Fragments From Floyd

I've decided maybe I should have heard from the Fed re the Parkway job by now. So, on to Plan B. Wait a minute. I don't have one of those now. Plan B used to be so easy to find, back in the early days of my physical therapy career. I got tired of hospital work and easily found a private practice job in work injury managment. That one soured, three of the team left at once, and two weeks later, one of those guys and I were starting a couple of new programs in a small community hospital. After five years there, the clinic in Floyd opened. HCA pulled the plug on that one, I did home health for a while (never got paid; Medshares claimed "bankruptcy" as a way of shedding some debt by not paying the little guy -- that would be the likes of me) so I found the work in the retirement community in Blacksburg and when that started to go stale, I took the manager's position with the private practice in Christiansburg. And that's where my string of easy work transitions and my willingness to jump through the corporate and insurance company hoops came to an end.

I could find work in PT now if I were willing to drive an hour one way and do nursing home Medicare paperwork. But the last job that I resigned in May, 2002 (just as this weblog started) left permament scars. The nerve of passion for that work is irredeemably severed, even though it is the only line of work that would make the long travel worth the effort, financially. And, I can't do the work very well any more, physically--either the copious documentation by hand or transferring, muscle testing, or performing manual therapy on a patient any more. Both my wrists are in sorry shape and need new parts; and hands are a therapists chief asset. It is a very hands-on profession.

So now, when Plan A seems to be going the way of the DoDo Bird, I have a sinking edge-of-the-world feeling again. The wheezing in my chest does nothing positive for my state of mind. Spring is coming, and who knows? There may be things at work even now that will come together in a few weeks, or months, and the "end" of all of this, and the point of this odd life I'm leading will become crystal clear and I will have found my niche. I dunno. That ole bull I used to so readily take by the horns has got me buffaloed (I think I mixed bovine metaphors somewhere in here, yes?). So. Sorry for the mucoid melancholy this morning. No, come to think of it, melancholy comes from black bile (melan- is black, chole- is the prefix for the gall bladder. There's your word trivia for the day) so phlegm and bile are two more mixed metaphors here. And of course, what's a metaphor? It's for growing grass and grazing and having picnics and such.

I think I have a bad case of snot on the brain. I gotta go.