at making your career decisions as objectively as possible.  

It must be so hard to concentrate on making slides for your lectures when such BIG career and family issues are brewing! 

Carol 

Cookie, my nurse called yesterday to tell me how much she missed me and to complain about the evil boss, and I just couldn't work up the energy to care about the evil boss. Her I miss, tremendously. The whole group accepts the weirdness, the sense that the rooms are bugged, the lack of any regard for the individual, the narcissism, etc. as "normal". And a good day is when you're not abused. 

You said it all: it becomes normal, to work with a mad man, and the adrenaline of ducking the next verbal beating.

I spent yesterday, like kind of a focused insanity, working on my slides for the LE lecture for the breast health fellows. Literally all day--didn't eat/drink/leave the chair. My DH came home and was horrified. But, I think I got it down, and now it needs some tweaking.

And my Klose training materials came.

And I love the fierce flowers metaphor. 

I think I told you that we moved to the water last year, to satisfy a longing of my husbands, and I look out at the ducks and the sailboats, and I think, this isn't so bad...

But, just got an email from my 55 year old sister that she was in the ER with a fib, so on to the next family crisis.

Kira

Catherine: was having a massive pity party yesterday, but today is better. It's change that's so unsettling. And leaving an abusive situation.

My sister and I hollered at Kaiser, and she's seeing the cardiologist on Monday. Another day, another family crisis....

Change doesn't happen overnight: or sometimes it does, like last week--but that's not good either.

Working on building new alliances and that lecture. Turns out, there will be gyn oncologists and I need to put in info on leg/genital LE. It's a good review for me.

Kira

Mary, it's so true, I just thought if I did my job and tried to ignore the worst of it, I'd be okay, but I'm realizing just how horrible it was. I could probably turn him in to the board of licensure, but he's so combative, he'd make my life hell.

The staff said prayers every day that the evil that was the boss wouldn't touch them. They were saying special prayers for me. 

And it becomes "normal". 

It is twisted, and I'm so glad I don't have to go back there. 

Thanks Hugz. It's hard to keep posting that it's a difficult time. Yes, the evil one did take his toll: not in my belief about my competency, but about where I'd be willing to work in the future.

I always think that those of us who've been through breast cancer have some PTSD--and the STARS course confirmed that, and being subjected to this nastiness--kind of reactivates that.

So, it's a slower process than I would have liked, but interviewing at any and all job openings is not a good idea--yet that's what I've been doing. 

Had to be in contact with the office yesterday to confirm a transfer of my health insurance: weird, the staff tell me it's hell, and the office manager, daughter of the evil one, is all kind in her emails. This is the woman who screamed at me to get to work with my hand fracture....Like we're all cordial now? 

A friend told a family doc that I'd left the practice and she works across the street and said "Good, he's a royal a@@hole" Yep.

I was offered a position in a private office, solo practitioner, and I told the person I will NOT work in an environment where there's no institutional structure. Not now, maybe not ever. No fiefdom of the insane for me right now.

Working through this stuff. More slowly than I'd like.

Kira

Catherine, You said it exactly! I know exactly what I don't want. And I was shocked at how strong my negative reaction was to working for a male boss in his own practice was.

Patience is tough.

My mother is slowly improving, and her injury just highlights the stress fractures in the family dynamic. My father is frail, my sisters have their limitations, etc.

Catherine put it so well, Kira. I am continuing to think of you and hope that things become more clear about what you do want and that the stress of the time you spent working with this man will slowly melt away and you can fall more into feeling like your true, strong self.

So, I gave my lecture on LE to the gyn oncology fellows, oncologists, breast health fellows and head of gyn oncology--and it went really well!!!

Got a lot of great feedback.

And they were seriously asking me how they could reduce the incidence of LE in their patients.

I brought bandages and Solaris and had some show and tell, and it was good.

Nervous before, but not during. 

So, on to the next challenge. 

Kira

Kira, that is terrific!! I knew you would do a great job. So glad to hear they were receptive to the information and eager to reduce incidence of LE in their patients. I think you can claim that your thoughtful presentation was responsible for their interest in the subject. You put a lot of effort into it, and I am sure it showed. Plus, your passion for the topic must have been evident!!

I had a lot of studies about breast cancer related LE and gyn related LE and then I turned to them and asked, "You know how to treat LE, right?" and they all said no, so on to the next set of slides on treatment, and I showed them how a short stretch is NOT an ace wrap.I brought a set of old bandages and I actually told them how my mother started crying when she saw me wrapped, and how they need to encourage their patients to wrap--if appropriate-- and not act like it's some torture.

They knew I have LE, it was in the introduction, and we talked about shame, expense, limitations.

So, now I have to get the lecture for the Vodder course together. Who has time for work???

I have to study for my Klose training class, and I am STAR certified now (what a joke).STAR is Julie Silver's oncology rehab course--they put me on the grant to do it. It's a broad overview, and the LE portion is full of bad info. But I got a certificate, suitable for framing...