Whenever I encounter a moment of crisis I go and work at my volunteer “job.” I am willing to perform the very tedious, boring, routine operations that no one else truly wants to do. Another staffer commented on my output. I responded that I really enjoyed endless, dull repetitive work. I saw from his eye response that this may not have been the socially appropriate answer. I appear to be doing a great many socially inappropriate things lately. This is one of the reasons I seek refuge in my “office,” slaving away at a mountain of paper.

Around 1930 one of the coordinators came over to speak to me and thank me for my efforts. I tried to reply to him. I was able to form words in my head but when I attempted to articulate these word thoughts, and render them as spoken speech, what came out was a sort of discordant babbling. He thought I was strange. I thought it was strange. I tried to cover by making another remark and it was more babble. What I fail to understand is that I had none of the normal signs of fatigue. There was no headache which normally signals I am engaged in over-exertion. Yet I was clearly having difficulty articulating simple speech. I did not feel fatigued prior to this event but assumed that the inability to articulate was itself an indicator that I should cease work.

One problem with this “job” is that I cannot see how I can convert it into a paying position. Another troubling aspect is that it does not deliver much in terms of rehabilitation benefit. There is no real challenge to the task set. The only true job requirement is a willingness to accept crushing repetition. The reason I welcome the work is that it makes me feel socially valued. There are times I seek the basic comfort of being able to mix with other members of humanity.

This morning I have been totalling receipts from my various doctors. I had sent a letter to the insurance company setting out the fact that one Doctor with a total of 12 minutes of clinical engagement with me had arrived at an opinion at variance with that of 3 other doctors who have spent in excess of 1,100 hours in clinical engagement with me. When I totalled the hours shown on the receipts it became evident that the accumulated hours are much less than the 1,100 figure I reported to the insurance company. This discrepancy is so significant that I should have noted the error much earlier. But I didn’t.

I can perform tedious data entry and appear to perform acceptably. Then it comes to a matter of simple math and I fail to notice a huge error. I was once able to accurately total million dollar training budgets and accomplished this in the age before advent of the personal computer. I don’t know how to explain these data points.

Data Points Update

I know that I resort to the blog when I am feeling stressed. It is a vehicle by which I can prove to myself I am OK. In the space of a week I have gone from feeling extremely positive about my recovery to the exact opposite position.

Data Points Update 2

The figure reported to the insurance company was 1,160 hours of clinical engagement delivered by Dr. H and Dr. D. I just completed a full review of all receipts and calender data and the actual total comes to 137 hours. I have no understanding of how I arrived at the prior figure.