Well I have a chronically stuffed up head, irritated throat and headache and I am getting sick of

• Well I have a chronically stuffed up head, irritated throat and headache and I am getting sick of - MT
  • My in-laws use a neti pot. - nasal douche? naturopathy
  • DayQuil works best for me - 2 every 4 hours. nm - DQ
  • I still use the old standby my mother always used-- - mlstoo
  • To MT with clogged sinuses - Nanna23
    • Thank you! - MTPockets
  • Per my physician.... - try this
  • Me too, - NOT MT related
    • Do you take over the counter medication or from a physician. Which seems to work well. - MT

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neck and my body was kind of stiff all over, but I ignored it, got the kids off to school, and went about my usual routine of having my morning coffee and reading the paper.  I don't start work until noon every day.  As the morning wore on, my body got achier and achier and I started having chills and basically had to huddle under three blankets so I would quit shivering.  I took my temperature and it was 102.3 and I'm wonder if I have strep throat or something.  I tend to pick that up about once a year and amy pretty familiar with the symptoms.

I couldn't bare the thought of calling sick especially because I work at home and I always think it's kind of lame to call in sick when you don't physically have to go much farther then down the stairs.  I always feel extremely guilty whenever I have called in for illness in the past.  Do you guys feel that way?  Like we're somehow not entitled to take sick days because we already working from home.  I mean, I have them accrued and I am truly sick, why should I feel bad about taking one when I actually need it?

Anyway, I took a handful of Motrin and the aching has eased up and I'm sweating like a pig so the fever broke for now, and now I just feel really tired and would love to lay down and take a nap, but just feel like I shouldn't and dread the idea of calling my boss.

Oh well, guess I'll suffer through like I always do.  Every once in a while working at home doesn't feel quite fair. 

It started with a mild sore throat, then went to a REALLY BAD sore throat, tickly throat so I coughed and couldn't sleep, started getting a runny nose, then sinuses stuffy/sinus headache, sore throat got worse - was starting to think it was strep.  Yesterday was the worst; felt like crap.  Last night - started to feel better!  Finally last night I was able to SLEEP.  Today I have felt SO much better.  Not back to normal, but at least I was able to drink a cup of coffee.  Every other day I have poured myself a cup and then it just sat on my desk all day.  My throat is MUCH better and althought I am getting twinges of pain in it from time to time, it's not constant like it has been the last several days.  I don't like this, whatever it is!

I would think it was strep except DD had it too and she got over it.  She said her teacher had it and the teacher said her doctor told her it's a viral thing.

Of bad dictators and QA that takes up for them!!!!  I am sick to death of:

1.  Doc saying paragraph after every sentence.

2.  Docs never dictating the first name of doc they are writing to.

3.  QA asking us to insert certain sentences in certain places for certain doctors who do not dictate them.

4.  Docs wanting their own specific headings but not dictating them.

5.  Docs who ramble, never saying period.

6.  QA asking us to **fix** their grammer, mistakes, fragmented sentences, and verb tenses and sometimes when we do, we are docked points for **not transcribed as dictated.**

7.  QA not wanting anything sent to them, stating **researach medical terms and facilities you are not familiar with.**  If they are not there to help us out, what are they doing there????

8.  Docs, NPs, and PAs who do not know how to dictate, pronounce, or spell.

9.  QA asking us to use BOS, but not knowing it themselves.

10.  Doing work I do not get paid for.

Before QA became involved, in years gone by, if a doc's dictation was awful - then that is what he got for transcription and more times than not, they would straighten up and make a better effort.  Not now - we or QA has to almost do the dictation for them!!  They are the ones with the medical degree - not us.  What happened to us just transcribing what is dictated.  Why can't they be responsible for what prints out??  If someone could let them know how much trouble their dictation style causes, it would cut my transcription time in half.  My list could go on and on.  It is a terrible time to be thinking about getting out of the business, but if this crap keeps up - I have to give it some serious consideration.  The job just AIN'T what it used to be.

Did anyone ever work three jobs just to try to make it as an MT?  I have an office job during the day (NOT MT) work and I work as an IC and I just got a job working part time for another national.  Until my speed work catches up with my accuracy what I'm I suppose to do?  I'm so tired and so frustrated and i refuse to quit as I enjoy the MT work but I'm so tired...

Does anyone who has experience have any advice?

