Oralia's News

I want to tell everyone, Oralia's pregnant! In fact, I want to tell Oralia herself but neither of her phone numbers work. I have to wait until Monday, at least.

This afternoon at the Elm St. clinic one of the people I helped, Oralia, was in the adult clinic complaining of indigestion and a pain in her side. When asked if she was pregnant, she said she didn't know. The doctor sent her to OBGYN after giving her a prescription for Mylanta.(This whole process takes at least an hour, too.) So we go to OBGYN, wailing tired child and sleepy husband too. There they take a urine sample and tell her to wait in the lab. I assume they'll take blood at the lab. Well we wait for another hour and they finally say they can't take more blood today, she'll have to reschedule. So we were going to go down to get the Mylanta when they said, no you have to go back to adult and give them the chart. Another hour because Oralia had 2 charts- one with just her last name, and her first name misspelled as "Orelina". Next chart had just been made in adult with the correct name. OBGYN sends back the wrong chart. So people have to go looking for the correct chart. Of course this takes forever as employees take their time chatting, laughing, etc. and wondering what the heck we're still sitting there for. So finally we get the correct chart and go to the pharmacy to get the Mylanta. Oralia and family leave, thinking they'll reschedule if there's reason to think she's pregnant, since she thought she'd had her last period only 20 days ago. Of course I doubted this because in her 2 charts she had 2 different birthdays and each time she estimated her age it varied from 25 to 29 years old. FYI in many countries (like much of Guatemala) people don't really know when they were born or keep track of how old they are. It's all a stab in the dark. And many, like the couple I assisted today, don't read or write but are fairly bilingual Mam/Spanish speakers. Well, anyway, having this sort of concept of the passage of time translates to, who knows how long it's been since the last period. She wasn't even in a huge hurry to find out if she was pregnant, it's kind of a maybe-I-am thing- anyway, after Oralia and family left, I go up to get my paper signed, and one of the nurses saw me and said, "Where's Oralia?" I said she had left. Well, she said "We just did her pregnancy test, and it's positive." "Are you serious? I thought she needed the blood test, that's what the other nurse said." The nurse I was speaking with said, "Why? I wonder who said that? All we need is the urine and she gave that!" I shook my head, and then I raced downstairs to try to find Oralia but she'd already gone. So I go upstairs, get the two numbers, and try to call her to tell her she was pregnant with her fifth, congratulations.

Now all of you know that Oralia's pregnant, excpet for Oralia.

Earlier today I helped a couple at the Price Hill clinic, I had helped her when she was pregnant and now the newborn was in. Beautiful baby, named Estefani. As in the Elm Street clinic, people misspelled her name a dozen different ways. (sigh)

I am not going to comment on some of my frustrations and observations of certain individuals here...don't wanna hurt anyone...but there are some people today who frustrated the heck out of me just by existing on this planet.

I also had no time to do the marketing for the friendship connection program, work on the web site, or call potential clients. I arrived at the office just in time to find nowhere good to park, due to Jammin' on Main starting, and the good places were expensive. I finally agreed to pay one place $8 but it was a machine-operated place that didn't take a $20 which was all I had...so I did a bad thing and parked there for the time I had to be at the office to turn in my editing work as well as clinic papers, just parked the car there and since the machine couldn't take what I had I just came back and drove away without paying anything, and I could get in trouble! I'm so bad- I will try to tell them Monday. Even though $8 is ridiculous to park for a short trip to the office and I wasn't going to Jammin'. (sigh) I hate parking in this city. NO FREE PARKING. Cincinnati's movers and shakers always complain about revitalizing downtown, why won't people come downtown, it must be the crime, etc. because the good stores are there. NOOOOO....idiots....the simple truth- PARKING. No one wants to come downtown because there's NO *$(&%(*&ing place at all to park. EVER. Unless you pay out the wazoo and who wants to do that when you can go to one of the eight dozen megamalls in the area and park for free. And why, why did Gerry have to buy office space downtown? Why not somewhere, ANYWHERE, else? You know, an office park or something...!!!!