Viva Las Gala

I had SO much fun on my recent Vegas trip with my girlfriend, Mary.

With all the stress of late, it was the impromptu getaway I needed to keep my energy up for another leadership conference and then a Medical Executive Committee conference next week. However, I’m not sure how the celebs jetset all over the world and never have one hair out of place. The jetlag between Chi and Vegas kicked my rear and I looked like the crypt keeper the day after we arrived!

That is, in part, because of our black tie gala the night before our departure. I spent the morning primping and Jack was downtown at Navy Pier, helping set up for the big event. He came home to pick me up, we grabbed our tux and gown, and we rode downtown to check into our hotel. The “pre-party” was fun in the hotel bar with everyone (even the CFO) in our finest duds. We then taxied to Navy Pier for one of the largest balls the Grand Ballroom has ever seen. There were SO many people there! We talked to what felt like a hundred or more people, bid on silent auctions, hobnobbed, and danced.



Like a wedding that goes too quickly and you're left wondering where the night went, it was all over. We joined a small group at the Redhead for the “after party.” That was the first time I had been out until 2 a.m. in…well…YEARS.

SO we scraped ourselves out of bed Sunday morning and had breakfast with friends. Soon after, I departed for the airport to catch my Vegas flight. I was still so sick and my sinuses threatened to explode on the plane. Thank goodness Mary had stashed Tylenol Sinus in her purse!

We landed and checked into Paris, our temporary home.



Not having been out in, like, a whole 15 hours, we got gussied up for a girls’ night. We chose Ichiban for sushi and it was phenomenal. When the place is full of Japanese folks, you know you're in for an excellent time.

After walking a part of the Strip, we retired to the slots...Where I promptly lost $60 in about 10 minutes. Mary, on the other hand, was up about $50. Then she was able to play for another three hours on $20. Now that’s entertainment!

Sick of the slots, I went back out to the strip and watched several Bellagio shows. I love those fountains! It’s so powerfully emotional to watch them, especially with the slight breezes blowing your hair, whisking you away to another land where stress just doesn’t exist. I made three separate trips to the fountains because, well, I could. And while I like to gamble (when I'm winning), I wasn't into the slots quite as much as Mary was. Vegas is pretty safe; as long as you avoid the drunks, prostitutes, and pick-pockets, you're fine. Y'know?



The next morning, Mary went off to her conference and I went to the Bellagio buffet. Where else can you have sushi, shrimp, and beef tenderloin for breakfast? And yes, I went alone. Several people came up to me and asked in a pathetic tone, “are you here all alone?” Yes, I was there alone and greatly relished my time to wander! Now back off, buck-o!

After breakfast, I walked down to New York New York, my fave gambling casino. I played slots for almost three hours and was actually up about $120 before I lost it all again. Dangit! To dampen my losses, I treated myself to a pre-noon frozen hurricane at Coyote Ugly. Slightly buzzed, I joined the line for the NYNY roller coaster.

Yes, I’m one of those nuts who rides the roller coaster. It was fantastic! At $14/ride, it's a great deal for 3 minutes worth of thrills on the Strip! Except I don’t have photo evidence because they won’t let you take anything on the coaster with you (and they make you lock it away in lockers). So you’ll have to take my word!



I then wandered back to the pool for some work-related reading. It was just stunning out there:



That night, we got all gussied up again and went to dinner at La Cave, in Wynn. “Wynn” should be called “Wow.” Dinner consisted of five tapas: avocado rotini, sushi Panini, prosciutto-wrapped, stuffed chicken, roasted salmon, and filet mignon pizza. Yes, filet mignon pizza!



After dinner, we walked over to the La Reve theatre for our show. Dreamy and surreal, I know shows are good when they make me involuntarily hold my breath:



True to our nature, we returned to the gambling floor for a few more slots. Actually, Mary did and after I lost another $20 in 5 minutes, I just watched her. I was still pretty pissed at Vegas for taking my money so quickly. At least Vegas could *tease* me a little!

The next morning, Mary again went off to her conference and I went for a run along the Strip. Talk about good scenery! Between all the over-the-road walkways and extra staircases, I had a great workout. I then went back to the pool for more 85-and-sunny time. After all, I’m already vitamin D deficient and Chi is not known for its sunny winters!