Stuffed Cabbages

1 head cooked cabbage
1 lb raw ground beef
1 egg
3 tbsp. dry minced onion
1 cup instant uncooked rice
2 cans tomato soup

Mix the raw ground beef, egg, minced onion, and uncooked rice together in a bowl and set aside.  Peel the cooked cabbage leaves.  Place a oval sized lump of meat mixture on the thick end of a cabbage leaf, roll partly, tuck in the sides and roll up the rest of the way.  Begin placing the rolls in a large pot (dutch oven, spaghetti pot, whatever you call it) and layer.  Spread the tomato soup evenly over the cabbages, pour 1-1/2 cups of water over the soup, cover and simmer about an hour.  Serve with sweet corn bread.

backing up the same posts with the same style down to the caps on words you want to emphasize.  It's mere coincidence that you and whoever backs your posts seem to use the same style.  Right!   LOL.  Good try. 

Gotcha! 

I am SO irritated.  Would you be irritated, too?  Just looking for some input, here. 

I am an independent contractor.  When I was hired, I made it very clear to the potential employer that I work on a 24-hour turnaround, less if told in advance that I am needed, but that I do not sit at my computer all day from 8-5.  I get my work done whether I work 8-3 or 10 PM until 4 AM.  (I work from home with children, and I do MT rather than use my degrees so that I can be with them.  This is why that was made VERY clear before I accepted the position.  I am not just sitting there waiting for work to come in.) If it comes in by 7 PM on Monday, it is back by 8 AM on Tuesday. That's my contract.

These are some things that have happened:

1.  The MTSO got mad at me one day because she emailed me in the morning telling me about some STAT jobs she needed done RIGHT AWAY.  Well, I had turned in my work from the previous day the night before, and I had signed up to be a chaperone on my child's field trip that morning. I was not on my computer until the afternoon.  That is what she understood when she hired me.

However, when I got on to work that afternoon, I had these angry emails from her wondering where her STAT work was.  When I told her why it was not done, she told me that I was EXPECTED to check my email every morning before I "go anywhere". I told her that would not have mattered, because even if I had checked my email, I would not have done the STAT work until I got back because of my obligation to my previously made plans.  That made her mad.  Frankly, my opinion is "tough noogies". My contract is my contract, and if I have no other obligations I will be happy to do STAT work.  But no, I am not going to put my child second to do a favor for her.  It's like the poster says, "A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part."  She's mad.

2.  I have a 99% accuracy rate. I consistently work weekends when the MTSO is behind.  I am an outstanding MT.  I work when I am sick, when my kids are sick, no matter what... I work.  Well, one day the workers in the street cut a cable, which took out my internet connection and my DSL phone. I did the transcription using my home phone line, which cost me an arm and a leg in LD charges, but I then had no way to securely email the files.  I let the MTSO know the problem and scrambled around calling until I found a friend not in my neighborhood who had Winzip and who had time to let me come to her house, use her Winzip and computer,and send my files.  My work was 3 hours late.  MTSO told me, "It's in your contract. It's not my problem what technical issues you have.  I need your work ON TIME.  Read your contract!"

How about my paycheck, which is CONSISTENTLY late because the MTSO doesn't get paid by the doctors on time?  I hear things like, "I can't pay you if I don't get paid." How about next time I say, "It's not my problem what financial inflow problems you have.  I need my paycheck ON TIME. Go take out a business loan using your phone system as collateral so that you have some operating capital, I don't care, but I need my check. The pay dates are in my contract. READ your OWN contract!" 

3.  Last thing I need to rant about today....  She called me one Friday saying that one of her MTs quit (shocking) and she needed help on another account.  I went into the account. No templates, no samples, totally flying blind.  I struggled through dictation for an hour with this doctor in a specialty I have no experience in at all, he has an accent I've not had to work on in years, it's totally new to me. In the meantime, my own accounts are stacking up.  I emailed her and basically said, very professionally, that I'd be happy to keep working on this other account, but my own are stacking up. Would she like me to put in my regular amount of hours on this account and then catch up on my regular accounts next week, would she like me to do my regular accounts first and then put whatever time I have left to the new account, etc.  She said that I needed to do the new account and then catch my accounts up over the weekend!

I told her that I was not available to work that weekend, so what would she like me to do as far as the options I had given her previously.  She was mad.  She said that for the good of the company, we all have to sacrifice, she will be working all weekend as well, etc.  Excuse me. The "good of the company"?  I have no benefits.  I have no 401K. I have no vested interest in the business besides the fact that I make a per line rate.  Sure, if she loses her business, I would lose my job... I would also have another one very quickly given my resume.  If SHE has to work all weekend so that the docs don't get mad, she should.  It's HER business.  What part of that is hard for her to understand?  Sure, if she had asked me ahead of time and said, "I really need your help. Do you have any time this weekend to work on this account?", she would have had a different response from me. But to tell me, "You have all weekend to catch up..."  I DON'T think so.  I am not a robot, I am a person with a husband and four children.  I told her I could give her three hours on the weekend put toward any account she chooses, but that no, I would not be working until it was all caught up. She was mad.

