Event #5: Self-Chosen Demotion

Throughout Jim’s hospitalization and in-home rehabilitation, I continued to try to keep up in my new role at work.  Once Jim went back to work, things became a bit more manageable, but soon a whole new set of stressors set in.

I was given the opportunity to take Six Sigma training to become a Green Belt.  I felt at the time like I needed to say yes to the offer because everybody who was anybody at the company had Six Sigma training.  I believe the training was to last a month (my memory is a bit foggy), with a full week of all-day, in-class training during the final week.  The expectation was that we would keep up with our regular full-time jobs on top of the training.  One of my colleagues had the good sense to say no to the offer because she could see that the work load would be insane.  I, however, did not have this foresight.

Simultaneously with the Six Sigma training, I was in charge of leading the writing efforts for our department’s part of an NDA submission for an oncology drug.  Things started going crazy then.  It was the final week of Six Sigma training.  I was in the all-day training class when suddenly I was called out to attend an “emergency meeting” with the project manager for the submission.  The sky was falling, apparently.

They kept asking me what my “strategy” was for writing the submission documents.  I had already made a few attempts to explain that the strategy would be that so-and-so would write Document Number 1 and so-and-so would write Document Number 2 (and so on) and that Documents 1 through ∞ would be delivered by such-and-such a date.  Each iteration of my “strategy” was more in depth than the last, with expanded timelines detailing review cycles and identifying reviewers, etc.  Apparently, in their eyes, this did not constitute a “strategy”.  I continued to try to understand what it was they were asking me to give them.  I even went so far as to look up the word “strategy” in Webster’s Dictionary.  In case you are curious, most definitions have to do with the conduct of warfare.  The closest definition I could find relating to accomplishing a goal was, “a careful plan or method; a clever stratagem.”  Now, for the word “stratagem”…its definition, as it relates to anything other than warfare is, “a cleverly contrived trick or scheme for gaining an end; skill or ruses in trickery.”  Aha!!!  No wonder I could not deliver what they wanted.  I do not know how to TRICK anybody!  Was that really what they were asking me for?  I preferred the “careful plan or method,” definition, which was what I thought I had delivered a gazillion times already!

Being the kind of person who wants to please my superiors, I was devastated at being seemingly incapable of performing my job at anything less than a superb level.  The stress of this failure began to weigh heavily on me.  All other challenges I faced in this new role seemed tangible.  They were things to which I could apply logic and eventually overcome.  This “strategy” challenge was intangible.  I could not solve an equation to fix it.  There was no computer program I could master that would allow me to produce what they wanted.  I felt at a loss.  And meanwhile, the feeling of a crisis, as it related to the behavior of my project manager and superiors continued to increase.  A breaking point was approaching.

I was at the same time completely stressed out and spiraling into a depression.  One day, in the midst of this misery, I was sitting at my desk and an email popped up.  The title was simply a person’s name.  Experience told me that emails of this sort almost never contained good news.  The person’s name in this case belonged to one of our vendor partner writers.  I had worked with this person on several projects and had come to feel fond of him.  I considered him a friend.  His voice reminded me of my brother’s voice.  I apprehensively opened the email.  The message said that he had been killed in a traffic accident during his commute home the evening before.  I was stunned. The weight of everything came crashing down on me.  Right there, in the middle of our "integrated work space", I held my face in my hands and wept.  

All of a sudden everything seemed so stupid.  All of the striving.  All of the stress.  All of the late nights to meet deadlines.  The tenuousness of life was made abundantly clear to me that day.  It was then that I realized life is too short to spend most of my time obsessed with empty pursuits that failed to feed my soul.

The next week I told my manager I wanted to step down and return to my previous role.

On July 1, 2017, I was officially reinstated to my previous position.  I had maintained my promotion for all of 10 months.  The sting of failure permeated my being, but I was determined to remember the lesson I had learned about the value of life and the value of tending to my soul.  I would now turn my attention to the pursuit of inner peace and contentment.

Event #4: Broken Bones (Concluded)

Jim’s shoulder surgery had to wait until Monday, Aug 29, because the surgeon was so busy.  I remember hoping for a similar outcome with the shoulder surgery as had occurred with his leg surgery – ie, pain cessation.

Monday finally arrived and I accompanied Jim, once again, to the pre-op room.  This time, they were going to put some kind of nerve block in his shoulder prior to surgery.  That should have given me a clue as to what to expect post-surgery, but I didn’t pick up on it.