When Mary returned that afternoon, we hit Margaritaville and in addition to the best cheeseburgers and ‘ritas we ever had, we were treated to a strip show. At Jimmy Buffet’s house. When did they start that crap?



Not quite done eating, we then went to Serendipity 3 for ice cream (that we were then too full to eat!). Deciding we needed to try NYNY again, we walked the length of the Strip and Mary promptly lost about $100 there. I held out, still pretty mad at Vegas. We did, however, catch a saxophone concert in front of the resort...very New York!

We weren’t quite done with Vegas and decided to check out Napoleon’s, a dueling piano bar in Paris. It was fabulous! The whole place was jiving and had a much better vibe than even Redhead in Chi. I love live music and had such a good time. We left only because Mary’s eyes were drooping and I could tell she was about to sleep sitting up at the bar.

The next morning, we only had a few hours during which we could play before our flight home. After a quick breakfast, I decided I had forgiven Vegas for taking my money so hastily. Except I blew the cash I had with me at breakfast. Mary loaned me a $20 (feeding my frenzy) and after taking two pulls on the machine, I won a jackpot. That’s more like it! Quickly cashing out to pay her back, I then played with my own money until it was time to leave. And it was entertaining, the way those pesky, mobster-run machines SHOULD reward you. We’re all like Pavlov's dog, right?

All in all, I left Vegas about $15 down. THAT I can handle.

Three days in Sin City was a perfect amount of time. It gives you enough time to try new culinary wonders, walk it all off while perusing the Strip, and forgive Vegas for taking your money away when they suddenly pay you back for your pain.

Luck Be a Lady

We didn't *go* to Vegas, we *did* Vegas!



Details to come, when I finally get a chance to go home and unpack! I didn't take these videos, but they pretty much sum up my weekend!

And now it's time to say goodbye (for now!):

I Nose Food

Last week, the leadership team of St. Fozzie's was invited to a bowling event. Under black light with strobes and disco balls glistening in the neon glow of an acid trip from the 1970's, the leaders bonded. I arrived late (finishing up some work on a Friday afternoon) and missed the laser tag!

While it sounds corny, these events do help our spirit of teamwork. Nothing's funnier than being in a serious meeting when the Director of Security stoically discusses a safety drill on how to handle an armed intruder and you cannot stop picturing him land on his rear after he crossed the lane line at the bowling event!



Succumbing to my annual fall flu, I spent the week fighting through meetings and other hospital business in a Dayquil-induced haze. My assistant, in her wonderful and kind nurturing spirit, brought me herbal tea and an amaretto-soaked canoli from her bakery. I'm not sure if it was the chamomile or the amaretto, but Thursday was markedly better after that!



While ill and unable to take to my bed for a week, I had one of those flashes of genius that I plan to patent...I'm inventing nose tampons. On Wednesday, my nose dripped TWICE in meetings, once on the agenda and once on the table. How incredibly disgusting is that?! Plus, driving to work that same day, I had to literally jam a partial kleenex up my nose so I could keep two hands on the wheel. At the drugstore, I had to keep a kleenex up TO my nose. The inspiration hit me...commuters (and students and moms and all other professions) could benefit from nose tampons. They discreetly stop the flow of nasal secretions so you can go through life with your cold/flu bug and no one is the wiser. Here's my prototype:



I should have known I would get sick...I have been way overdue and with the hospital's gala tonight, my morning flight to Vegas, and a heady conference at the end of next week, I did *not* need to be in tip-top shape. Heck, a Rudoplh nose will look GREAT with my black ballgown. Ugh.

I probably did it to myself. I know I've been traveling too much (via car) when my middle console looks like this:



It hasn't all been bad! My folks visited us last weekend and after some girl time (shopping with Mom) and boy time (watching college football with Dad), we hit the Polish buffet. What, you DON'T have a Polish buffet in your town? You are missing out. Except that after eating one whole plate of food, I was full for about two days. The best part is always dessert and my Polish faves rocked my world (Chrusciki and rum balls. By the way, "Chrusciki" is pronounced "Crew-schteek-ee" so you can impress your friends at parties).



