Half-way

Again, I struggle with the notion that I should be as positive as possible here in Blogville. Sometimes, though, it's tough.

Last week was awful. And that's putting it positively! I made myself physically sick again with stress from work. I worked too many hours and whittled away too many nights on work; by the time Thursday night/Friday morning rolled in, it was just too much for my merely human body.

[Ugh.]

I went into work later on Friday morning, giving myself an extra hour of sleep, all the while wondering what I was doing to my body with the insanity.

It forces one to ask, "Is this really worth it?" To be honest, I'm still discerning whether it IS worth it.

I have to start celebrating my wins along the way. After I terminated that manager a week ago Friday, I made an SOS call to an external contact, asking him to take over immediate management of the department. I assembled two teams to prepare for the next site surveys from the state of Illinois. I had explosive HR issues to deal with in my largest physician practices. And the Epic go-live was rocky and I think my staff were *this* close to jumping out a ground-floor window!

Heck, I was ready to LEAD them out of that window. What bummed me out the most was that I could not spend any meaningful time with my managers. I couldn't be present to them and actually wrote a short apology to them for that. I hate when I can't be the director I set out to be each morning.

So things progressed and I survived it. However, the interim management of that one area is coming up with SO many improvement opportunities and he wants to use the urgency of the transition as a grenade to blow it all up. And I'm in so far over my head with the federal grant requirements that I'm not sure how we'll justify our $400k in funds. And the Epic go-live usually ushers in a valley of despair while staff, providers, and patients get used to everything.

All I can do is tell my staff that I understand their stress and that we're in this together. I can't do much for them when I'm doing my darndest just to survive, too!

But on the upshot, I had a new position approved for a physician practice manager, allowing me to delegate some of the compliance and regulatory items. The interim department management (that I contracted out) is strong and that program WAS compliant with state and federal regs. My life is shifting more from micro-management of people to the management of managers (to help THEM get their crap done).

And I feel confident for my big corporate presentation on Tuesday. I can't wait to rock that in the room full of the highest-level system execs.

Most importantly? I finished my four ethics papers detailing my Ethics certification and am now able to apply that coursework towards my Master's in Theology. My degree is officially half-way complete and I COULDN'T be happier that the "ethics papers" monkey is off my back!

Maybe I'm half-way through the other stress, too. It is unacceptable that work EVER make someone physically ill....so I'm spending the rest of today playing!!