Here’s a scary thought for you. Leave home without your cell phone! I bet that made you shiver. I had gotten three-quarters of the way into my morning commute when I asked myself why it was so quiet in the car. You see by then I would have made 3-4 calls (using Bluetooth) and I would have received at least three more calls too. My commute is about an hour and ten minutes one way. I had gone too far to turn around. I had passed the point of no return. I was committed to a full day without my cell. I know you know the horror that overcame me. But… hell its only been a few years that I’ve actually had a cell phone. I lived without it for over 40 years I could handle this. Besides, it was only another 20 minutes and I’d be at work and my phone on my desk.

I got there knowing I’d be attacked. Where were you? How come you didn’t return my call? Are you dead, call us back? Those were just a few of the comments on my voice mail and from co-workers and the boss.

Then I got into my day and as long as I was near my desk my world was fine. Then came my time to leave. Unfortunately, on the way home, I had a couple of errands to run. I left about 5:30 pm. My commute didn’t end until 9:15 pm when I walked into the house. The family was there screaming at me saying they were about to call the police and fire department even the hospitals to find out where my body was, as that’s the only reason I hadn’t come home already. You see the first store I stopped at didn’t have what I needed. So I went to another of their stores, ten minutes away. Then that store didn’t have it and I didn’t have a phone to call around so I had to travel from store to store to accomplish my errand. Then my other errand I had to stand in line at a customer service desk with 8 people in front of me and only one clerk behind the counter and she was about 75 years old and typing with one finger. It was becoming an angry mob and my 45-minute wait was sure torture with the pressing of each of those keys by that arthritic finger of that poor woman. Since the store manager on duty couldn’t help us I told the crowd that we all needed to go on Yelp.com and complain about this store but that we were not to mention this poor woman as it wasn’t her fault that they didn’t schedule anyone else. They all agreed and actually were nice to her when each of them got to her which I was glad about.

The experience at that store reminds me why I hate to shop and why so many of us are buying online at Amazon.com or elsewhere instead of going to physical stores.

We as humans get into routines and my morning routine was changed which made me miss my cell phone, which then upset my whole world. It tells me that I shouldn’t have left home. I should stay in my own little world and do not interact with the rest of that messed up world, as you and I can never control it anyway. Can you imagine disconnecting from the grid? No phone, no tv, no commute, I wouldn’t have to shave, I could stay in my pajama’s all day. No facebook, no credit cards, live far away from everyone. The silence would be deafening I’d go crazy, I need people in my life, it’s what keeps me going. So what am I going to do? I’m going to hard wire to my brain an implantable phone that can be charged as I sleep at night and when I get up to leave it goes with me so I can’t forget it. There working on it already see it here. There you go, closer and closer to George Orwell’s 1984. He was a few years too early!

I believe I can have a new career if I want it. Over the last four months, I have received my medical education. I have learned how to do the following. I can flush a gastro 3 port tube. I can inflate a # 10 balloon in that same tube. I can flush a foley line. I can empty a foley. I can shut off and on the IV machines. I can drain and clean out open drain tubes and suction bulbs. I can clean and replace all bandages of varying sizes and purposes. I can teach RN’s how to unhook and reposition a colonoscopy bag clamp for either draining or expelling an inflated bag when not being used as for its original purpose. I understand the use of barrier creams and the applying of them. Of course, I’m an expert in the bed pan. I can identify blood pressure increasing due to increasing pain levels and I understand the readouts on monitoring systems. More importantly, I can remember doctors orders for medications their doses, purpose, and interactions.

Besides all that I had to understand the procedure my wife went through called a Whipple Procedure. It is considered one of the riskiest surgeries that one can have. The surgery itself can run between 8-12 hours depending on complications.Gaining and understanding of the digestive system, and how it’s been redirected helps in your ability to understand what a patient could be going through. Such as vomiting dark green foul/sweet-smelling bile. (No her head did not rotate around at any point)

On top of all of this add to it a patient that has a connective tissue disease, a degenerative disk disease and advanced arthritis in the spine.This is a person who in order to get through the day has to be always moving. Otherwise, a disk in the spine may begin to attach itself to another disk and begin squeezing some nerves that affect your ability to walk, or bend your legs or tell muscles to do what they are supposed to do. Now have that patient lay flat on a bed for 4 months. You will hear that patient ask you to kill them now. You will hear them ask god why do they have to suffer. You will hear them beg for relief. The worst part is this patient is allergic to most pain medications except for Fentanyl. Which is stronger than Morphine. If they take it they will begin hallucinating and or just sleep all the time and will not remember anything that happened previously and can’t be expected to really do anything but lie there and not heal but be a zombie or be in torturous pain.