In one last food-related pic, I would like to introduce another culinary concoction from Jack's inner frat boy...You've heard of chili-cheese fries? WE made Manwich fries...except it wasn't ground beef, it was ground turkey. So we're calling these Girlwich Fries (especially with the broccoli chaser!):



So besides eating and being sick, work was work this past week. I had a couple of surprise employee terminations, a very political interview with a nurse practitioner, and a corporate meeting during which I somehow received the opportunity to give a presentation to the senior-most execs in the system. I love that stuff and despite the need for a nose tampon (!), it went well!

I just can't figure out what to call the nose tampons...any ideas?

It Happened

It finally happened. I realized, that to save my back, shoulders, and neck, I have to invest in a rolling briefcase. This decreases my "cool quotient" by about tenfold.

Boo.

Twist My Arm...

...All the way to Sin City.

Last Friday night, we dined with friends from work at Coopershawk (yes, again). These friends are wonderful, with witty humor, hilarious stories, and share a Christian faith that rivals the friars. Good times seem to follow them. I laughed so hard my face hurt. Those types of evenings replenish even the emptiest tanks. My tanks were empty from teaching a class on Friday, doing leader rounding on patients (where you get to go "check on them" and see how things really are. I always ask the patients, "So how are we treating you?"), and process mapping our hellacious physician recruitment process (that took six execs and two Lean experts a total of three hours to master), I seriously wanted to bail on dinner and just go home to my pj's and frozen pizza. My friend (I'll call her Mary) wouldn't let me bail. She flat-out refused and told me that if I bailed, she'd just show up at my house with a bag of food and bottle of wine, so I might as well just go. Friends who threaten you like that are awesome and I think I need more of them!

Anyway, I'm glad I went. We invited the men this time and our monthly "directors' meeting" turned into a four-hour dinner with awesome friends.

More importantly, Mary is traveling to Vegas in a couple weeks for a conference and she told me she has an empty room in her suite in the Paris hotel. She wants company, I have a ton of PTO, and she told me I need to sit by the pool and catch up on my reading while she's at the conference. Then I can join her for networking and the vendor fair if I want to. Seriously? The best of both worlds and it's next to free? Dude. Count me in. Why not?

When people ask me how I am, I have a hard time not responding, "blessed."

'Cuz that's what I am.

Voices in my Head!

So I spoke to a group of almost 170 residents and fellows the other night, regarding a program realignment. The residency and fellowship programs will now be managed by the hospital; the former dean of the medical school is now my peer. This is great, as my new peer is a take-no-prisoner kind of guy who gets things done.

Anyway, I'm working with the Director of Clinical Integration to create process improvement groups to attack each of the CMS indicators and Value-Based Purchasing metrics. This is a huge program that CMS put into place to ensure that patients, particularly patients the government pays for, receive excellent care and great clinical outcomes. So I got up there to talk about myself, how I fit in with the residents, and how we're all going to be holding hands and singing "Kum Ba Ya" as we climb the Value-Based Purchasing hill together.

While I like public speaking and get a high from it, it's almost as though I have a double-personality. One part of my brain is speaking confidently about the matter at hand and the other part of me is saying "What would happen if I barfed right now?" Or, "What if I pass out right here with a massive stroke?" Then my brain calms down because, even though the residents and fellows are still in the midst of their training, they ARE doctors. So that helps.

It's funny, though. Whenever I speak to groups more than 40, those two sentiments go through my head. I don't get nervous before speaking and maybe it's my brains way of HINTING that I SHOULD be nervous. I just hope I don't cross the wires someday and the confident side of my brain throws a random question into the presentation: "What if I barf?"

I Heart Leaves

It's fall in Chicagoland. And a beautiful one at that. I love the leaves even more now that I don't have to rake them. Blow around, colorful leaves, you no longer force me into the slavery of Saturday leaf-raking! But our back yard (or the space we call our "back yard") is a multi-color panarama of leafy bliss:



It was one of those weekends we don't really deserve in mid-October. With temps in the 80's, humidity low, and sun a-shinin', the perfect weather begged us to throw open the windows and enjoy what's probably the last taste of this Floridian climate until April!



The brown leaves, dried and crunchy, just begged me to run through them yesterday. Had to channel my inner kid before our windy city blew all those leaves away! (Either that, or the mower will get them on Tuesday.) We've had every single window thrown wide open, trying to fill our house with that crisp, dry fall air, hoping it permeates the walls enough to get us through winter. This was my view as I sat on the couch and read all day:



I had to sit on the couch all day, as Jack and I walked ten miles between yesterday and today and I didn't have much of a choice but to cater to my sore tootsies. It was a tough day, I'm tellin' ya!