While in the pre-op room, the funniest thing happened.  They started Jim on some kind of sedative and he was kind of loopy.  The nurse started asking him questions (I’m not really sure why the questions were asked AFTER the sedative was given, but oh well).  She asked him, “Do you have any metal in your body?”  I’ll never forget.  A couple of seconds passed.  Jim laid there with his eyes closed, and I thought he hadn’t heard the question.  Then, all of a sudden, he raised his head, looked straight at the nurse, and asked in a loud voice, “Do YOU!?”  I cracked up and the very serious nurse stifled a smile.  Then they wheeled him back into a different room to give him the nerve block.  I was worried about that, because I knew they had to stick a very long needle into his shoulder joint and hit a particular nerve to inject it.  Thankfully, he was doped up enough on whatever it was they had given him ahead of time, that it wasn’t horrible for him.

So, time passed….the shoulder surgery was finished and I met him back in his room.  I tucked him in, said goodnight, and went home, hoping and praying he would be all better in the morning.  WRONG!!!  Sometime around 3 a.m., the nerve block wore off.  Jim said it felt like he had broken his shoulder all over again.  The pain was horrible and there was pretty much no amount of pain medication that would keep it under control.

The nurses and staff at Community North were wonderful.  They gave Jim as much pain medication as they safely could and kept his shoulder iced constantly.  Days passed, and eventually, Jim’s shoulder pain ebbed.

It was then time to find a place for Jim to stay to rehabilitate his leg.  Going home was not an option.  Labor Day weekend was near, and apparently, it was difficult to negotiate a transfer from the hospital to a long-term care facility, so he stayed on at the hospital for a total of 2 weeks.

The next phase of Jim’s recovery occurred at Allisonville Meadows Assisted Living Center.  This was a dark chapter in Jim’s life – in both our lives, really.  He felt surrounded by death.  In fact, the resident in the room across the hall died two days after Jim arrived at the facility.  But, despite the depressing surroundings, Jim remained committed to his recovery.

I visited him daily, of course.  One of our favorite rituals became me bringing our dog, Blaze, to visit, along with a thermos of margaritas to sip while we watched TV and talked about whatever.  I don’t know how helpful the margaritas were to his healing bones, but they were very helpful to his healing soul.

At some point in his convalescence, it was time for Jim to see his shoulder surgeon to have his stitches removed and to take post-op X-rays.  I picked him up from the assisted living center and drove him to the surgeon’s office.  It was the first time in three weeks he had been outside of a hospital setting.  He craved something other than senior center food, so after the appointment, I drove to the nearest Arby’s.  I remember we sat in an empty parking lot eating our roast beef sandwiches and staring through the windshield at the gray September afternoon.  Our former life seemed very far away.  It was tempting to think it would never return.

Another week passed.  Finally, based on his ability to get around using a quad cane, the physicians at Allisonville Meadows determined Jim could be discharged.  One month after his bicycle accident, Jim was coming home!!!  In the interim, Summer had turned to Fall.

Once home, Jim began in-home physical therapy.  It was weird having a stranger in our house, but it was better than me having to take off from work to transport him back and forth between home and his physical therapist’s office.  Over time, Jim became capable of doing almost anything that didn’t require both hands at once.  Here he is icing his shoulder while vacuuming the family room.  Ya just can’t keep him down for long!

All told, Jim spent 1 month in the hospital/assisted living facility, and then 2 months at home rehabilitating before he was able to return to work.  I was so proud of his determination and positive spirit.  He never accepted a thought of defeat.  He drew closer to God throughout his experience and set his sights on a full recovery.  His shoulder surgeon said his recovery was a “poster child” for the type of reconstructive surgery he had.  Today Jim can do 14 unassisted pull-ups – something that is pretty much unheard of in the shoulder surgery world.

Here is Jim today (Jan, 2019) engaged in a workout routine, as usual.  Our God is a god of healing.  Never give up, people.  Never give up!

Event #4: Broken Bones (Continued)

The exact order of events from Wednesday night in the ER is a bit fuzzy in my mind, but it went roughly like this.  An awesome, attentive nurse was on duty at the time and got Jim hooked up to IV pain meds, which helped a little, but caused nausea.

There was a shortage of beds available in the hospital, because that day there had been multiple tornado warnings, which required the staff to push all of the patients’ beds into the interior hallways.  This, in turn, delayed discharges, which resulted in beds continuing to be occupied which might otherwise have been available.  I have to believe it was this shortage of beds that prompted the next memorable event.  The nurse said he had been instructed to attempt to “ambulate” Jim and send him home.  I was flabbergasted.  Thankfully, the nurse could see that Jim was not faking it, was not overreacting to a bad bruise or anything like that.  The nurse said, “Okay, I’m going to attempt to get you up, and you’re going to…”  On cue, Jim screamed when the nurse attempted to raise him to a seated position.  The nurse then filled out a form explaining he had attempted to ambulate the patient, but the patient experienced excruciating pain (or something along those lines).  That done, Jim was allowed to stay in the bed in the ER to await further examination by orthopedic surgeons.

