was Ping Heidi

"Frog Prince" wrote in message

>
> I sincerely trust that you will and soon.  As for myself I fought the
> inevitable until my sons took me to dinner and laid it hard on the line.
> Basically I had three choices and none of them involved going back to
> work.

Is this after you had your heart problems?

>
> I can 'work' now but only on projects that do not involved a time line, a
> dead line or stress.  Whatever I'm doing has to allow for weeks of no
> input
> on my part.
>
I definitely will need to ease my way back into the stress part of working.
Helping take care of my g/f's child is actually being quite helpful in
re-teaching me how to deal with stress, aggravation, and uncooperative
"co-workers", if you will ;-) She's at the weird age where she is
almost
smart enough to reason with you, and is starting to understand the concepts
of things and events that she can't actually feel or see  (instead of just
living in the here and now). And she finally has learned to trust me, that
was a big accomplishment. On the other hand, sometimes she still reverts
back to being a two-year old when she doesn't get her way, but I've seen
tremendous improvements in the 6 months I've known her. And my g/f says she
really appreciates her daughter having a good male role model (her
biological father still behaves like a frat boy).

> Funny but the one that I though would be most stressful (hospice) has been
> the most rewarding and the easiest.
>
>
I know people who do that kind of volunteer work and find it highly
rewarding. I'm not cut out for it, it would wreck me emotionally......but it
might be good "therapy" for me, to help me get over my fears of
hospitals
and the pain, suffering, and loss of others.....or it could do the opposite
and just reinforce my problems! I've been thinking of volunteering at the
county animal shelter as a way of slowly returning to the real world, but
the damn place is almost an hour drive from my house, and I think the stress
of seeing animals put down would not be beneficial for me.

"Indigo" <nobody@spamcop.net> wrote in message
news:fslv8t$6qn$3@news.spamcop.net...
| "Frog Prince" wrote in message
|
| >
| > I sincerely trust that you will and soon.  As for myself I fought the
| > inevitable until my sons took me to dinner and laid it hard on the line.
| > Basically I had three choices and none of them involved going back to
| > work.
|
| Is this after you had your heart problems?


Yes but the heart problems were only the icing on the cake.  Details are
available back channel for any who are curious or care.


| > I can 'work' now but only on projects that do not involved a time line,
a dead line or stress.  Whatever I'm doing has to allow for weeks of no
| > input on my part.
| >
| I definitely will need to ease my way back into the stress part of
working.
| Helping take care of my g/f's child is actually being quite helpful in
| re-teaching me how to deal with stress, aggravation, and uncooperative
| "co-workers", if you will ;-) She's at the weird age where she is
almost
| smart enough to reason with you, and is starting to understand the
concepts
| of things and events that she can't actually feel or see  (instead of just
| living in the here and now). And she finally has learned to trust me, that
| was a big accomplishment. On the other hand, sometimes she still reverts
| back to being a two-year old when she doesn't get her way, but I've seen
| tremendous improvements in the 6 months I've known her. And my g/f says
she really appreciates her daughter having a good male role model (her
| biological father still behaves like a frat boy).
|
| > Funny but the one that I though would be most stressful (hospice) has
been the most rewarding and the easiest.
| >
| >
| I know people who do that kind of volunteer work and find it highly
| rewarding. I'm not cut out for it, it would wreck me emotionally......but
it might be good "therapy" for me, to help me get over my fears of
hospitals
| and the pain, suffering, and loss of others.....or it could do the
opposite
| and just reinforce my problems! I've been thinking of volunteering at the
| county animal shelter as a way of slowly returning to the real world, but
| the damn place is almost an hour drive from my house, and I think the
stress of seeing animals put down would not be beneficial for me.

Not all are able to deal with the up front interaction with patients.  Part 
of the problem is you become friends and that friendship comes to a natural 
end in 6 to 18 months.

Hospice training is a great program.  Many Hospice organization will allow 
(some encourage) people with no intent of volunteering to take their 
classes.  The up side for Hospice is there are more who know their program 
and thus able to address the miss conceptions.

I gained greatly from the friendships I've made (and lost) because Hospice 
has taught me how to deal with loss.  Being disabled IS a loss that makes 
some bitter and a bitter man is a lonely man.

