Back from Typing Purgatory

Remember that list? Of all the stuff that had to be done NOW!

I got the last bit of it done this afternoon, which, of course, frees me up for everything that has to be done next. While I feel that all I've done is stay late at work, only to come home and occupy a chair until all hours (few bedtimes before 2:30 AM in the past 3 weeks), I've actually done quite a bit.

• Provided training on disaster preparedness to several hundred student nurses.
• Provided training on disease reporting and outbreak response to two other groups of student nurses.
• Provided intensive training to new members of our local epi teams.
• Worked with small team to put on three day infectious disease/epidemiology conference -- I gave three presentations and facilitated another session, plus assured continuing education credits for nurses who attended. The application for continuing education credit (151 pages!) was nearly the size of the participant notebook!
• Revised and adapted curriculum for more disaster preparedness training for more nurses.
• Completed a major revision of the school and childcare exclusion policies (as in "if your child has this condition, please don't send him to school")
• Spent scads of time coordinating development of the school closure plan for pandemic flu.
• Answered calls and worked outbreaks...This week I'm filling in as the Peanut Butter Queen -- and yes, we're still finding more cases...

Most of what I do is to assure that other people are prepared to respond to outbreaks, disasters, emergencies, etc. All of it is important -- all of it is, we hope, academic.

Had I more time to think, I'd ponder that this is what good catechesis should do, in addition to teaching us the basics of our faith. We need to know how to respond to the things that come our way that are out of the expected
--The unexpected illness or death of someone we love.
--Set-backs in what we think should be our health / financial / family / mental, / entitled status.
--Occasional disappointments and disillusion that comes as we really get to know people (no one can be as good as his press packet)--and then working to develop mature relationships.

There's probably more incomplete theology rattling around my brain -- we'll see what gets freed from the blog jam of the past few weeks.