19 minutes

So I keep having this recurring back pain that just drives me into insanity (well, even MORE into insanity). Last week, figuring the pain was sciatica, I went to Occupational Medicine (one of my departments) for a quick check up. They thought I was coming to visit (as I often do), but then when I went to sign in as a patient, they flipped that switch and were suddenly all business (was rather funny and very endearing to me).

The very, very, very cool part was that I immediately got in to see a doc. He didn't make me get into one of the scary, back-less hospital gowns, but examined me in my pantsuit. My pressing on a few key points, he figured out that my pain is not sciatica (deep sigh of relief), but is actually a fist-sized knot that has wound itself into a fury where my spinal muscles meet my hip flexor. Seriously? It's, like, knots gone wild. Or better, Knots Landing.

I asked him for a prescription for a 3 hour massage. He was actually going to give me one before I quickly interjected that I was kidding. He was not. But he sent me on my way with three prescriptions (prednisone, pain killer, and muscle relaxer.......dude). I went and had them filled at our outpatient pharmacy. There was no one waiting, so our pharmacist filled them right then.

In a total of 19 minutes, I saw a doctor, got a diagnosis, filled my scripts, and made it back to my office. In today's medical world, that's a MIRACLE.

But my back pain is back. I wonder if my insurance will cover a hot tub and/or live-in massage therapist?

What an Ass!

So I was hungrily munching on a bag of animal crackers the other day in my office and noticed I was about to eat a jackass.

Seriously.



Did *you* know they made donkey animal crackers? I didn't and it cracked me up!

Since I was at work and have been enjoying an ever-growing friendship with Nurse Jackie, I taped one of the donkey crackers to her office door.

She laughed and laughed and propped up our jackass friend by her computer.

Then today, she was agitated about a doctor situation and under her breath muttered, "He needs a jackass cracker."

We're thinking of making the jackass cracker into a lapel pin...whoever makes the first jackass comment gets to wear the pin!

I'm also debating buying another bag of the crackers so I can pick out all the jackasses and prop them up around the office. Yes, that is what they pay me for!

Pierogi Power

I'm resurrecting my resolution to keep the Sabbath holy and not work too much. I discovered last weekend, that if I actually avoid working on Sunday's, I (gasp) actually feel reasonably rested and refreshed for the week come Sunday night. So instead of working, I am choosing to honor the Sabbath by celebrating my Polish heritage and telling you about our flour-filled adventure last night.

[no, this is not the same as mud wrestling!]

Jack had it in his mind that he was going to make homemade pierogi (pronounced "pa-dug-eee"). Having been a part of pierogi-making several times, as my aunts converged to make a pierogi assembly line in my grandma's kitchen, I understand the stress and common mishaps that occur when one undertakes a difficult culinary challenge.

Pierogi are not easy to make. In fact, I have been conditioned to fear their mere existence by my aunts who only attempt the feat every few years. For it takes that long to get the flour out of the fine wood grain cracks in my aunt's floor!

Anyway, after honoring our time-honored tradition of attending church on Saturday night, we hit one of the gourmet grocery stores by our new house. We discovered a Fair Oaks Farms Butterkase cheese and a bottle of Vouvray (a French wine that is quickly becoming my most favorite). I was happy, while Jack messed up the pierogi, I could sit at the island and nibble on wine and cheese. Then I'd throw in the frozen pizza we keep stashed in the fridge, after he cleaned up his foiled attempt at pierogi!

So he started with Step 1: making your own cheese for the stuffing. He boiled a gallon of whole milk and then added juice freshly-squeezed from lemons. It curdled right up:



Strain with a cheesecloth, add some finely-chopped onion, salt and pepper, and VOILA! Pierogi stuffing. As we watched the cheese curdle, I kept thinking of the line from Monty Python and the Holy Grail: "Blessed are the Cheesemakers!"

Step 2 was to roll out the dough. Jack grunted and sweated his way through this rolling pin exercise to create properly-sized rounds of dough. The dough is the most difficult part; too soft and they fall apart, too hard and they come out like dumplings. I watched Jack attempt to multitask. At this point, memories of my Polish youth motivated me to leap off my barstool and start stuffing the dough. They weren't pretty, but you don't want them bursting open during the boiling process:



They then only need a few minutes in the boil. They emerge looking like this:



Ugly! I'll admit it, they're ugly!