At some point very late in the night, they took Jim for X-rays of his leg/hip and shoulder.  I can’t remember now exactly who told us that Jim’s femur was fractured near the hip joint and he would need surgery to stabilize it.  I do remember that a shoulder specialist came in and said, “Well….your shoulder is never going to be the same.”  I thought that was an odd way to deliver the news.  He went on to explain that Jim’s shoulder was shattered into multiple pieces (we would later learn it was 6 pieces).  He said, “We could do nothing, or we could do surgery.  Sometimes surgery is not all that much better than doing nothing.”  Again, I was flabbergasted.

Upon talking with the surgeon for some time, I came to learn that shoulder surgery success is largely dependent on the patient’s current physical health and the patient’s commitment to rehabilitation of the joint.  I insisted that Jim was an excellent candidate for the surgery.  I was not about to let them send him home without doing anything!  And, I knew I was right about Jim’s candidacy.  Thank God I did that!

After all the X-rays and consultations, Jim was still in extreme pain and still not in the hospital proper.  In the ER, the next nurse on shift got Jim started on stronger IV pain meds and gave him an anti-nausea medication.  Finally, he slept.  And I waited…and waited…and waited.  I had been told the next orthopedic surgeon would be doing rounds towards 6 a.m., but 6 a.m. came and went and nobody checked on Jim.

Finally, around 9 a.m., I started getting bitchy.  I raised my voice and demanded that somebody come check on Jim and get his surgery scheduled.  It turned out somehow the rounding physician had missed Jim when he did his rounds at 6 a.m.  After several phone calls that I had to place myself with the orthopedic surgeon, I was able to get Jim scheduled for his leg surgery that afternoon (Thursday, Aug 25).

Mercifully, around noon, they told us a bed was available in some other wing of the hospital (not the orthopedic wing), and Jim could have that temporarily while he waited for surgery.  They got him into the bed, got him settled, and then we (really I – because Jim was mostly “out of it”) met with the surgeon.  Everything was all set to go and the surgeon told me I could leave and come back in time for the surgery, if I wanted to.

I had not eaten anything since lunch the day before.  So, I grabbed McDonald’s, rushed home, let the dog out, fed the cats, took a quick shower, and got back to the hospital by 2:30 in time for the surgery.

Jim was assigned an actual room in the hospital’s orthopedic wing after his leg surgery.  The surgeon met us there and explained what he had done during the procedure.  He drew a diagram on a white board showing us the fancy hardware he had installed in Jim’s leg.  I took a photo of that (shown at the bottom of this post).

Somehow the surgery almost completely eliminated Jim’s leg pain.  I found that amazing and miraculous.  I was so happy that at least a part of his horrible pain was gone.  Now I felt like he was going to be okay and that I could let my guard down a little.

Finally, around 6 pm on Thursday, I tucked Jim in, kissed him good-bye, and headed home.  I hadn’t slept since Tuesday night.

To be continued…

Event #4: Broken Bones

On August 24, 2016, the day after my promotion announcement, Jim and I were still floating on the euphoria of my good fortune.  Gravity would soon strike back with a vengeance, however.

The evening was perfect.  The sky was clear, the sun was on its way to setting.  The air was warm, but not too humid.  Everything was aglow with the color I call “breen” (brilliant green).  It’s the golden glow of sunshine across the brilliant green of the soft lawn, the leaves of the maples, my tomato plants, the fuzzy moss at the corners of my garden beds.  I had gone out to collect the latest produce my garden had to offer and Jim had taken off on his bicycle for his evening ride.  As he left, he smiled at me and said, “See you in a bit, Consultant Wife!”  Consultant was my new official title.  He was very proud of me.

After I collected tomatoes, peppers, and okra, I drifted back into the kitchen to begin preparing dinner.  I was dicing chicken breasts for the stir-fry I was about to make when the phone rang.  Wearing kitchen gloves, now covered in raw chicken juice, I stepped over to the phone just to peek at who it might be.  I did not recognize the caller, but it was a person’s name, rather than some unknown caller or an agency.  I let it go and went back to dicing chicken.  But somewhere in the pit of my stomach, I had a niggling feeling.  The phone rang again.  It was the same caller.  This time I took off my gloves and answered, my heart’s pace picking up a bit.

The caller asked if I was Mrs. Bacon.  I could tell it wasn’t a sales call.  I said I was and he said, “I’m here with your husband.  He’s been in an accident.  I’m here at the park with him.”

