(dad, road trip, work, new director, health)

[elainegrey]

Monday: Dad called to confirm he could go on my eclipse trip with me. It was such a relief to have him commit. I was feeling increasingly aware of his self-centered conversation style: he never asks more than "how are you" at the beginning of a call and assumes that you would launch into something if you wanted to share. Both my sister and i have tried to draw attention to it, and the decades of my mother's anger with him can be partly explained by this behavior. (She had her own communication issues, which certainly didn't help either of them to ever grow away from the rut of arguments.) I pointed it out to him at the end of the call on Monday, in a clear unemotional way. It was after i had launched in and talked over him to share how sick i'd been, so the advice to remember that simply asking how someone is at the beginning of a call, getting "fine" and then launching in to your own ask had an indirect context without being accusatory. He thanked me -- which is nice, but nicer would be seeing some follow up effort. Which -- he does try. One call he said, "i asked you how you are, how is Christine?" so an awareness to ask after others, but since my "fine" was followed by coughing while talking -- piffle. I passive aggressively said Christine was fine, too. I think this was after he had snapped at me for beginning to explain how he would solve his technical problem while he was driving. I was mad.


Anyhow, feeling better about that.


Meeting with ExecDir J went well. He'd been told i'd rather die than manage so, yeah, i confirmed that -- and also let him know i had already reached out to the team to provide support. I think he got the message i am willing to help and make sure the team feels supported.


Today, this evening: prednisone has not yet knocked the cough out. I was feeling somewhat disenheartened -- my primary care provider is so hard to get into. So, i decided to see about whether there is a pulmonologist i could try and see. Lo! UNC Health Care has an asthma clinic in my small town. Well, i'll call them in the morning and try to get an appointment as soon as i can.

Comments

[annie_r]

Asthma clinic, yay! Hoping you can get in soon.

[tamena]

UNC seems to have most of the state covered for all kinds of things, my GP is a UNC doc too and with the medicare now UNC is my preferred network all the way around