Then it was time to fry 'em up. This process comes with an automatic referral to a Cardiologist, but that's why we only make these every few years. I fried them to a golden brown and we each hesitantly grabbed a few on a plate. Jack also made an antipasto plate with fresh Italian salami and the Butterkase. Add some Vouvray and some jazz, and, well, you get a mixing pot of cultures. :)

I bit into the first pierogi, uncertain of what to expect. My gastronomical bar is pretty high with pierogi and the whole cheese-making thing made me wonder if I was setting myself up for food poisoning.

It. Was. AMAZING. We matched the taste I remembered from my grandma's kitchen all those years ago. I gobbled up my Polish delicacy, hurriedly texting my aunts that we accomplished the impossible! Jack and I high-fived, celebrating our Polish lunacy!



So guess what's for dinner tonight? Leftovers! Round Two!

Whiplash

Hola!

I'm not entirely too sure where the last two weeks went (and thank you to those of you who wrote to check on me...much appreciated!). It's been a whirlwind and I've felt like one of those wind-up toy soldiers who walk quickly forward, change direction on a whim, and (to the outside observer) look like a chaotic mess of non-organization.

While I was so tired last night that I felt nauseous, I've been handling it pretty well.

Last weekend, Jack went to SB to see the family and attend one of our old parish's fun fundraising events. The guys go every. Single. Year. Sometimes the ladies go, sometimes they don't; I took the weekend as an opportunity to take care of myself and hammer out some work. I spent all of Saturday in my library, crafting my vaccine ethics paper proposal, figuring out the ROI on a physician group we recently bought, and picking through ALL my employees' files with eyes of a Nazi surveyor. Since our accreditation survey is going to happen any time now, I wanted to be ready. Then on Saturday night, I kicked back with a glass of Chardonnay and enjoyed a declining blood pressure while watching "Serendipity." Jack then texts me that he won $1000.

As per my skeptic nature, I refused to believe him. Then I had all my family members texting me separately, that he, indeed, won $1000. So the one time I stay back, he hits it big. Unexcitedly, the money is all going in the bank to pay our taxes (have lots of children...since we don't have kids, Uncle Sam taxes the pants off of us). I did, however, receive a huge bouquet of flowers and a box of Cadbury Eggs from his winnings.

So this week paraded past with my now-routine wishes that things would SLOW DOWN already. Monday and Tuesday were back-to-back (to back) and on Wednesday, I attended one of the Corporate meetings I've been asked to join. It's the Quality Council and while "executive" in nature, I was a bit let down at the lack of substance. However, it's always nice to chat with people on breaks and lunches and that's some of the best networking available.

But there I was again, in SB and wondering what the heck happened to myself. [I'm getting a bit reflective here, so bear with me.] Each time I return to SB, I feel this odd ache, like I have unfinished business of some sort. It doesn't help that I keep having dreams about my old house. In one dream, we still "owned" the house, but the new people were moving in and changing things and I wasn't happy about it. In another dream, the house was physically deteriorating rapidly because I wasn't there to give it my TLC and it just couldn't survive in an other's hands. Either it's my own inflated sense of worth or I still just can't let it go.

SB was my home for the vast majority of my life. I drive through the streets and feel like an adult returning to visit a middle school I attended...everything seems smaller, closer together, and, well, unchanged. You cue the nostalgia and reflect back on how far you've come. I know, I act like I've been gone for 20 years!

But it's the same when I return to SB, even if it's just for a few hours for a Corporate meeting. There is some intangible rubberband that yanks me back from the boardrooms and meetings and makes me miss the days when I'd visit my mom on my lunch hour, go swimming after work, and visit with the neighbors because everyone was always outside.

It gives me whiplash. But in a good way. It reminds me that I have roots that need to be respected and cherished. They form my foundation.

[Okay, dramatic, nostalgic stuff over with now.]

So that's what's *really* going on. Aren't you glad you asked? ;)

Suite Sweets

Jack and I went to our very first Bulls game in a ritzy center-court suite last night. Actually, it was our first Bulls game. Heck, it was our first NBA game, period.

