Pioneer Days

I walked into our office this morning and saw nothing but darkness. The electricity had gone off at some point in the night and had still not been turned back on. All of our phones and our computers (our charts) were down....we could not access anything!!

Some of the front office girls used their cell phones to call in to the phone service to retrieve the messages left by patients and to return their calls. We lit candles everywhere and tried to light the restroom (no windows). We then went searching for our old paper charts and presription pads. I couldn't remember how to handwrite an Rx!!

Four of our ten exam rooms have windows, so when patients did come in (and they all wanted to still be seen) we would put them in those rooms, as well as my office, and do what we could in the dark. We even got flashlights involved!!

I was surprised at how many people came in and were totally okay with the fact that we did not have power and we were not able to do everything they wanted us to do. I think what suprised me the most was the fact that most people do not know what medications they take. When we were asking what their meds were so we could write them on our paper chart to transfer later, most of them would say "I don't know. What do you have me on?" That was a difficult question to answer since we could not access any of their information. When people came in and said they had an appointment, we just took their word for it!!

Luckily, we only had to do this until 10:45, when the power came on. It did make for an interesting morning, and lunch was full of updating charts for the people we had seen in the morning.

One lady commented that it was like being on "Little House on the Prairie" They were brave people!!