Needless to say, I am looking for another job.  But what is wrong with this woman?

I needed to vent.  If you've made it this far, thank you for listening!

My legs from the calves down, and especially my ankles, have been swollen

since about the first part of February.  I walk around like a "weeble-wobble" doll.

And I thought, gosh, am I too fat?!, eating too much salt?!

Why don't they go down overnight or when I prop them up?

Well, finally I found out that I probably have Hoen-Schoenlein (or something like that) purpura.

They say it recurs.  It usually is in kids, but can happen in adults. 

IT HAPPENS AFTER A SORE THROAT.  It is in the autoimmune family.  Sometimes they will give you steroids for it -- but mostly you have to just ride it out. 

They really don't know what causes it - but like I said they do suspect it comes in correlation with a sore throat.......and I have had that horrible flu that hit in Feb and I have had recurrence of the flu/sore throat about every 6 wks (as do a lot of  the folks I know). 

They say the purpura/swollen legs and ankles can last for 6-8 wks or longer.

So, if you have really funky swollen legs and don't have luck with them going down after leaving off salt, drinking plenty of water, and not drinking caffeinated drinks -- it may be HENOCH-SCHONLEIN purpura.

What is HSP?

Henoch-Schonlein purpura (HSP or anaphylactoid purpura) is a form of blood vessel inflammation or vasculitis. There are many different conditions that feature vasculitis. Each of the forms of vasculitis tends to involve certain characteristic blood vessels. HSP affects the small arterial vessels called capillaries in the skin and frequently the kidneys. HSP results in skin rash (most prominent over the buttocks and behind the lower extremities associated with joint inflammation (arthritis) and sometimes cramping pain in the abdomen.

What causes HSP?

HSP occurs most often in the spring and frequently follows an infection of the throat or breathing passages. HSP seems to represent an unusual reaction of the body's immune system that is in response to this infection (either bacteria or virus). Aside from infection, drugs can also trigger the condition. HSP occurs most commonly in children, but persons of all age groups can be affected.

What are symptoms of HSP?

Classically, HSP causes skin rash, pain in the abdomen, and joint inflammation (arthritis). Not all features need be present for the diagnosis. The rash of skin lesions appears in gravity-dependent areas, such as the legs. The joints most frequently affected with pain and swelling are the ankles and the knees. Patients with HSP can develop fever. Inflammation of the blood vessels in the kidneys can cause blood and/or protein in the urine. Serious kidney complications are infrequent, but can occur. Sometimes a biopsy of skin and/or kidney is used in assisting the diagnosis, which is typically made based on the clinical findings.

Symptoms usually last approximately a month. Recurrences are not frequent, but do occur.

So I have to vent about my first serious problem that I had with Windows Vista (I won't bother mentioning the little things). We all had to uninstall and upgrade a program for work this week in order to continue working properly, which sounds pretty easy. But noooooo. I couldn't do either, and I spent hours on the computer trying to figure it out yesterday. I didn't get any work done! Finally my wonderful hubby came home from work (who happens to be my own computer geek) and after 1 hour got everything running for me.

The problem? VISTA. Apparently other Vista users have had a similar error message that is somehow triggered by Adobe Acrobat 8 (which stopped working yesterday). It was blocking my ability to uninstall and upgrade my particular program. Nevermind that I tried uninstalling some other useless stuff on my computer with great success just to make sure I wasn't crazy. I NEVER would have figured out that one on my own. Who knew? Once again Vista is stupid, stupid, stupid, and it makes me want to throw things.

I cannot wait until the new Windows comes out, whenever that will be. I hope it is soon because I am upgrading the first day it is available. Any one else have some good stories about how Vista has ruined your working day?

Small talk is a bridge that connects us to people, and let in what might be a close relationship, whether it be friends, or mate, or whatever.  This is how people break the ice to see whats deeper. 

I, like you, became defensive and withdrawn being out of it for so long, and thought everyone was the enemy and out to get me.  Once you change your perspective, you'll realize its not them, its you, you're the one who needs to change to become happy. 

The world is not negative, dreary, and awful, that is just how you see it because you're isolated and scared.