Patterns

I’ve been musing them recently.  It struck me, while I reviewed a patient’s chart, that I could know much about him  just by reviewing his lab results.  I knew he was diabetic, had renal failure, drank too much, took warfarin, and had mild congestive heart failure. I could read his story by perusing the pattern of his lab results.

Tuesday night, while working the night shift, I walked down the back stairway toward the ER on first floor to see a patient. I wrote on my tablet as I walked, not realizing how many flights I had descended. I suddenly realized that there was a strange feeling  on the bottom of my feet as I walked. At the forth “odd” step, I stopped and looked down.  There was a 4″ raised tread at the front of each step. I looked up, looking at the floor number on the door to the unit I had just passed, and realized I had started down the steps to the basement—one floor further than it was my routine to go. Those basement steps had the raised tread–all the upper floors did not. My feet immediately recognized the oddity in the routine pattern.

Today is my day off. Though I need to rise at 5:30 am on work days, there is no such need on my days off. So, I rose at…..5:30 am. It is my routine pattern, just as it is DH’s to sleep till 9:30.

Akamai the puppy has a new pattern. He wakes, goes out to do his duty, then sets himself down next to DH’s golf club and pail of balls. The dog has learned that if he lays there, gazing back at the house toward him, DH will come and shag balls…..that Akamai can then run and chase (and play keep away from DH and chew them to shreds…..).

Oh, I know. There’s nothing earthshaking or even interesting in this note…..just thinking out loud.

Back to my pattern of wasting time playing the damned game all day…..the one where I have to recognize repeated patterns….