I just happened to receive tickets to this game from a friend at work. I was kidding around with this co-worker a few weeks ago and mentioned how we've been getting into basketball a little bit (and how that was dramatic because we're usually football people). Next thing I know, he forwarded me an email inviting Jack and I to the game. Holy bulls fan, Batman!

So we entered the building through Executive Suite entrance 2 1/2 (was like Harry Potter's Platform 9 3/4). We took an elevator up to the floor, then were escorted to the suite. This was our view:



It's a little disconcerting. I mean, if we go to another game, we have to sit in regular seats? I'm totally kidding. The whole car ride home from the game, we kept exclaiming how lucky and blessed we are as we talked about the fun we had. Trust me, I don't take any of this for granted!

I think the coolest part of the night was the Suite Sweets that came around. Not only was the suite sweet, but the sweets were sweet! It was a good thing it wasn't Lent:



I had a Reese's peanut butter cookie with ice cream melted on top while Jack had S'mores cake. S'mores pie? S'mores SOMETHING!

And with that, my life stories are all up to date. Nothing new is due to happen until December or so! Namely because I have an ethics paper due (this time on active versus passive euthanasia) and Jack's writing a paper for English class. Our duties call.

There's also the small technicality that I learned about today. I met with EVOO today, ask he put a meeting on my calendar entitled "Updates to Org Chart."

That can only mean one thing...something poised as an opportunity will probably mean more work (thanks to my St. Piggy's friend, Joe, for making me realize that)! And he was right, I received three more departments to lead today. I don't know what it means from a job description/HR standpoint, but I inherited another 65 or so employees.

[Sigh. Where's that bottle of wine I hid from myself? Time to break it out.]

These types of things are typically compliments...but I am going to face-plant into a mountain of work. These departments are pigstys and haven't been properly managed or maintained for probably years. So I definitely have my work cut out for me. Especially when I asked my Occupational Medicine department manager for a list of delinquent employees...and all of them fell within my new departments. I guess it makes sense; the departments that are performing well and functionally don't typically need help.

[if I don't surface for air for a few weeks, please come rescue me. Okay? :)]

"Come Back, Fabio!"

We attended the First Look for Charity again this year. The First Look is a charity event where people get all dolled up in black tie attire, sip champagne, and wander amidst the newest cars out there in the Chicago Auto Show. When the Auto Show opens to the public, the velvet ropes are in full effect. But for the First Look, they allow Chicago's socialites to sit in cars and dream. Sometimes, people actually buy the cars, so all the people the car companies employ to continually remove fingerprints are worth the investment.

I always look for the Mustangs first.

They’re so pretty.



The funniest part happened last year, when Jack and I were wondering around the Lexus display and I saw a guy with long, flowing blond hair. I shook my head and thought to myself, "Who's that douchebag trying to look like Fabio?"

Then, Nurse Jackie comes into my office the next day and holding up a picture on her blackberry, says, "Look, it's me and Fabio!"

Dang!

So picture Nurse Jackie and I running after Fabio when we both saw him outside our hospital's hospitality suite! We nabbed him and it's in the history books...Dorrie, Nurse Jackie, and Fabio. Since Jack is in Marketing, I fully expect this shot to make the hospital's website! :)

The Auto Show itself is fun, as the car companies try to "up" each other with their swag. You end up with a bag full of Toyota hats, Scion lip balm, and Lexus keychains. The weirdest swag we received was an inflatable guitar from Hyundai. This could be funny come pool-time in the summer!

[Insert air guitar sounds here!]

Despite the high price tag of the event, it is a worthwhile cause and a great night out in your fancy pants.

Haunted House

So we moved into our beautiful home in December, during the coldest and snowiest winters that any of us have experienced in years. Despite our home's short life of four years, we've found several design flaws. One, the windows, while double-paned, are COLD. They're leaky. I think it will be better next winter if we recaulk things, but I am not ashamed to break out the clear plastic wrap that you shrink with a hairdryer! (WT alert!)

