My colleagues

Introducing Pain Management to you!

These are the folks that I spend Mon-Thurs with every week!
From left to right: Addi, (me), Dr. Poovendran, Randa and Cheryl. Laura is the neurology nurse. Fort Wayne Neurology shares space with us 3 days a week to see patients. She wasn't here the day this picture was taken. : (

Most of the time we stay very busy but we do have a lot of time to slip in stories that make us smile, laugh or yes, sometimes their stories even make me cry! We mostly are at different stages of life which helps a lot when I need advice or just to bounce an idea off of. Cheryl and Randa have already "been there, done that!"

Addi is our newlywed of 4 months. We love to hear her adventures of setting up a new home, combining finances etc... all with a BOY! (ha!) Dr. Poovendran's kids are now both out of college and heading to graduate/medical school.

I know this picture below is a little blurry but I thought it was worth posting so you can see the humor that flies around at work. I can't tell you exactly why we are laughing (HIPPA) but it was over something Dr. Poovendran just said. I think I was laughing to hard to steady the camera! We do have some fun at work!

Cheryl (office coordinator), Randa (RN), Addi (office coordinator)

These people know me in a "different setting"... professionally. One that Tony doesn't even fully "get"... isn't it weird to think about it like that? I enjoy each one of these ladies so much. The best part? They are Christian women who model their lives after Jesus. What a privilege to work with each of them! I love you guys!

Leah

Softball tournament game #1

Madison takes off to steal 3rd base!

It's 10:45pm and we just walked in from Madison's softball game and then supper at BWW's. Thank goodness it's summer and the kids don't have to get up (otherwise we would have came straight home anyway). This was the first game of Madison's tournament tonight. Her team (Ultra-Fab) won 22-11. It lasted about 2 hours and 15 minutes. I tried to take some video so we would at least have a clip from this season... boy is softball ever hard to video tape! ... That will make for some pretty boring video to watch some day unless I can figure out how to edit it! Tony got me video editing equipment for Christmas last year... the fire wire for mother's day and now I don't have a port on my video camera to even download it into the computer!...probably soon to be resolved since our video camera just broke and I'm now borrowing Terry & Karla's. It's always something isn't it?

Today was my first day back to work since the conference. I heard "I'm so glad you're rejuvenated now because you are going to need it for this next patient"...several times. Oh yes... chronic pain is quite difficult most of the time. I'm getting pretty bold in my old age though. I told a patient today that if she didn't start working on her function,...and at least not losing any more of it...she would eventually become a big piece of play-dough (which she acts like already)! Ha!...I was serious though! Long story. But I'm right! Anyway, she's been our patient for 6 years now and is highly UNmotivated to get better. OK, enough.

The kids are getting out of the showers so I'll let you go.

Love to all, Leah

Tough week

This was a tough week in several ways... I've debated and debated about how much to share about work this week. Those of us in jobs that require confidentiality are sometimes burdened with "too much information" but we do take this quite seriously! Because this patient lived well outside our community, I feel confident that her confidentiality is maintained... all of that to say that one of our patients committed suicide within this last week. It was quite a shock to get this call from her husband (actually a forever "significant other"). She was in her 60's. She suffered with multiple medical problems including chronic pain. She had been my patient for 6 years now. Monday was such a tough day... I basically cried my way through work. This brings up many, many more questions than it does answers. There is little comfort in a death like this. Tragic is the best word to describe it I guess. It is still unbelievable and very, very difficult not to feel like we've failed in our care in this situation. It was so difficult to talk to her husband on the phone. What do you say??? I mostly listened. He was so reassuring to me though, so complimentary about our care; how they both were touched by the love and compassion felt in our office... How can someone going through so much pain actually find within themself the ability to comfort another?

On other happy notes, Madison and I finished our cake decorating class last night. She made a wonderful "Wilton rose"... much better than mine! We had a lot of fun taking this class together.