Now my heart was pounding.  I told the caller that I would be there in five minutes.  I grabbed my keys and my purse and flew out the door and into the car.  I drove as fast as I reasonably could to the Windermere neighborhood park.  It was the wrong park.  In a haze, I realized my error and took the alternate route to the other park, Mud Creek Park.  Ironically, the route I would have normally taken to Mud Creek Park was closed for bridge repair.  Had I flown out the door and headed straight to Mud Creek Park, I no doubt would have instinctively taken my normal route and would have had to have turned around and gone back along the alternate route, anyway, which would have doubled the time it would have taken me to get to Jim.  (Thank you, God.)

When I pulled into Mud Creek park, the sun was beginning to set.  It was close to 8:30pm.  In the dimming light, I could see a small cluster of people on the footpath near the bridge.  As I approached, I could see Jim sitting on the ground, leaning back against another man’s leg, as the man helped prop him up.  I jumped out of the car and ran over to him.  It was obvious that he was in agony and he was breathing in gasps.  He said, “Honey, I fucked up.  I’m sorry.”  I told him to shhh.  He said his shoulder and leg were killing him.  I could tell just by looking that his shoulder didn’t seem right.

In addition to the man helping prop Jim up, another couple was there.  Apparently, Jim had at first told them he would try to walk back home, but he was unable to move.  One of them offered to give him a ride home, but any movement brought excruciating pain.  As Jim was sitting there nearing unconsciousness, the rest of us decided to call 911.

Mud Creek is located less than a quarter mile from a fire station.  As soon as our call was placed, we could see the lights at the station go on, the ambulance and fire truck emerge from the garage, and hear their sirens begin to wail.  They were at our side within two minutes of the call for help.

The paramedics came over and eased Jim into a lying position.  Despite their attempts to be gentle, Jim screamed in pain.  They managed to get one of those straight boards under him and the wrapped his hips tightly with a sheet-like cloth to hold them together.  Thankfully, they started a fentanyl patch to help his pain.

After determining that this was not a life-threatening situation, one of the paramedics spoke with me about insurance info and my choice of hospitals to take Jim.  The other nice people who had stayed with Jim helped me load the crashed bicycle into the back of our Ford Edge.  The fellow who drove the ambulance told me I could follow him right then over to the hospital, or I could go to the hospital on my own at any point.  He said, “This isn’t going to be a lights-flashing-siren-sounding kind of thing.  We will just drive over to the ER at Community North.”  With my head a little clearer, I realized that I had left the house unlocked and all the lights on.  So, I quickly went back home, turned all the lights off, made sure the cats were in, locked up and headed to the hospital.

To be continued…

Event #3: Promotion

I had dreamt throughout my entire career about being promoted.  I practically obsessed over it.  I would go through cycles of hoping for it, trying for it, getting disappointed, then asking myself why I felt my self-worth was based on promotion, then trying to accept my place in life, then slowly becoming inspired to try again and the whole cycle would start over.  Finally, in August of 2016, my dream came true and I was promoted.

I was on Cloud 9!  I felt so honored, important, and like I was finally a “part of the club”.  Things at work changed immediately.  There was no gradual easing into the position.  Within 48 hours, the average number of emails I received daily went from approximately 30 to 100.  For some people, this is no big deal, but for a snail like me, this was at first overwhelming.  I needed to figure out a system to be able to process all of these emails and still do my other work.  Despite feeling challenged, I remained confident that I would eventually find a way to keep up with all of the email traffic.

Then came the questions.  As a technical lead, I expected to receive questions and was happy to answer them.  After approximately 13 years in my previous position, I thought I would be well prepared to answer any question any of my colleagues had regarding how to perform our jobs.  I was wrong.  I was baffled.  How could this be?  After 13 years, how could there be sooooo many questions about rules, regulations, and SOPs that I could not answer off the top of my head?  For this, too, I did not despair.  I determined I would study the procedures extensively and learn every nuance and be ready to answer any question that came my way.

But, then came the gossip/talk/criticism/complaints, whatever you want to call it about my “underlings”.  This was completely unfamiliar territory for me.  Gossip or even speaking in a negative way about anybody was very dissuaded in my household as a child.  It was sort of the old, “If you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything at all” kind of mentality that was employed in my childhood home.  So, this new side to this level of the corporation felt foreign to me and clashed with my core values.  So, needless to say, I struggled mightily with this aspect of the job.  I decided to approach it from a coaching perspective in which I would ask the “underling” about how things were going and then make suggestions about how things might go better, rather than make the person aware that people were talking about them behind their backs.  I’m not sure anything positive is gained by sharing the gossip information.

These tactics seemed to work for a while until I had to be the overseer of writers for a large new drug application (NDA) to the FDA.  Then all hell broke loose.  More to come on that later….