Subdued by the Flu from Hades

Well, I had my first sick day in years. My first NON-surgical sick day, that is. I was at work last fall (in the old job) when I came down with appendicitis on a Thursday. I worked Thursday afternoon and Friday morning. I finally called the doctor about my excruciating pain and she told me I better go to the ER immediately. So I did the logical thing and finished up my work for the week before driving myself to the ER.

I had my appendix out about 2 hours later. I remember calling Therese, asking her to close my curtains and take care of the dog because I was in the hospital, about to have surgery. She was fabulous and didn't bat an eye about helping out a friend in need. It was also midterm week in school and I had two massive midterms the following Monday (Stats) and Wednesday (Law). I stayed home from work a few days, giving myself time to study. And yes, I took those exams!

I had another sicky experience during midterms during spring semester of 2008. I came down with a terrible flu bug at 7:48 on a Sunday evening. My midterms that semester were Tuesday and Wednesday nights. The Tuesday night midterm was for US Healthcare Policy and the professor was a nazi from Hell (and that's being nice). I floated through work those couple of days, holding the flu symptoms at bay with massive amounts of medication. Then I finally went to take the three hour exam and my fever flared up badly. I distinctly remember putting the exam paper up to my face; the coolness of the paper felt fabulous next to face, on fire from the raging fever! One of my friends in class always laughs at this story. That's how I truly know I'm sick...when I want to put papers on my face to cool the fever.

Fast forward to Tuesday afternoon. I had several key presentations on Tuesday, one regarding Corporate Ethics, one to lay out my strategic plan and obtain buy-in from senior leadership, one to lead the stroke designation planning efforts, and one to explain my house-wide savings tracking and how I've documented $4.6M savings for St. Fozzie's.

It was in that last meeting, the stroke designation committee, when I fought the temptation to lay my face on a stack of paper to cool my hot face. Prepared for the occasion, I ran back to my office and took a large gulp of DayQuil, right from the bottle. I survived that last meeting and at 5pm, drug myself back to my office. Facing stacks of files, reports, and charts to review, I succumbed and laid my head down on my desk. I swear I had a quick dream and was startled awake by my secretary dashing in to give me a few messages. She laughed and told me I needed a cab home. I purposefully left all that work at the office, so I wouldn't be tempted to work last night.

I woke up this morning at 5am, unable to even get out of bed. The body aches made me feel like I was in a car wreck, the shaking chills were downright terrible, and my throat felt like I swallowed a batch of razorblades. I was supposed to be on the road today, visiting physician offices for physician partnership and recruitment. Blech. My personal philosophy is that if I can get out of bed, I go to work. Well today, I couldn't get out of bed. Literally.

So I texted Elvis and EVOO. Elvis wrote back within a few minutes and this was his response (verbatim): "If u r sick u should take care of urself. Hope u feel better 2." This is the regional CEO talking in "teen-ese." I cracked up at his shorthand response, then broke out into a wracking coughing fit. Thank goodness for kleenex, Vick's, apple juice, and Theraflu!

I'd Rather be at the Beach

I need another weekend. Last weekend was just too full to get any relaxation accomplished! Yes, because I think of relaxation as one more thing to accomplish!

Anyway, after a long, LONG week, Jack and I decided to go to a movie. I was really hankering for a tropical themed evening, so we went to "Couples' Retreat." I'm not a Vince Vaughn fan, but the movie was hysterical. It offered a few poignant thoughts on marriage on a gorgeous backdrop of a 5 star resort in Fiji. Anyone who knows me well knows I will give everything except my soul over for a trip to Fiji. Or Bahamas. Or anywhere with that crystal clear, azure water that when you're boating, looks a bit like Windex!

On Saturday night, Jack and I went out with our friends Kim and Lula. We gorged on amazing Italian food (including tirimisu) and then Lula and I went out for coffee. It was great to hear the stories of another professional woman, how she manages herself in the corporate world. We sipped our steamers and helped build each other up for our respective challenges. I had such a great time and wish I could see my girlfriends more often! In fact, can we all just hit the beach?

Different Strokes

Well, I think I have H1N1. Or some variation of some terrible farm animal flu. I worked a "half day" today, stopping at 4pm to run to the grocery store. I ran in for a thermometer, kleenex, and that gross throat spray that actually helps one swallow a couple times without grimacing. I walked out of the store with 4 kinds of juice and nothing I went in for. Oh well, who needs a thermometer to tell me how high the fever is?