*I took all these picutres with my iPad, and honestly, am not too jazzed about the photo resolution. Is there any way to increase the megapixels on that thing?

Vocation

Man oh man, I'm getting my butt kicked this week.

I had a 15-hour day on Monday that culminated in a dinner with our endocrinologists at a restaurant in the western suburbs. Despite the fact that I felt I was fighting the stomach flu all day, I knew I couldn't bail. This was my only chance to get administration and these docs around the same table. I needed to sell our idea of getting a nurse practitioner in Diabetes and a fellowship slot for an endocrinologist training program.

I felt terrible Monday night and thought I was going downhill toward Immanent Illness. I woke up Tuesday and felt like death. After my shower, I cocooned myself in a blanket on the couch and plotted my approach to rescheduling the day's meetings. Then I heard my mother's voice in my head...when I was a kid in school and felt icky, she'd tell me to try it and she'd come pick me up if I felt worse. Then she'd say, "Just gut through it- maybe your day will be better than you think."

Darn it all, Mama Bear was right. Tuesday rocked!

I drug myself into work and on a breakfast of M&M's and coffee, started to liven up a bit. The morning meetings were okay. It wasn't my A-game, but it was okay.

Then my life changed forever.

Because I am extremely blessed and weirdly connected in this field, I had my first call with Dr. Bill Nelson, chief ethicist at Dartmouth Medical School. I'm not a name-dropper, but this was BILL NELSON. He's written, like, 900 articles on ethics and is pioneering change in healthcare ethics.

My mentor through ACHE hooked me up with Bill; they're on the AHA board together and just "hang out." I cannot even imagine what it's like to "hang out" with people like this but after 45 minutes of speaking with this distinguished academic on the phone, my head ached. I wondered if I gave myself a brain bleed.

He explained the three primary branches of healthcare ethics: clinical, research, and organizational ethics. Clinical ethics is needed when your grandma and my child both need a ventilator. We have one ventilator and must decide who gets it. Or, perhaps your grandpa wants to leave this earth in peace and your family wants to prolong his life with end-stage renal dialysis. That also requires a clinical ethics approach.

Two is research ethics...how do we align the systems within the hospital to prevent patient safety errors and quality issues in the first place? This approach uses Lean and process improvement methodologies to fix hospital operations for the better because it's what we should do. Keeping our patients safe and providing excellent care is our ethical obligation; it is the fundamental driver of our entire business. Through Lean, you want to prevent the ethical fires that ethics committees and clinical ethics consults extinguish. There isn't much done in this area, as it is too large for a hospital and too small for a state department of public health to deal with...

Three is organizational ethics. This describes how we create healthcare structures to address overarching issues, such as how a Catholic hospital would respond to an abortion scandal. Organizational ethics considers the larger scene.

Cue my brain aneurysm...

I have three hats I wear at work: Hospital operations (getting things done), process improvement (via Lean), and clinical ethics for those ethical fires needing specific action and decision-making. My three hats seem disparate and unrelated. I can weave a little bit of Lean into hospital ops, but it is a tough sell some days.

It dawned on me that my life's vision is to advance Point #2 above, research ethics. It just so happens that my three worlds intersect nicely and ethics serves as the underpinning of everything I do at work. I lead the PI teams because it's the right thing for our patients. I reorganization hospital ops because it positions us to better serve out patients. Our moral values and ethical principles guide everything we do in the hospital walls.

Wow. My head spun. I wanted to shout from the rooftops, that I was finally able to name my life's passion! That one conversation helped me articulate what I've been trying to do for the last three years.

So not only did Bill give me time out of his day, help me articulate my life's passion, and send me three of his most recent articles to peruse at my pleasure, he offered to mentor me in the field of healthcare ethics. People pay this guy to speak at national events and conferences and he has umpteen honorary doctorates and *I* get an hour once a month? Unreal.

He said he was "selfishly wanting to mentor someone, to pass along his info." Fine. Twist my arm!

After I calmed down from that celebration, EVOO came into my office and asked if I would help lead a $3M consolidation effort to streamline the ancillaries so things are better for the patients.

To which I answered, "Bring it on! It's the right thing to do!"