So this has been part of my life for the last four months. If I hadn’t been there every day my wife would have been dead. I can’t tell you how many times they were about to give her the wrong medicine, or the wrong dose. Or give her something that could kill her like iodine. Or how many infections I stopped because they wouldn’t take the time to clean her wound site or flush her foley or drain her drains because in many cases they didn’t care, were too busy, didn’t have the knowledge or just have the opinion that all patients are the same and they should all get the same care.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the health care industry shouldn’t be profit driven. In many cases, nurses and aids can’t give you the care you need because there told by management to cut costs, have more patients per nurse, no overtime etc.Besides that nurses and doctors are being held more accountable and every step every action they take has to be recorded and measured. There to busy typing into the computer than looking at the patient. Their jobs have become not a caring job but an administrative paper pushing job that no one wants to do. Heaven help you if any of you or your loved ones have to go into the health care system and I pray that your family member will not be lost over the care they won’t receive.

I received a copy of the ambulance bill for moving my wife about 10-15 miles from one hospital to another $5800.00. I had been wondering if I should become an Uber driver to make ends meet financially but maybe I should start my own Ambulance company. How about “Uber Ambulance”!

I commute to Chicago for work. My wife tells me all the time that she’s worried about me in my travels. She asks her guardian angel to go with me and watch over me while I commute.

A few years back, she said to me, “You’re not going on the train today to Chicago are you?” I told her no. She repeated herself, that I should not get on the train that day.

That morning, a westbound train heading to Chicago crashed into another train going east in East Chicago. It was a major accident; many people were injured and quite a few died. They had to use our arena for a temporary morgue.

Yet another time, my wife said, “Do me a favor and do not use the elevator today.” I asked her why, and she replied, “Just do it please.” I told her not to worry.

On the news that day, an elevator fell five floors in a building in Chicago, with numerous people hurt.

I work in the hotel industry and at our main hotel we have a restaurant. On a particular day we were expecting a large group in the restaurant.

The phone rings “Don’t eat any bacon today” the wife says.

Now as most men would say are you crazy, bacon, bacon, bacon, oh my God bacon, I wish I could have bacon!

I have high cholesterol so I do have to be careful. It wasn’t even 10 minutes and the phone rang “Earl can you come to the kitchen.”  I walk over to the kitchen and there must have been 8 racks of bacon standing 7 ft tall surrounding me. They had prepared the bacon for this large group they were expecting. The group canceled and they said “Earl start eating!” Oh my God, a mans dream coming true almost as good as my other dream about a tall blond. But I restrained myself and have only one sandwich.

Nothing further happened.

Until yesterday.

“Did you back the car into someone today?” my wife asked me on the phone. I told her no. She called me again in the middle of the afternoon. “I need you to come home right away. The dog hurt her leg and you have to take her to the vet.” My mother-in-law lives with us, so my wife can’t just leave the house.

By 4 p.m. I wrapped everything up at work and got ready to leave. I walked out to the garage, got in the car (the spaces are separated by concrete pillars), and proceeded to back out of my parking space.

After 10 years of no accidents, I hit the pillar left of the car, scraping the left rear panel. Yellow paint from the pillar striping had left its mark for everyone to see.

I didn’t take the train, I didn’t get in an elevator but I did have to back out of a parking spot, as my wife foretold.

In a rational world, one is hard-pressed to explain the concept of guardian angels. Yet, my wife seems to possess a gift. How to explain it? I know this: The next time she cautions me, I hope I will follow her instructions to the letter.

Still today, I tell people I’m still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up! If you don’t take control of your life it will take control of you. I ventured into the hotel business by accident, in that I needed a job and I had a friend that happened to work at a hotel so I was in. Some 35 years later I’m still here in the same industry. Every day is different and I think that helped, as I get board easily if I’m not challenged. Even though I didn’t choose this industry it really chose me and I guess I kind of hung on for the ride. When I was a young lad I always wanted to be a fireman but it just didn’t come my way. I guess I put out fires in a different way now. My kids seem to be falling into their careers also. Which I hope it means that its something they like also.

All three of my kids seem to have developed a good strong work ethic which I have to tell you makes me proud. The latest bunch of young kids coming into the workplace really expect to have everything handed to them. Many of them can’t even take being criticized at all. I see no work ethic in them either. I know people are working smarter now and the use of computers have lightened our work load but what I see in our future workforce really depresses me. I hope I’m wrong about this!

I’m starting to read Malcom Gladwell and his new book called “David and Goliath.” In it he gives many examples about how the under dogs actually have many advantages. I think I need to look at more people that seem to be under dogs in our hiring practices. I kind of feel I’ve been an under dog all my life. But I don’t think I was aware of my “advantages.” I better keep reading this may help.