In the Blink of an Eye

Well, first, Happy St. Patrick’s Day!  And second, sorry it has been so long since my last post.  A very long and uncomfortable cold (well, are colds ever comfortable?) and a bit of writer’s block has kept me away far too long.  I have found when you blog and build up several posts, you can forget what you already wrote about.  So from time to time, I need to review so I won’t bore you with repeat ramblings. 

If you are a regular reader, and I thank you for that, then you know back in September I made mention of how heart attacks thankfully don’t run in my family, but they do seem to creep up in my life from time to time.  We had settled into Idaho as our new home, and I had gotten pretty busy with my service as I noted in my post from November of last year.   Within 2 weeks of moving to Idaho, my service was up and running, and by the end of 1997, I was very busy with full-time work. 

Then in January of 1998, things changed literally in a split second with one phone call.  It was a Saturday morning, and Joe was going to go to the mall to try out as an extra for a movie that Bruce Willis was making in Twin Falls.  He never made it to the mall.  That phone call was his office informing us that one of the physician’s, the one who was Joe’s main referral source and the one who kept me the busiest in my service, had dropped dead of a heart attack.  He was skiing in Sun Valley.   He loved doing that so much that he also kept a condo up there so he could spend the weekends without having to drive back and forth.  It was about a 75 to 80-minute drive from Twin.  He also had plans to expand their practice up in that area as well.

As a side note, Sun Valley, Idaho, is one of the most beautiful places on earth, at least for me.  If I ever win the lottery (or maybe that progressive on that favorite slot machine of mine at my favorite local Vegas casino), I would build a log home in Sun and maybe never leave Idaho again.  Even just driving into town and seeing those mountains, it just sucks the stress right out of your body, and you feel like you don’t have a care in the world or that the world has any cares.  I’m not a skier, but you don’t have to be to feel the essence of those mountains deep down in your soul. 

At least Dr. M. died doing what he loved most, apart from being a physician.  He was at the top of the mountain and mentioned he was not feeling very well.  He skied to the bottom and said it again and fell to the ground.  His heart more or less imploded, and he was dead before he even got all the way down.  The ironic thing was that it was his first heart attack, and previous to that, there was no heart damage.  Even more ironic—he had a doctor’s appointment that following Monday for a checkup, and more than likely they would have found the blockages, fixed him up, and he would have been good as new.  Timing…

So overnight I lost one of my busiest accounts.  I did have some of his dictation to finish up, which was needless to say very difficult to do knowing he was no longer with us.  He always finished each chart note or letter with “end of dictation.”  So those were the last words I ever heard from him.  

One thing I always drive home to my students is to always keep your skills up, especially if you are working in only 1 or 2 specialties or even if working for a national company.  Things can happen at a moment’s notice.  Maybe not something quite as drastic as a death, but companies get sold, doctors retire, or new technology comes in to eliminate the need for your services.   Keep up with your skills and with networking, and if you lose a job suddenly, it should not take you that long to replace what you lost.  In the summer of ’98, a friend told me the national service where she worked was needing MTs.  I had picked up a little more work on my own since the death of that physician, but I definitely had time to do more. I had never worked for a national service, so I thought it would be a good experience. 

Even though it was a smaller company, it was a national service, so I decided to go for it.  I especially liked the fact it was a smaller company, since the atmosphere with smaller services can feel a bit more family-like rather than getting lost among thousands of employees.  I got the job, and the day I was notified I was hired, that very day, I got some news about the company that definitely took me by surprise.  You probably can figure it out, but I’ll keep that story for next time.  I will tell you that as I have written this blog, it really has made me aware that my career has been pretty remarkable.  I have had some wild experiences, but every single one of them has led me to something new, challenging, and rarely boring.  So until next time, enjoy your day, and if it’s cold where you are (sorry, but it is 77 here in Vegas today), just remember that spring is only a few weeks around the corner!  Take care.