Back in Business

 This week marked my first entrance into the workforce again. To a degree.

I laced up my tennis shoes and went to Kohl’s on Monday and Wednesday; acting as a standardized patient for Augusta University on Tuesday and Thursday. Between the two it was varied and interesting, but it probably wasn’t enough as all told it totaled about 15 hours.  

At Kohl’s, I started to learn the basics of gathering online orders and packaging them for shipping, in addition to putting excess product in the appropriate spots in the stockroom. It’s good, honest work, but of course I still managed to draw blood, one day with a menacing tape cutter and the other a cardboard box.

A quick side note. Many of you know I have the habit of referencing movies and television for---well---just about everything. Years ago, Connor had fallen down which drew blood. Trying to distract him, I tried to teach him my favorite line from “Predator.” Someone tells Jesse Ventura early on that he’s bleeding, to which he growls, “I ain’t got time to bleed!” It took Connor a while to get it down and now Harper is my next victim. She’s experiencing the same trouble that Connor had in the beginning. When prompted she’ll reply, “I don’t have time to bleed.”

Too bad the case I was working as a patient didn’t involve suturing. No, I was playing a construction worker with abdominal pain. I considered going Daniel Day-Lewis for the role, but I don’t think Melanie and the kids would have appreciated me smoking a half-pack of cigarettes the weekend before. I would have sacrificed and drank the three beers on Saturday and Sunday, though.

It’s interesting to see the process play out. I had four student doctors each day. They all came to the same basic conclusion about my “appendicitis,” I think, but the manner they got there was varied to a degree. I was nervous heading into my first encounter, but the seasoned SPs told me they were probably more nervous than I was. I could see that, for me it was acting but for them it’s so much more!

They have testing for the rest of the month so they need people who have been “patients” for more than two days. Maybe I can find a third part-time job.