First I want to start with Shelly and Joe’s wedding. As most of you may remember, they got married on April 22nd and we happened to be in Austin and feeling pretty good for the wedding. What a beautiful wedding. We couldn’t wish more happiness to a greater couple. Leaving Austin was bittersweet but hopefully I’ll be back in July for Amanda’s baby shower. Shelly planned an amazing wedding and we had a great time. Good food, great company and beautiful surroundings.
Soon after we got back from Austin, Sam had to turn around and head to Houston for Grandma Betty’s funeral. It was wonderful for Sam to be able to spend time with his parents, aunt and cousins, but it was unfortunate that it was under sad circumstances. After his return from Houston, we attended Tova’s birthday party, but you already know about that.
Over the last month, work has taken a crazy turn! One of my co-workers was let go, which was crazy with bad timing. We are already understaffed and I’m spread between three programs. With this co-worker leaving, I assumed a good part of her caseload, which brought my patient load up to 26 between Hospice and Palliative Care. Not to mention that I was still spending a great deal of time getting prepared for my new program to begin, which included creating all of the necessary forms, re-creating a complete psychosocial assessment and managing all of the other aspects of the program.
I finally got the good news last week! My new project is set to start on June 5th. I was asked to reduce both my Palliative Care and Hospice caseloads to something more manageable (like 10) and get prepared to complete 5 assessments of new patients per week. I am so relieved that this project is finally starting. I am confident that it is going to be amazing and it will be highly beneficial for the patients involved.
After my co-worker was fired, two more social workers put in their resignations. At this point, there is only one social worker that has been in my department longer than me. It’s sad that I’m a senior social worker after only 6 months! I really hope that all of the positions will be filled ASAP so that I don’t have to worry about getting more patients.
I’ve definitely been able to take on more of a leadership role in the last month or so. I’m in charge of divvying up the Palliative Care patients and have been given the task of completing a final evaluation for one of our NYU students. If only I was getting paid more...
Last week we had a bit of a family scare. Our nephew, Yoni, was hospitalized for more than a week with pneumonia. He was released last Friday, to enjoy Shabbos with his family. We only wish him good health and no more hospital scares.
And finally, some exciting personal news: Sam and I inherited two cats from our friend Annie. She felt that she didn’t have enough time to give to them, so we are now the proud parents of Lucky and Blue. They kick ass and are a great addition to our family. Sam and I celebrated our two-year anniversary last week with a lovely Italian dinner and a trip to Freeport, Long Island last weekend to go out on a gambling cruise. We didn’t win much money, but we didn’t lose much either. It was a nice, relaxing anniversary weekend.
I want to share some good thoughts and wishes to Jessica and Cedric who moved from NYC last week to Arlington, Texas. Congrats to Jessica for graduating from Columbia and for obtaining her LMSW in record time. We will miss them terribly but appreciate the new furniture that we got from them.
I’ve been reading a ton of books lately and need to start sharing them with the world. I can definitely recommend the following: Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem and Love and Other Impossible Pursuits by Ayelet Waldman. Next up: Sense and Sensibility by the amazing Jane Austen.
My new plan, and I know I’ve said this before, is to blog more often. I want to avoid these long and drawn out posts. Happy week to you all!
1 comment:
Ooooh! Cats! Did you see the new link, stuffonmycat.com?
I'M SO GLAD you're going to be posting more often! I was having separation anxiety for a while there.
Post a Comment