"Frog Prince" <me@privacy.net> wrote in message 
news:fsmqfu$ffn$1@news.spamcop.net...
>
.
>
> I gained greatly from the friendships I've made (and lost) because Hospice
> has taught me how to deal with loss.

I've always had a hard time dealing with losses, but I've gotten help with 
that issue that has helped me greatly. Not sure I'm up to doing it on a 
regular basis yet though! I'll tell you what would be the perfect volunteer 
job for me -- taking animals to hospices etc. for a few hours at a time for 
visits. I've seen studies on it and it seems to benefit everyone involved. 
As long as I didn't get that cat that visits patients the day they will die! 
Have you seen that on Animal Planet TV? It's very real in one group home, 
they have a live-in cat that relatively unsocial and stays away from the 
patients until something like 4-6 hours before they die, when he jumps up in 
bed to comfort them for a bit before they go. Very, very weird.....

Being disabled IS a loss that makes
> some bitter and a bitter man is a lonely man.
>
>
I _was_ very, very bitter.....gotten help from many fronts on mentally 
dealing with my physical problems and over time I've pretty much returned to 
"normal", to the point where I can actually be positive about life
more 
often than not. That's a huge change to make, especially for me, since my 
work requires me to look at both the positives and negatives that can happen 
from any action one takes on the project you're working on. Of course the 
negatives can have severe consequences, so I paid a lot of attention to 
them. Good for making me an effective engineer, not so good when thinking 
about one's health, where a positive attitude is absolutely necessary to 
heal. 

"Indigo" <nobody@spamcop.net> wrote in message 
news:fsoomh$3dm$1@news.spamcop.net...

| > I gained greatly from the friendships I've made (and lost) because 
Hospice
| > has taught me how to deal with loss.
|
| I've always had a hard time dealing with losses, but I've gotten help with
| that issue that has helped me greatly. Not sure I'm up to doing it on a
| regular basis yet though! I'll tell you what would be the perfect 
volunteer
| job for me -- taking animals to hospices etc. for a few hours at a time 
for
| visits. I've seen studies on it and it seems to benefit everyone involved.
| As long as I didn't get that cat that visits patients the day they will 
die!
| Have you seen that on Animal Planet TV? It's very real in one group home,
| they have a live-in cat that relatively unsocial and stays away from the
| patients until something like 4-6 hours before they die, when he jumps up 
in
| bed to comfort them for a bit before they go. Very, very weird.....

Like I said: not all are cut out for one on one relationships with those 
that are at the end of their lives.  However all can benefit from the 
training as it teaches one how to deal with the issues of loss.

I became friends with a gentleman who was an explosive expert. (Ex navy)  He 
was lead on the design of the explosive separations systems on the early 
NASA man space systems.

We were fortunate in that he lived, quite comfortably, long pass the time he 
was given and enjoyed many a liar's coffee.  Actually he drank wine and beer 
I drank coffee ... we both lied like rugs and enjoyed the experience.

One that I practically enjoyed was his story about calibrating and 
quantifying the effects of explosions and engine power. Seems NASA had an 
expensive system to collect the data.  He figured out how to get more 
accurate data from the destruction of full cans of beer for much much much 
less cost.  (Strange but the test did not produced useful data using soda 
cans).


| > Being disabled IS a loss that makes
| > some bitter and a bitter man is a lonely man.
| >
| >
| I _was_ very, very bitter.....gotten help from many fronts on mentally
| dealing with my physical problems and over time I've pretty much returned 
to
| "normal", to the point where I can actually be positive about life
more
| often than not. That's a huge change to make, especially for me, since my
| work requires me to look at both the positives and negatives that can 
happen
| from any action one takes on the project you're working on. Of course the
| negatives can have severe consequences, so I paid a lot of attention to
| them. Good for making me an effective engineer, not so good when thinking
| about one's health, where a positive attitude is absolutely necessary to
| heal.

To paraphrase: Lord: Help me recognize those things I can change and those 
that I cannot and give me the wisdom to tell the difference and the skills 
deal with both.

You mentioned you g/f's little girl.  I've been in blind pain and pulled out 
of it by the playful antics of small children.