10 Signs You Have Become Obsessed With Home Care
1. You automatically do home safety assessments when you're having dinner at a friend's house.
2. If a relative calls seeking medical advice you first try to determine if they're homebound.
3. You can recite the location of every clean public restroom in the county.
4. When you sit down to write your annual Christmas letter you quantify exactly how many feet your son ran down the soccer field (without considerable and taxing effort).
5. On your days off, you find yourself wanting to eat lunch in your car.
6. You can read a map better than your spouse.
7. Advertisements for vacation resorts as an "OASIS" have lost their appeal.
8. You begin to feel guilty if you've been anywhere more than 25 minutes.
9. You are extremely reluctant to throw away empty laundry detergent bottles and coffee cans.
10. You retrieve items from your purse using appropriate bag technique.
Cynthia Blevins, MEd, BSN, RN
Health Center, University of Delaware
Some more signs that you've become obsessed with hospice or home care:
1. You feel guilty working on documentation at home between the hours of 8 am and 5 pm.
2. In addition to knowing where all the clean bathrooms are, you know where all the indoor pay phones are.
3. You know the best route to get around all the latest construction detours (here in the Ft Worth, TX area, it is an ongoing effort! Just about the time one road is ready to go, two more are torn up!)
4. You take your 16 year old cat to the vet and discuss wanting palliative, not aggressive, care for her.
5. You can recite 50% of the restaurants near any given intersection, with special emphasis on the fast food restaurants.
6. You don't let your spouse drive, because you CAN read a map better, and who better knows the area? After all, you are in your car all day long; your spouse (probably) is in an (air conditioned) office.
7. You try to arrange your summer visits, based on availability of air conditioning.
8. You feel guilty if you actually take your entire lunch time off for lunch.
Judy Goldthorp, RN, CRNH
1. You write letters to friends and family using medical code abbreviations
2. When you go to visit a friend in the hospital you have to resist the urge to grab their medical chart.
3. The people at McDonalds know your name.
4. You give people directions based on patients' homes.
5. You scoff at people who can't drive, read pager and talk on cell phone at the same time (amateurs!).
6. You arrange your noon visits based on who feeds you!
7. You ask your elderly relatives if they have a living will (because you have a blank on in the car...).
8. You see elderly people out and must resist handing them your card.
Robin Buchan, LMSW
Send me your favorites; I will post them and give you credit.