I know the sickies are making me feel terrible, but I'm still feeling pretty overwhelmed. At last week's Ethics meetings, I spoke with a couple consultants who encouraged me to publish a couple other Ethics papers I wrote in school. I feel like I *should* work on them (and all the managerial literature I'm supposed to be reading) but it's taking so many hours to finish my "regular" work. In lieu of yesterday's computer crash, I saved my big flowchart and presentation on my flash drive...then left my flash drive in my office. GEE, that worked!

My first meeting as director of the stroke certification team went well today. The docs are letting me lead them and they're actually adhering to the deadlines I've been setting. YOU try contacting the Interventional Neurologist from Northwestern to review and make suggestions on our Ischemic stroke protocol!

On a positive note, I'm learning so much about strokes. The docs patiently answer my clinical questions about inherent risks in tPA administration and co-morbidities with anti coagulation medications. After my strategic planning presentation and presentation of St. Fozzie's financial model, we're meeting with all the neurologists and ER docs from metro Chicago who volunteered to be on our team. I'm excited, but I really hope my voice holds out. If only I would have remembered the throat spray from the store!

R.I.P. Old Laptop

As I sit here, sipping my hot chocolate and trying to ignore my raging sore throat, I'm typing on a brand new laptop. It's pretty. It weighs almost nothing. It's fast. It's...white and chrome.

Is it weird when your computer sort of matches your refrigerator?

Oh well!

I've known my laptop was limping along, wavering between life and death. Jack has had to recover data a couple times now and we knew it was just a matter of time before it went to the repair shop in the sky (even though I just bought that laptop in early 2007). Regardless, we had no idea it would die while I was working on two huge projects for work. We had no idea it would die while I was walking to the other room to back up my work and email the files to everyone. I'm chalking it up to the fact that I was working on a Sunday and I should have been keeping the Sabbath holy!

When Jack couldn't resuscitate it, he ripped the harddrive out of the old laptop, and we jumped in the car to Best Buy. The Geek Squad wanted $100 to transfer data and Jack thought he could figure it out. So I bought the refrigerator laptop and Jack headed to his office to attempt the impossible. He called an hour later, voice full of glee, that he was able to save everything!

So my presentations, reports, and flowcharts were safe. Not to mention my seven vacations' worth of pictures and 2.5 years' worth of music files! Yes, yes, I know. I should have been backing up my files. I DO back up my work, but my external drive just notified me the other day that it was FULL. So even though I usually back up my work, it still bit me in the rear today!

The only crappy thing is that my immune system formally cried, "Uncle!" and I'm sick. My throat's on fire and I'm feeling feverish, but at least I have homemade chicken soup that I brought back to Chicagoland with me. I'm fighting a pretty sizable homesickness tonight, as Jack and I winterized our house this weekend. We put all the patio furniture away, recaulked and weatherstripped a few things, and I got all the autumn decorations out. So just as I got the house feeling all homey and cozy, I packed up and left. I keep reminding myself that I'm doing this to achieve my dreams. But it never gets any easier.

My Brain's Nauseous

I reached a new point of exhaustion today. It’s called the “barf phase.” I was so weary and drained that I actually felt like throwing up.

I participated in so many meetings today, that after 12 hours, my head was full. My head regularly feels full, whereas if I turn my head too far sideways, my brain matter will leak out my ear. Today, my head was so full that I literally didn’t know what to do with myself. You know how you feel when you eat way too much cookie dough or fudge and you just want to die? That’s how I felt on a mental level. I had eaten way too much intellectual dough and wanted to die. Well, not DIE (that’s a bit dramatic), but I definitely felt like I over-indulged in brain fodder today. In fact, to counteract the effects of the brain binge, I almost feel like blowing an entire day by playing Dr. Mario on Wii with The Edge.

Anyway, today was Mission Integration and Ethics. As I stated before, the spiritual nature of today’s meeting caught me off guard. The morning consisted of centering reflections and time to decompress. The afternoon, however, spiraled me UP a vortex of corporate management. It started with a discussion about healthcare reform and how Muppet Corporate was going to respond to the healthcare reform bill that will be released from the Senate next week. A few folks started talking about how we needed to respond RIGHT NOW and the easiest way was to create webpages both in the Intranet and the Internet. One of my former co-workers (a Sister), said “Dorrie knows website design!”

So I found myself on an instantaneous task force with two regional CEO’s and two long-term Sisters. I realized my advantage in being technologically-savvy; as we discussed, I pulled right-to-life websites down on my Blackberry for additional discussion. In the span of one hour, we charged the corporate marketing people with the direction. That’s all they wanted me for…to think it through, explore the options, and conceptualize a plan. Not to actually do the work. How refreshing--and another element to my executive training.

