(Wipes Sweat off of Brow)

Well, I'm happy to report that my first class-teaching experience went very well. The participants responded well to the conversation points, asked good questions, and we bounced through the group discussions like sprites on a candy fix. It was fruitful, enlightening, and daresay, fun!

And, true to my trademark, I brought candy. Lots of it. Mini Snickers bars did the trick this time. Ever since I had that dental work done, I cannot really handle the Swedish Fish and Gummy Worms. Such is life, eh?

But the three-hour class was great and my evals all came back positive. To top it all off, I was asked to repeat the same class at St. Gonzo's and St. Piggy's!

All that aside, I've still been flirting with burn out lately. I worked almost all day Saturday, preparing for class, but also digging out from my perennial piles cluttering both my offices (I didn't dig out very far). I spent Sunday playing with Jack and watching the ChiSox game from the respite of my heavily air-conditioned home. Too soon, it was 7pm on Sunday night, the magic witching hour when I drop my "Weekend Dorrie" hat and quickly staple my "Work Dorrie" cap to my skull for the week.

The fires started last night, with a very sick patient in the ICU who needed continuous dialysis (a single patient contract that needed to be executed by yours truly), an irate physician over the Craziness Project, and what could blow up into a lawsuit for an accused negligence case (which, after having been reviewed by two physicians, doesn't look like much of anything...but try telling that to a ticked-off patient). So while I was teaching the class, my pager was going off like an alarm clock that just wouldn't die!

I called the Risk department; we're not being sued. But I still have probably two hours' worth of phone calls to make tomorrow morning. And if the dialysis patient survives the night, there will be a stat ethics review on the case. Never a dull moment in administrator land!

And did I mention that the Director of Food Service brought me a whole CASE of Diet Red Bull? You can come visit me in the heart cath lab on Thursday!