Back at the hospital, Tonya and I worked out some of the paperwork we had to submit to Minda like the Memorandum of Understanding. We tried to work out a schedule for Friday since Tonya was going out of town. Tonya arranged for me to work with the other Tonya in the Helping Hands Free Medical Clinic. We decided that it would be a good idea for me to get a head start in there today though since Tonya Martin had to finish up some more interviews. I followed Tonya McKenzie back through the "dungeon" as it is affectionately called to the Clinic. She gave me tour of the facility again, but this one was more detailed. She walked me through the process of a patient coming in for a visit. They start off with Miss Carolyn who screens all of the patients for business. Basically she sits down with them and makes sure they have all of the proper paperwork to be eligible for the free clinic. They then go into a holding type room where they can have some privacy to get meds or discuss what they need. After that, they get the basics checked in one of the room like heart, BP, glucose level, etc. They are then moved to one of 2 procedure rooms for whatever services they need. With the recent grant money they were able to buy a new EKG machine and that was in one room while the old EKG was in the other room. That room didnt even have any instrument for looking inside ears. All they had was a cheap flashlight. It was surprising that they did not even have basic equipment like that. I asked why it seemed like there was so many supplies for dealing with diabetes in the clinic, and she told me that diabetes is the number one ailment of people who come in. She said the majority of people actually are diabetic. Asthma is a close second, especially with smoking being so prevalent. Tonya then showed me where they store the medicine and the process for documenting its arrival and dispensation. After that, she spent a long time going through exactly what each paper means in a patients chart and described exactly what services they offer and what the eligibility requirements are. There people have absolutely no health insurance, not even Medicaid or Medicare. I asked what the average income of people were who came in and Tonya replied $12,000 to $15,000 per year. It is hard to imagine the quality of living for these people.
A went back to the nursing center to wait for Tonya Martin to get out of her interviews. It took longer than I expected so I basically sat around doing nothing for an hour. I skimmed over some of the copies of forms Tonya McKenzie has given me, but that didn't take long. I wandered around outside again and was about to go get lunch by myself from the cafeteria when Tonya came back. We went over to the cafeteria together. I found out that lunch was free for me from the cafeteria so that got me pretty excited. And today was chicken tenders, fries, and apple pie. It was all delicious, even for a nursing home cafeteria. Tonya and I ate outside in the courtyard. She told me a little bit about her employment history and how she had been an ER nurse, and started a Home Medicine business, quit that, and then became the Administrator of the Nursing Center. Deanie (sp?) joined us and they discussed some of the difficulties they have with relatives coming into the nursing home and accusing them of mistreating their loved ones. They said it is hard for these relatives to realize the bigger picture when they don't come that often. They also talked about the guilt many of them feel for placing their loved ones in nursing homes and they take it out on the staff.
After lunch I sat in on a conference call with Tonya and Jerolyn. It was a speech done by CMS (the nursing home rating system) on how to earn a 5 star rating. It sounded like pretty boring stuff to me since I wasn't really that familiar with the technical terms and forms they were referring to. The residents were having activity time outside. The activity for today was horseshoes. I watched as the wheelchair were rolled around in a circle with the post in the center of them as they took turns tossing horse shoes. When one of them scored, everyone threw their arms up in excitement and joy. They all looked so happy. I was glad that I got to witness this from the window. It was much more interesting than the conference call.
Tonya McKenzie came back and got me for some more orientation. She showed me where all the bathrooms were and some of the empty space they were hoping to turn into a lounge. The "door" to this "lounge" was actually a whole in the wall in the medicine room that I had been in earlier. However, before, there was a bookcase that has been covering the entrance but was now pushed aside. It had a secret passageway type feel to it. Tonya gave me the assignement of going over the papers she gave me to proofread spelling and grammar and to make sure the readability was easy and on the level of a 6th grader. In Marion County, the average reading level is that of a 6th grader.
I finished up kind of early for the day, and Tonya Martin was leaving early as well since her husband had gotten free tickets to the pre-opening of the Freestyle Music Theme Park that used to be the Hard Rock Theme Park. She was glad that I enjoyed the clinc. Tonya told me that the other Tonya had been really excited I was coming to work with them this summer when she first found out about me. This made me feel really good. I then realized that I would be able to help the most and "serve" in the free clinic, while I would gain experience and opportunities to benefit myself through the Nursing Center. I got a ride home with Leslie, the secretary, since Alice was still at work.
After hanging around the house for a while, Charlotte and I decided to go for a walk around town. We went pretty far down main street and then took the bike trail and back roads back through the neighborhood. There is a lot of stuff you miss while driving. We saw some quaint antique stores along the side of one of the blocks. We then encountered a group of kids probably a little younger than us. We didn't say anything to each other, but we were pretty sure we could feel them staring at us as we walked past them. I guess we really seemed like outsiders. We admired all the architecture of the old homes and how simple yet pretty they were. Once we turned around we found a beautiful meditation garden next to the Presbyterian Church. You have to walk underneath a trellis to get in and immediately a smell of honeysuckle envelops you. We stayed there for a little bit and then continued our trek back. We kept an out for the library but didn't really find it. We decided to take a little detour and go up the steps to the courthouse. We were admiring the iron work on the steps when we realized that there were letters and words worked into the pattern. On the way down the steps on the other side we realized it was the name of the architect, Hayward Bartlett. Continuing, we found a small side alley that was actually well kept. It had a trellis with ivy at the entrance and landscaping and a brick pathway. We then discovered it right next to Tio's (which we thought was Italian but then others claimed it was Mexican, but then we saw it was advertised as International food). We got sidetracked by a fountain on the way back and realized it was the biking trail so we walked back through that way to the neighborhood. We saw a lot more kids out playing in the park and on the tennis courts which was nice since we hadn't seen many people our age yet.
Since Alice, Noelle, and John Deans had gone with Dr. DeMarco to dinner and symphony in Florence, we decided to go out to eat tonight. We ended up going to T-Roy's. The general consensus was that it was satisfying food, but overpriced for what it was. I decided to make it my goal to try all the sweet tea at every restaurant so I could deicide what was best. This sweet tea was very sweet, but not obnoxiously sweet. It definitely had a sense of drinkability. The onion rings were actually the best onion rings I have ever had, or at least that I can remember.
Back at home we watched Ocean's Eleven, and I worked on proofreading the documents for Tonya. It was already pretty late so we didn't do much else for the night.
juicy j i love u and not just for ur slim and perfect body
ReplyDelete