After that, I joined the Ethics committee meetings and ended up leading a portion of the disaster-preparedness discussion. There are a lot of ethical questions surrounding H1N1, especially if we run out of ventilators. How will we decide who gets them? Will there be an age cut-off? Co-morbidities? Yeah, the list goes on and on. After mentally and verbally sparring with a room full of doctors and Sisters, I was bushed. I guzzled a regular Coke in the hope I could capture some energy!

Because (drum roll, please), I had to teleconference back into St. Fozzie’s and pitch my strategic plan to the people in strategy and marketing. I explained my logic, my reasoning, and the structure to the plan. It was silent for a full 10 seconds before someone finally started picking at word semantics. I couldn’t believe it, how no one picked at the structure of the plan. That was what I was worried about! To me, words were just place-holders! I did decide to work with our corporate strategist on Monday before I present everything to Senior Leadership on Tuesday. There’s another way I can structure it…but I’m still presenting MY ideas first and the corporate strategist’s SECOND.

So after 12 or so hours of this, I had overdosed on intellectual fodder. I need some Pepto Bismol or Tums for the brain. Do they make such a thing? Is that where wine and chocolate* come in?

*Because of the terrible gloominess outside, I baked a tiny batch of chocolate chip cookies. I didn’t overdose on actual cookie dough, though.

Just Keep Surviving

Hey everyone, I'm stopping in to say a quick hi. I *just* closed up shop on my work for the evening, having updated my whole-house savings initiatives for the hospital. Earlier, I designed a massive flowchart illustrating the strategy for St. Fozzie's. It's insane; I attended that strategy retreat last week and put together a flowchart from what I interpreted the conversation to agree upon. My EVOO boss asked for a copy, conferred with Elvis, and they accepted my draft of the Strategic plan for the hospital. I can't believe it. They like me. They really like me!

Even though I'm at Muppet Corporate this week, I'm still on the spot. Tomorrow, I have to step out of my Ethics meeting to teleconference in and explain my logic to the St. Fozzie's strategic analysts. Then I found out that I'm pitching my ideas to the rest of senior leadership and corporate strategy folks on Tuesday morning. Knowing my tendency to overachieve, I already started brainstorming my powerpoint presentation and I'm taking Jack up on his offer to help me design full-color booklets for my presentation. I have to admit, I'm having a blast trying to wrap my head around the strategic planning process.

However, this massive presentation will occur *right* before my first official stroke designation committee meeting as the director. I'm still wading through stroke protocol from various other hospitals and the US government. Instead of reading Dan Brown's new book this weekend, I guess I'm still going to be reading stroke regs. Y'know, after I adequately stress out from the strategic presentation.

The upshot to this is that my next two days I'm in Mission Integration and Ethics meetings. There's a lot of praying and reflecting and the meetings begin tomorrow and end Friday with Mass. Tuesday's leadership conference also included Mass. I had no idea I'd hit Mass three of four workdays this week. Cheers to working for a Catholic healthcare system.

SO much has happened this week. I'll fill you in this weekend. I vow to relax a little this weekend...vacation is still four weeks away and it's about time to stop and smell the suntan lotion!

Organizing a Conversational Cloud

Part of my executive training involves watching, learning, and then executing my own brand of organizational thinking. I think I've practiced a fair bit of these thinking skills in grad school, but it's completely different to outline a textbook. In the boardroom, I find that everyone likes their voice to be heard. Everyone has an opinion. It's very much like an large Italian family's dinner, where people are yelling over each other and unless you cut someone off, you won't get to talk.

I also notice that, in the boardroom, folks are often more interested in what they're going to say next, then what you have to say. People wait for others to finish, just so they can say their piece. It's a verbal vomit of epic, technicolor proportions.

On Thursday, St. Fozzie's conducted an all-day strategy meeting. Even though we had a distinct agenda for the day, the morning session was more reminiscent of a large Italian family's dinner. Nothing was accomplished and all we did was talk around 28 topics, in no particular order or structure. It was awful, unproductive, and exhausting.

During the lunch break, I asked Elvis if there was any structure to the morning. He shrugged and admitted he couldn't follow it, either. Well, that's good! If the CEO's also lost, then I can cut myself some slack. :) However, I still had to document the morning, as it was my responsibility to create an action plan out of the verbal vomit, which meant I had to adhere the material to some sort of structure.

The afternoon session was much better, as the EVOO boss stepped up and enforced the agenda. That part was easy to organize, but I still struggled with how to best capture the morning's conversation and formulate it into steps. Later, I hunched over my desk and made some sense out of everything. This is one area in which I still need practice...how do I harness these verbose and assertive personalities? How do I keep people on track, to best address the items in the agenda? And how do I get through these long meetings without requiring vast amounts of sugar? I actually excused myself at break to visit the hospital's gift shop and pick up a bag of candy corn!