Tide with Febreze

So this is an inappropriate story but I think it's hilarious.

Jack and I bought some new laundry detergent last weekend, Tide with Febreze. It makes your laundry smell SO good and it lasts a long time. The sheets we washed three months ago are still as fresh as the day we washed them. I'm kidding. You know I'm too OCD to let my sheets go longer than a week!

Anyway, I did my laundry on Sunday, just like normal. Put it all away and coordinated my outfits for the week, per my schedule (see, told you I'm OCD). Some days require power suits and some days allow casual suits or just a blazer.

I sat in my office on Tuesday morning and I kept getting a whiff of clean laundry. I dismissed it, thinking it would fade.

Two hours later, I got another whiff of clean laundry. I mentally tallied my outfit. As most of my clothes go to and from the dry cleaners, I realized that the only freshly-washed, laundered items I was wearing were, well,my skivvies. I couldn't believe my stupid underwear were emitting that fresh laundry smell that, I'm sorry, could be the newest Yankee candle scent.

Later that afternoon, I had a one-on-one employee meeting in my office. I kid you not, this manager asked me how I got my office to smell like fresh laundry. I was tempted to answer (but did not!), "oh, that's just my underwear!"

Yikes.

Dresses and Roast Beef

I heard this joke that reminded me of me:

"A preacher reprimanded his wife who’d just spent a fortune on a dress – "Why did you spend so much, I’ve told you that whenever you feel tempted you should say 'Get behind me Satan”

“I did” said his wife.

“What happened then?” said the priest?

“He told me it looked lovely from the back.”


I recently took a Saturday afternoon off to run some errands and let the ladies at a fancy bridal/dress shop swaddle me in expensive gowns worthy of Oscar night. It was fun. I declined the champagne they offered me. Being my usual weekend geeky self (I never dress well on weekends or do my hair; it is how I decompress from my week and let my hair follicles recover from the relentless styling), I wasn't really planning on casting aside my worn jeans and hoodie for some exquisite gowns.

Alas, gala season is again upon us. Our hospital's gala is bigger than ever this year and it's the year to go all out on fancy attire. Then we have the First Look in February, again, a black tie event that requires a little more effort than jeans and hoodie. I hate, hate, hate dress shopping and skipped the usual tour of Macy's, Penny's, Carsons, and Black House/White Market and went straight for the dress shop. If I could knock out this annoying task in 30 minutes or less, I'd treat myself to sushi and a celeb gossip magazine!

So I perused the beautiful gowns as I enjoyed the jazz piped in through invisible speakers and ladies with Brooklyn accents who followed you around proclaiming how "faaaabulous you'd look in this when you paaak the caaaa at Aaaaby's." That's a joke. One of my coworkers is from the east coast and can't say her "r's." But it sounded similar! This one coworker was once talking about how she went to Aaaby's. I could not figure out what "Aaaby's" was and asked her if this was some posh Italian bistro. My other coworker goes, "Man, you're sheltered. You don't know what Arby's is?"

Oh. ARBY's. As in, the roast beef place. Got it.

Anyway, I wasn't exactly planning on this uber attentive staff and was taken aback when I headed for the dressing room to try on my stack of potential gowns, one of the Brooklyn ladies followed me into the 15x15 foot fully-mirrored room. Suddenly, I remembered how it worked from my bridal days, that she was going to help me into and out of the dresses. It's funny how you revert to that high school gym mentality where you don't want people to see you in your skivvies and laugh. She pulled a few strands loose from my haphazard bun and reminded me that I "should probably get my hair done the night of the event." No kidding, Brooklyn Lady! But thanks for reminding me!

It was fun, though. I picked out 7-8 dresses and actually bought TWO. One is black satin, has black spaghetti straps, and a cross-hatched detail on the chest. Then it flairs out to an A-line and has a cascade of satin and silk that starts at the hip and wraps around to form a short train. I will bustle the train. It's SO fancy and completely appropriate for the huge gala we have coming up later this month. The other dress is strapless, with an ivory bodice and straight black satin skirt. It, too, has a train. What is with these ball gowns that have trains?

So after playing "Pretty Woman" (y'know, minus the whole hooker thing), I successfully found two dresses in 40 minutes, survived the invasion of my personal space by a lady that should take up a living fitting pants for people in prison, and decided I needed an Aaaby's roast beef.