Confronting Old Medical Records

It's 4:24 PM Eastern on Wednesday as I begin to write. I got out for a walk this morning, but it's been a challenging mental health day and I haven't gotten much else done. I did, however, manage to make a small but important bit of progress with my old medical records. I've got all the records in a single file crate on my desk that I feel motivated to tackle next Wednesday. It's likely to be a full-day undertaking, so I won't aim to get anything else major done as a Healthcare Patient in Week 34 (though I do have a dental appointment on Monday morning and psychotherapy on Friday morning). I plan to recycle what I can recycle, scan whatever I absolutely need to keep, and put all the rest in a box to bring to Staples for shredding. For the most part these are records related to my psychiatric hospitalizations (now half a decade behind me). I am a different person after five years of medication compliance, psychotherapy, and religious formation, so it will be hard emotional work to review these files, but on the whole I expect it to be a very positive process, as it will remind me of how far I have come and how much I have to be grateful for, thanks to God and my wonderful formal and informal healthcare team.

Video in this post: Paper Clutter - How to Organize Medical Records.