Coping With The Angry

This week I did much of the same stuff at hospice that I have been doing all along. I made phone calls and filed papers. On Tuesday though, I went their Coping With the Holidays event thingy. It was for people who had had someone pass away, obviously. There were speakers and they lit candles to symbolize remembrance. There was music too, and cookies and coffee. I just stood by the door at the beginning to greet people, give them a program, and show them the table to put their picture if they brought one. It was something different for me to do, so that was good. It was better than being on the phone all day. Today I was making more phone calls and this woman I talked to was so angry and rude. It kind of shocked me because usually people either don't want to talk, want to talk forever about how their doing, or just want to say how greatful they are to the people at hospice. This woman, however, did none of those things. I told her who I was and why I was calling (to see how she was doing) and she was very abrupt with me. I was obliged to tell her about the information we were going to be mailing her about support services in her area since she lives outside of Stanislaus County, so I did. Then she asked me (very rudely) why we would send her anything, because her aunt died. So I repeated myself. She preceded to tell me how unhappy she was with hospice and why would she want support services when she didn't like any of the services she received when her aunt was alive? She told me not to send her anything and hung up on me. So, that was fun. I have absolutely no idea what that was about. I don't think she realizes that the people who make these kind of calls are usually just volunteers and have nothing to do with patient care. Oh well. I told my supervisor and she's going to make a follow-up call to see exactly what the problem is. I hope I don't have to talk to that kind of person again. At least I was still polite to her, although I was so surprised I couldn't even think of being offended until after the fact and how mad can I be at a person who just had a family member die a month ago?

Progress

Yesterday I had my progress meeting for my internship class. We all sat around in a circle and talked about what we were doing and how everything was going. It made me realize that I really need to start writing my journal. At least blogging about this helps me remember what the heck I've been doing every day. Also, listening to what other people are doing for their internships makes me wish I was doing something different. It isn't bad, but I wish it was something that would be useful to me as more than a requirement to get into grad school. I do not plan on ever working at a hospice in the future but I guess any experience is good, right? I went to my internship again today. I made about 35 phone calls (1 year calls). Plus, anyone that I did not call for various reasons, such as a request to only receive mailings or not living in the area, I had to chart why they were not receiving a phone call at this time. That took a few hours. Nearly everyone that I got a hold of didn't really have much to say so it didn't take as long as it could have. One woman seemed to still be having a really hard time. That was the hardest phone call I've had so far. The people I call only know that I'm calling on behalf of hospice. They don't know that I have neither training nor experience and have no idea what I'm doing. She actually asked for my advice. I'm not sure that what I said helped any but I told her she could call hospice if she needed to and she's already in a support group as well as receiving individual counciling. I think she'll be okay. Then, after I made all my calls, I got lunch and when I came back I arranged files for the children in the support groups. I had to go through a list of their names and label a file folder for them. Then, I got all the information and papers we had for each child and put them into the folders. That didn't take nearly as long as the phone calls. That was pretty much it for today.