Please Pass the Advil

First, I feel compelled to confess the fact that Jack and I bailed on the Fighting Irish yesterday. We had perfectly good tickets in section 134 (above the student section), given to me (for free) from one of my buddies in St. Fozzie's marketing department. I verbally accepted the tickets last week and they didn't materialize until Friday afternoon, a scant 24 hours before game time. Since I decided I was too busy to drive home to SB for the weekend, I tried to find an owner for the tickets. Since it was so late in the day, I couldn't even Fedex them overnight. So they sat, unused, in my briefcase.

It turned out okay, though. Jack and I both worked in the morning and accomplished a lot for our respective jobs. We went to a sports bar to watch the game and ended up meeting two of the nicest Michigan fan we've ever encountered. They rooted for the Irish and we shared stories from our individual undergrad experiences. The four of us cheered the Irish onto an overtime victory, despite our collective angst at ND for creating nail-biter games every single week!

That was the fun part of the day. My masochism got the better of me earlier in the day. Because I have that ritzy gym membership that I feel guilty for not utilizing, I decided to try a few of the exercise classes. I took the Spinning class a few times and felt ready for a new challenge. So yesterday morning, I joined the BODYCOMBAT class. One, I should have known it would be tough, since the word "combat" is part of the title. Two, I should have known that a class with its title in CAPS would prove reminiscent of an Army training drill. I walked into the exercise studio and asked around if anyone had attended this class before. The woman to my right answered, "Yeah, and I thought I was going to have a heart attack!" Great! I love heart attack-inducing work outs!

It started off benignly enough, with aeroboxing moves I've known for years. I was having fun, I already knew these moves! Take that, pent-up stress!

Then the choreographing started, with intricate foot movements and corresponding punch sequences. After a few tries, I caught on. Take that, Jillian Michaels!

Then another instructor stepped up on stage. To the beat of mesmerizing dance club beats, she taught us martial arts moves focused on balance. My core hasn't been worked like that in a while and after swaying unsteadily a couple times, I caught on. Take that, Karate Kid!

The martial arts moves quickly turned to street-fighting moves, where we were encouraged to "bash in the skull with your elbows!" and "Keep him down on the sidewalk and keep beating him!" The music swelled to a frantic pace as I obliged and beat the crap out of my imaginary attacker! Take that, imaginary rapist!

As I was bashing skulls and beating some attacker senseless, I felt my vertebrae cracking. I felt my left deltoid stretch a little too far. I felt my left calf muscle buckle after 45 minutes on my tip-toes. Gratefully, the pace of the class slowed down and we resumed the regular aeroboxing moves again. We eventually stopped the boxing and spread out on the floor to stretch our poor, exhausted muscles. I held "the plank" a little too long and felt my abs strain painfully.

I hobbled out of the studio and headed home for a well-earned, long, hot shower. I emerged feeling pretty great. I can DO this BODYCOMBAT class and LIVE to TELL about it. Who-hoo!

Then I sat down and worked and watched 7 hours of football. I realized it was NOT a good sign that I was already sore from my workout and it was still the same day! Every hour increased the pain exponentially, and I found myself repeatedly reaching for the Advil. The gym offers this class on Tu/Thur/Sat...so I only have 48 hours to recover before the next session!

IOC Decision

Well, I'm a bit saddened to hear that Chicago will not be hosting the 2016 Olympics. While Rio is certainly trendy and diverse, I will not endure a another 14-hour plane ride (did that in 1999 on my South American Immersion trip) to attend the Opening Ceremonies. I *would* have sacrificed all to attend the Opening Ceremonies if Chicago hosted the games!

Oh well, in the words of Cubs and Notre Dame Football fans everywhere, "Maybe next time!"

And yes, I'm lightly blogging on my lunch hour. My "lunch hour" is defined as the length of time it takes to microwave processed soup products and inhale them without choking. :)

15 Seconds of Fame

I starred in a commercial today! I was shocked that Marketing asked me to say a few lines in a commercial advertising St. Fozzie's. It only took me three takes; the first two were cut because some of my obnoxious co-workers kept trying to make me laugh (what are we, first graders?!).

It was a hoot...I got a slight bit of make-up (covering up ye ol' dark circles) and they used lighting to de-emphasize my angular disparity (my big schnoz). I almost asked for a fan so my hair could blow sexily as I channeled joyous thoughts to let my inner light shine....And that was when I realized I've been watching too much America's Next Top Model!

It was a great experience. The commercial was shot for the St. Fozzie's gala coming up in October. If they end up posting it on Youtube, I'll post the link.