The beginning

My mother has always said I have a gift for writing. How many sons or daughters have been told by their parents that they are are "beautiful" or "gifted", or somehow or the other been lead to believe a half truth based on the good intentions of their parents who were looking at their children through rose colored glasses in the hopes of building up self-esteem. Seemingly well intentioned, sometimes accurate, but at some point for some people, there is a realization that maybe Mom wasn't right. I guess we'll let the readers decide. Anyway, for a nut and bolt to work, they have to be the same size. The threads have to be uniform; they have to have tensile strength. Then and only then will they be able to keep whatever it is they're holding together-together. After all (I know, I just started my sentence with a preposition) isn't that we all try to do every single day of our lives and with every breath we take? Keep it together? Well, sometimes it falls apart. We don't know when it starts or how it starts, but it starts somewhere. It starts small, usually so small that we overlook it. A series of events generally follows which leads to catastrophic failure.
     My name is Sasha Gaer. I live in upstate New York with my wife and three children ranging in age from 2 years to 5 years; all girls. We live in a modest house in a modest neighborhood. My wife is a hospice nurse. I am a nurse practitioner, board certified in family health. I specialize in primary care, allergy related asthma and the treatment of obesity. This blog will serve as a sounding board for a task that was described by another physician as a vitally important task that can take an ordinary healthcare provider and make them an extra-ordinary healthcare provider. That is writing, or rather the catharsis of writing. As a nurse practitioner, it is all too easy to become entangled in the web of ordinariness. I mean, look at what I do on a daliy basis. I get to the office each morning, my receptionist hands me my schedule for the day. Coughs, colds, abdominal pain, headaches, chest pain, diarrhea, sore throat, diabetes and hypertension follow-ups, a few yearly physicals, lyme disease, routine lab follow-ups, etc. In between each office visit there seems to be a never ending line of pharmaceutical representatives all trying to jockey their drugs into my bag of tricks. There are phone calls from patients. " Mr. Y called and he says he has been having chest pain" or Mr. Z called, and said he has had abdominal pain and fevers for the last 48 hours. South four vassar hospital is on the line, they have their fourth consult for you, a patient in respiratory failure, severe asthma exacerbation. I have flu shots to give, B-12 injections to give. Pulmonary function tests to perform. EKG's to perform. I contend with our billing department daily to make sure all is well with our accounts receivables AKA managed care, office staff have complaints about patients, patients have complaints about office staff. It is almost interchangable with a day in any's life. Why do I feel compelled to wear my heart out on my bandwidth? (used to be heart on a sleeve) To be quite honest, I'm not sure. Not sure where this will exactly lead, but like my mother has been telling me to do for years, you have to pick up the pen and start somehere.