The other weirdness we experience is the sounds of our ghost moving about in the attic. Again, at four years old, it's odd to have a ghost, right? I hear the ghost (who remains unnamed...for now!) occasionally, and it always happens when I'm home alone. It sounds like he's up there, banging two blocks of wood together.

So imagine my surprise when Jack and I were leaving the house the other night to join friends for a completely fat-free Italian dinner. I looked up at the garage and spied a huge water spot on the ceiling. FABULOUS. A leaky roof? REALLY? Did the ghost bang around too much and damage shingles? I was UPSET.

Jack promised to investigate upon our return. So as soon as we returned from dinner (which, by the way, was a fabulous Italian feast), Jack jumped on the ladder and started scooting around the attic to investigate the leaks (ever seen a guy in slacks and fancy shoes scoot around an attic? It's funny). After several moments of nail-biting nervousness, he pelted me with a snowball. A snowball? From the attic?

It turns out that last week's blizzard was SO SEVERE that snow blew in our roof vents and accumulated in piles in the attic! It was above freezing that day, so the snow piles obviously started melting. Jack shoveled out the attic and pitched piles of snow down. That could have done some serious damage, had all that snow melted!

However, I still wrote a heated letter to the builder about my issues!

It's a good thing I'm not bitter. :)

Guitars and Tiki Bars

I hear the wind howling outside, I'm wrapped up in a blanket, and my feet are cold. Yep, must be back in the Midwest!

Last weekend, Jack and I escaped to Florida for four days and relished our time in the 70-degrees-and-foggy beach town we love on Anna Maria Island. It was creepy foggy half the time, but that didn’t stop us from walking around in flip-flops, visiting our favorite haunts, and eating everything in sight. It's one of those places where the songs "Guitars and Tiki Bars" and "Mother Ocean" immediately start playing on 'repeat' in your head.



See? Creepy fog!

A few highlights from the trip:

*We were not able to access our condo before check-in (as we had the first 6 times we visited), so we lunched at Starfish (a hole in the wall that serves the best seafood in the world) and then drove around the island to waste time. The steady drumming of the rain lulled us into comas. We pulled over in the grocery store parking lot to decide our next course of action…and both accidentally fell asleep in the car. Yes, napped in the Publix parking lot! Now, please tell me that’s not newsworthy!

* Visiting our usual “Green Bay Packer Bar” for the Superbowl. We always visit this bar for its great beer, coconut shrimp, and live music and wondered what it would be like to see a GB game there. Lucky for us, GB won the ticket to the Superbowl and the Packer Bar did not disappoint. The owners passed around yellow and green jello shots every time GB scored.



*Watching a huge storm roll in off the Gulf, while eating shrimp broiled in beer (sounds gross, was completely yummy). We dined at The Sandbar, which offers sweeping, panoramic views of the Gulf. Plus, you dine with your feet in the sand.

*Eating homemade mahi mahi that Jack whipped up in our condo kitchen. Feeling bold, he dumped a couple of shots of rum into a healthy (I mean, heart-clogging) scoop of butter and created “Butter Rum Mahi Mahi.” One of our best meals to date, it will surely be re-created. Like, this weekend.

*Going *back* to Starfish, this time for blackened grouper. We took our “to go” boxes back to our condo and ate our lunch in the heavenly atmosphere of our deck overlooking the bay. That fish was like eating a baby angel.

*Sitting by the pool, relaxing by catching up on work reading and flipping aimlessly through people's Facebook updates on my phone (hey, sometimes that is relaxing!). I saw my former neighbor's update that they were on the Island! I couldn't believe the coincidence; when you escape to a quieter island and learn that one of your neighbors was a mere 2 miles away!

*On our very last day, the fog cleared and temperature soared to 76 degrees. Naturally, Jack had to physically drag me from the beach and back into the rental car for our return trip back to the airport.



The trip was wonderful and I love that we can slip away for a few days to our favorite beach escape. While the weather wasn’t ideal, I still emerged rested, relaxed, and two pounds heavier from all the great eats!

Don't Worry...

...I'll come home with a bunch of sand in my carry-on bag and you can laugh at me then.

Blizzard of Teamwork

"The sun is shining, the weather is sweet. Makes you want to move...your dancin' feet." -Bob Marley

Now that I've slept for 13 hours, I have my sense of humor back!

