No Queen for Me

I feel like pumping my first in the air and singing "We Are the Champions!"

But I'm too tired!

I survived what I think was the absolute hardest day in my professional career. I've had some rough days where I am a crazy nut for 16 straight hours or get into high-speed chases while navigating the one-way streets in downtown Chicago, or hang out with Fabio, but today was one of those perfect storms where everything just fell on one day.

And I'm getting sick.

I started the day by waking up with a crazy sore throat, one of those where you feel like you're swallowing razor blades and you dread the next time you have to swallow even a sip of water. After an early Quality Improvement meeting, I started my speaking portion of the day with an hour-long presentation on CUSP (Comprehensive Unit-Based Safety Program) to the region's senior leadership. It's...stressful. You want to present yourself as cool and eloquent and remain calm when they pepper you with random questions to test how well you understand whatever project you're proposing. Anyway, they approved it and we now have their commitment to start this cultural change.

Then I dashed to my office, picking up two stale cookies on the way, and teleconferenced into two meetings. Then I lead a two-hour Patient Flow discussion, where I presented the nursing managers (about 30 of them) with throughput myths that we "busted." I used the "Mythbusters" idea in my presentation and had fun with it...but then Nurse Jackie and the Directors poked sticks at the nurse managers so they could air their concerns and start working through things. Then there's me, trying to moderate the dialogue between 30 somewhat-shrill nurse managers as they aired their problems while also trying to capture the thoughts on newsprint.

Luckily, one of my managers was in the meeting and floated me a few throat lozenges (two brownie points for her on her next eval!!)

After winding up that meeting at the very last minute, I dashed across town to give a two-hour "summit" to front-line staff. We have this program where we bring all hospital staff together for two hours and share our hospital's patient satisfaction scores, quality scores, and other tidbits on how to give our patients that "wow" moment that makes them want to return to St. Fozzie's.

It went well, despite the fact that I didn't write the 92 slide Powerpoint (so not kidding. I pretty much skipped slides 78-91). But by the end, I was a worn-out, adrenaline-saturated sickie. I had nothing left. After packing up all the presentation items from our break-out sessions and group activities, I finally headed for my office at 6:10. I stopped by my late-night buddy's office (her name is Zynx) and after taking one look at me, she wordlessly reached into her desk drawer and produced a huge bag of M&M's. Now that's my idea of a good friend! Zynx and I are always the last ones in the office and it actually became a bonding thing for us. And I really do call her "Zynx" in real life, too. :)

We vented at each other while we threw back handfuls of the candy, savoring the last sweets until Easter (apparently, most people at work give up sweets for Lent and today was a weird Mardi Gras of sugary goodness in every department. No beads, though. We tend to frown on that sort of thing!).

Refueled by the M&M's, I was fit to make the commute home. True to form, Jack greeted me at the door with my PJ's and a book I bought that just arrived in the mail.

I don't really know what was so entirely exhausting about today...I like public speaking and don't generally get nervous when I do it. But today, with the tight time lines and self-created pressure of having to have everything organized perfectly, it wore me down.

However, these are the sort of days where, if you survive and flourish, you know you can make it through just about anything.