Compassion Fatigue Solutions

I did not expect the new year to start with quite the bang it did in our house. The minute the kids went back to school, things quickly got busy on many fronts: at home, my children announced that they had long term projects that required nightly help from me (one involved building a diorama of the North American prairie bison’s habitat, to give you an idea…), my hubby decided that it was time to get organized and started clearing out and decluttering not one, but four areas of our house at the same time (“they are all interconnected, you see” he explained to me). The process was a little hairy: we were assembling storage cabinets at 9pm after having taken kids to hockey or soccer, helped them with homework (aka plasticine bison), cooked a (usually) nutritious meal and cleaned the dishes. Whew. My partner is a night owl and he starts hitting his stride at around 9:30pm, just as I am winding down…way down. For last two weeks, he has been bouncing out of his office just around that time, holding a piece of paper triumphantly in his hands: “I’ve got it! The perfect design for [fill in the blank] room.” He is wonderfully creative and I am delighted with the results, but the process made my head spin a bit. I had to bite my tongue and take an allen key and smile and get to work.

Being a morning person, I did take my revenge in the mornings, standing at the foot of the bed at 730am, asking him a million questions in a very perky voice, fully dressed and showered, having a) done an hour of work b) gone for a run c) taken the ikea boxes to the recycling depo and d) done the groceries. Even though we have been together for nearly 20 years, this diurnal/nocturnal mismatch in our relationship always catches me by surprise: “You want to discuss what? But it’s past 9pm, I have no opinion whatsoever about that. None. I am basically asleep. Yes, I know, I am walking around, but I’m not actually here, not at all.” My poor hubby.

Things started out rather quickly on the work front too. Right before going on vacation, I was offered a very interesting contract with a very tight timeline, and this is what I have been working on for most of the month so far. The contract involves carrying out a full organizational health assessment of a unit in a hospital. I have had the opportunity to interview many staff members, speaking to nurses, physicians and allied health professionals to find out what is challenging and rewarding about their work in the unit. Given that I am normally doing large group presentations, I don’t often get the chance to sit down to talk one on one with helpers and it was wonderful to have a chance to do this.

My training schedule is pretty full in the coming months. This week I will be offering three days of compassion fatigue training in Markham. This training is organized by Safeguards and will be offered again in London, Ontario in March 2010. These workshops are open to any helping professional wishing to register. Next week I will be in Ottawa and Cornwall, working with victim services and with corrections Canada.

And for those of you who are wondering (hi mom) how I am looking after myself with such a busy schedule, I am making sure to eat really healthy foods, run regularly, go to bed early, take naps, read books unrelated to work, watch movies, spend time with kids (laughing mostly) and go out for dinner with friends.

Soon, this busy first month of the year will end, and I will have a very organized home and enough leftover plasticine to make a full herd of bisons!