A non-kvetching post

I don’t handle moves well, as my emotionally bruised family will attest. Same thing happened when I left University of Texas in ’98. I think it’s the loss which drags me down the most; and, ultimately, it’s the kind of people I come from — people who focus on the empty part of that half-filled cup. So it takes a conscious effort on my part to turn my attention to what’s good about this change.

Kenney Mencher has a series of half-empty/half-full. Check it out.

Here are some of the good things about moving to Santa Rosa . . .

Karen has more medical options open to her. That is, after all, the main reason we moved now: no one in our area could do much for her but offer her newer and more expensive opiates. Here, if we can’t find help in Santa Rosa, we’re less than two hours from UC Davis, UCSF, and Stanford. I’m hoping at the very least that someone will be able to manage her pain meds in a manner that leaves her pain-free yet not a slave to side effects.

Jake definitely has more educational options here. Tomorrow, he’s going to shadow a ninth grader, and we’re hoping that will give him enough information to decide whether he wants to get back into public school or continue home schooling. Even if he continues home schooling, the charter school option should be much better here than in Southern Oregon. In the last two years, the school system up there contacted us once. Once. And that was to remind us, oh, hey, isn’t it time for your son to be tested? Yeah, whatever. Thanks for your concern.

My stir craziness should disappear. Santa Rosa isn’t big — it takes, at most, about fifteen minutes to travel from one end to the other — but I’ve hardly explored a fraction of it. And after that, there’s Napa and Sonoma and Calistoga and Petaluma and a dozen other places nearby where we could go exploring; and San Francisco and the East Bay are a hop skip and a jump away, too. Which reminds me . . .

We have friends nearby. What a concept! Although Corn Dog and Suisan and Kenney haven’t heard boo from me yet (aside from my rather grumpy “here’s our contact info now leave me alone” email), they’re all close enough to visit now. Yay!

Restaurants here rock, but then, I’ve already told you that.

Stores are close, too. We’re within three minutes of CostCo, Cost Plus, Best Buy, Borders, Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, Trader Joe’s, PetCo, and a host of little fast food joints, including a bagel shop and a Hawaiian BBQ. We’re within ten minutes of grocery stores, two malls, and three big hardware stores.

Work should be better, too, if I can get past the achy feeling that comes from losing well over a thousand devoted patients. Pay and benefits are much better here, and I won’t have to worry about the business side of things. I’m no longer my own boss, though, which is good and bad (half-empty, half-full again). When I peeked inside the packet I received from the HR folks yesterday, I saw . . . a mission statement!

Damn! In Crescent City, we went to the bother of incorporating, and yet I never wrote a mission statement. What would it have been, I wonder? Perhaps,

Here at Walnut MD, PC, we promise to provide superlative care, and not tank our business like so many of this town’s MDs seem to do.

There’s a part of me that objects to authority and dislikes being a company man, but I’ll have to beat that part into submission. The solo practitioner model is dead. I tried it, gave it a decade of my life, and while I didn’t fail at it, I wasn’t exactly successful, either.

I wonder . . . I continue to wonder whether I could have made a go of it in a strictly cash-pay business. People don’t want to submit their own insurance claims, though, and they’re used to paying their co-pays and nothing more. I happen to think I’m worth it, but would enough people agree with me to keep me in business?

Or maybe I could have opened a spa. Pedicures, facials, massage, and oh-hey-look-you got yourself some mean ear wax, let me clean that for you. Slow day? I think I’ll get myself a pedicure, facial, and massage! Hell, they’re my employees. While we’re at it, I want to soak in the hot tub from 10 to 11, so hold all my calls, thankyouverymuch.

Maybe I shouldn’t have stopped playing the lottery.

D.