I did end up camping out at the hospital Tuesday night, throughout the blizzard. I worked a full ten hours with my "normal" job, then jumped into Incident Command. We had been doing regular conference calls throughout the day, to begin preparing for the storm. Yet, when it started getting bad outside around 2 p.m., few folks could actually believe the storm that was forecasted since Saturday, had materialized.

I was asked to be the Liaison and Safety Officer for the event. That basically means I was responsible for all the communication and organization of the event (I geek out about that stuff). As a hospital management team, we've been having Incident Command drills for the past few years...but this was the real thing.

So I figured out who was going to stay, from all of hospital management. Some people quickly disappeared and we never heard from them again. Some gave cheesy excuses. Some had to stay home because their spouses were snowplow operators or police or had kids at home. We ended up with about 25 individuals, across both of our campuses, who truly stepped up and kept the hospitals running through the storm. The storm really separated the wheat from the chaff and I know who all the go-to team players are now. (Well, you mostly knew who they were, but now you REALLY know!).

I do admit, I was jealous and a bit bitter at my colleagues who didn't even bother to check in. I knew they were at home, in front of their fireplaces, drinking hot cocoa. But in a time like this, you have to put all of that aside. Jack buoyed my spirits and I tried to pass along that enthusiasm. Whether we like it or not, it's our time to shine.

Our team, composed of about 14 people, was stationed at one campus (the central command post) with another group of 11 at the other campus across town. The night started quietly enough, with everyone in high spirits. We watched The Weather Channel in our command post (in one of our conference rooms...I will never view that conference room the same way ever again!) and teleconferenced with the other campus every two hours to discuss staffing, safety, electricity, and other resources. The command structure worked beautifully.

Then I was asked by the Incident Commander, to take over the helm of things throughout the night hours. So it was me and the Director of Security who ran the command post from 11 p.m. through 4 a.m. The most exciting things that happened were that the other campus lost partial power and their roof started leaking. The other, more scary thing happening was that we could not get staff in. So we were running very short on ER and ICU nurses; those in house were given beds, food, and clean scrubs and we worked them to the bone. We had people for 36 hours and while it wasn't ideal by any means, everyone came together when we needed them the most.

At the 4:00 a.m. conference call between campuses, someone said, "Man, this feels like Groundhog's Day, the movie." We all looked at each other and laughed because it WAS Groundhog's Day. And that darn rat probably did see his shadow. Oh wait, we don't even know that the Chicago groundhog predicted because they canceled the event at Brookfield Zoo!

Anyway, I finally went to my office to sleep at about 4:30 a.m. and slept until 8. It was the best sleep I ever got. I'll never view my office the same, either!

Rousing myself, I then joined one of our doctors who stayed in-house, to round on the units. People were in surprisingly good spirits and Doc really rallied the troops. We snapped pictures of every group of people, from the hospital operators to the weary EMS workers to the cafeteria workers who kept us all fed to the bleary-eyed nurses leaving to catch a few hours' sleep in an unused unit. It was touching.

By late morning on Wednesday, the storm was winding down. More and more staff were able to come in and relieve the exhausted crews on every unit and department. We had a few 4x4's that hospital Security officers were using to go pick up ICU and ER nurses from home. While the crazy part of the storm was over, patients were starting to flood the ER's because they could now get to the hospital.

Seeing that things were under control, I send out a couple last communication blasts, reassigned some beds for staff, and packed up to go home. I offered to stay another night, but our Command structure worked so well that things were quickly returning to normalcy. A few folks wanted to stay, so I left. Some wonderful saint dug my car out for me so I could zip right out of there.

Luckily, the drive home wasn't too harrowing. There were few cars on the road and I drove in the middle of two lanes. Arriving home, Jack took my bags, handed me my pj's and robe, and sent me off to a long, hot shower. After my shower, I quickly checked my blackberry one last time and saw that the Command post was closing and all officers were headed home. I was so happy. We made it!

And that is how a team is born. All day, people have been emailing each other, thanking them for the great work in keeping the hospitals functioning.

Me? I've been at home, on the couch, enjoying hot cocoa! Back to the grind tomorrow!