Twelve Codes of Christmas: On the Third Day of the Coder's Christmas (F31.9)

Do you live next door to Clark Griswold? 

I love Christmas lights.  And I love Christmas decorations in general.  I do decorate my house to the extent where you can find something Christmasy in every room of the house.  Yes, every room.  I have a birthday around Christmas, so that combined with my love of holiday decor has led to my mom nicknaming me her Christmas kid.

But there comes a time when enough is enough.  Less is more. 

Last year I had a new neighbor and when they started hanging Christmas lights outside, I got a little excited.  I love it when all the neighbors get into the action and brighten up the neighborhood!  But there was a point when it reached Clark Griswold proportions and it just become too much.

So on the third day of the coder's Christmas, today'd carol choice is for all those with Clark Griswold tendencies:

• "Deck the Halls and Walls and House and Lawn and Streets and Stores and Office and Town and Cars and Buses and Trucks and Trees and Fire Hydrants and..." (F31.9, Bipolar disorder, unspecified)

Please note that this code includes bipolar disorder with a current manic episode, which would explain the incessant need to decorate it all.  And I suppose I could be accused of some of this, even though I've significantly reduced my decorating footprint over the last couple of years.  Nonetheless, you are sure to find a reindeer or snowflake in at least one of my bathrooms!

Twelve Codes of Christmas: On the Second Day of the Coder's Christmas... (F20.9)

I am still not 100% after almost 3 weeks of a really bad upper respiratory infection.  But last night I did hit an improvement milestone.  I was able to sing my favorite Christmas carols at top volume in the car on my way to dinner.  Yes, I am a car concert giver.  A legend in my own mind.

I have lots of favorites, but one last night was worth a repeat performance:  Do you Hear What I Hear by Vanessa Williams.  It's my favorite version of the song but I don't like the shortened version they play on the radio - the long version from the CD I've had for years is really the only way to listen to the song.

So this leads us to our carol and code for the second day of Christmas:

• Do You Hear What I Hear, the Voices, the Voices (F20.9, Schizophrenia, unspecified)

The mental disorders chapter of ICD-10-CM has undergone a lot of changes from its ICD-9-CM counterpart.  Schizophrenia is part of the psychoses section in ICD-9-CM, but ICD-10-CM eliminated the neurosis vs. psychosis terminology and moved to terminology more in line with DSM-IV.  The code above it now listed in the Schizophrenia, schizotypal, delusional, and other non-mood psychotic disorders section in ICD-10-CM.

Wait... do you hear it what I hear?  Thankfully it's not voices.  Bells!  An angel must have just gotten its wings.  Either that or one of the cats is scratching its ears and jingling the bells on its collar.

Twelve Codes of Christmas: On the First Day of the Coder's Christmas... (R41.3)

I remember the Christmas of 2006 vividly.  I can tell you which small town in the Eastern time zone I was in and the name of the hospital where I did my training the week before Christmas.  I can tell you how I suggested to the client weeks before that training a week before Christmas was probably not a good idea.  I can tell you how the people I was training plugged in a Christmas tree behind me and snacked on holiday pot luck fair while I was presenting.  And most of all, I can tell you that I was training ICD-9-CM, Chapter 5 on Mental Disorders.

Stellar memory you say?  That's absolutely amazing you say?  I certainly can't remember that many details about my other trainings.  It's what happened after that which makes the trip memorable.  Or maybe I should say during.  Christmas was on a Monday that year and on the Wednesday before - you know, when I was training - it started snowing in my home town of Denver.  A lot.  The airport was closed by Wednesday evening and it wasn't looking good for my flight home on Thursday. 

Sure enough, I was up bright and early Thursday morning and all flights in and out of Denver were canceled.  A massive blizzard had dumped nearly 2 feet of white stuff all over the city.  Once my Central-time zone based travel agent made it into the office, she was able to tell me I could fly home on the 26th.  Holiday travel combined with catch-up from Wednesday put me low on the priority list. 

To try to shorten this story up a bit, after crying to my travel agent and placing a very early morning and tearful call to my brother in Phoenix, I had a very expensive nonstop flight booked that would get me into Phoenix at midnight.  My wonderfully accommodating brother picked me up at the airport and his hospitality-driven wife had the guest room and Friday manis and pedis all set up. On Saturday, the three of us set out for Denver along with a small U-Haul trailer and two large dogs: one with a urinary tract infection (many potty stops) and the other with amazingly terrible gas.  Good times.

Oh right.  The point.

Recently, I was perusing the internet and came across a list of Christmas Carols for the Psychologically Challenged and remembered that fateful trip.  In order to infuse a little Christmas spirit into that mental health training, I had written these Christmas carols in the margins of my trainer's manual and we all had a good giggle any time one came up.

So in honor of that memorable Christmas - I've decided to do a special subseries on the code for the day.  Here is the first of my Twelve Codes of Christmas series:

• I Don't Remember if I'll Be Home for Christmas (R41.3, Other amnesia)

Tune in tomorrow for another installment!