She also had a softball game tonight and her team won 14-1. She had 2 singles and a double. The bad part... it was past time to leave for the game and she was still searching for her glove!! Very frustrating! We've told her TOO many times to put things away in the same place (like her bat bag) so she knows where things are. We've pretty much searched everywhere we could, including the ball park. She used my glove tonight, which is too big. The consequence is yet to come but she will have to buy her own new glove now... and with what money I ask???... she only has her Indy spending money now. Ouch! Sometimes parenting down right HURTS! How else will kids learn lessons? She certainly won't learn one if we whip out our check book and pay for it ourselves. She knows this money source is a possibility but we are all hoping the glove is found before her next game. The Indy trip is next week... I wonder what will happen first?

Not too much energy left for this week. Treading water. Love, Leah

Rollpak has been sold

Well folks, we are finally allowed to share what all of the heart of Tony's busyness has been about. Rollpak has been sold to Berry Plastics. I know... quite a shock for you all I'm sure. It's been knowledge that has really been a burden to bear without being able to share with our closest family and friends due to the strict confidentiality requirements. This process originally started last Fall. We learned of it at the beginning of December. A short time later Dave left and Tony has been incredibly busy ever since; trying to do all of the "normal" work stuff and trying to work with preparing the numerous financial information that prospective buyers have requested over the last few months. Wednesday of this week was the actual closing of the sale of Rollpak. It is with very mixed emotions that those employees say good-bye to the founders of Rollpak and welcome a new, much larger company to steer their ship. The majority of the employees found out about the sale this past Monday. ...Really, it would have been a blessing NOT to know about all of this until most of the questions one would have, would actually have an answer. Of course the biggest fear was that it would be sold to another company that makes can liners, a pretty normal assumption really. If that was the case most likely all of the administrative staff would have most likely been let go and the factory would have been run by the parent administration. A lot of prayers went up for Rollpak the last 5-6 months. Berry Plastics makes a very LARGE amount of plastic bottles etc, etc, etc. They are a 3.1 billion dollar company and employ around 14,000 around the USA. They have chosen to leave Rollpak as it is ... just changing the name to Berry Plastics and leaving Rollpak as the "brand name"... just like "Ziplock" would be a brand name of their manufacturer. For more information on Berry, you can go to http://www.berryplastics.com/ . There is a press-release about their purchase of Rollpak on the right hand side of their home page that was posted yesterday.

Tony met the new owners this week and last night there was a dinner at the Blue Gill for the management team and their spouses to meet the new owners. I have to say that they are extremely nice, warm and likable people. Two of the wives were there and they certainly seemed like normal, down to earth people who were easy to talk to. The chairman and CEO was there. It will be so different now with a HUGE company. I'll probably never lay eyes on him again. Their home base is in Evansville, IN. They had several "toasts" throughout the evening. More than once people thanked Tony for all of the many hours he has put in and for what a great job he has done. I thought that was very nice and made him feel appreciated. Between Monday and Tuesday of this week, he had already worked 37 hours, re-taking their inventory and preparing up to date financial information for the closing on Wednesday. I don't even work that much in 1 week!! He's too old to be pulling all-nighters and he is definitely feeling it. He didn't look so good when he headed out this morning. I think our vacation should have been for this next week instead of last week.

So, my worry is that this "secret" will offend people because they didn't know about it. Please, please, please don't feel this way. It truly was something that we wish we wouldn't have had to know about. It was very difficult at the Christmas party this year for Tony, to look around at these friends and colleagues and wonder if any of them would have a job in a few months. We wanted so terribly to share with you; for me it was actually painful not to be able to share... us women gain strength from talking things out with others! In a way it made us rely on God all the more... for controlling the anxiety and giving us reassurances that everything would be OK, no matter the outcome. I guess all things are opportunities to grow closer to Christ.

Well, I know this has been very long. I would have loved to call each of you up and told you in person one by one but that's probably not practical and certainly this is one way that I get to tell each of you the facts myself instead of hearing it through the grapevine. So, for those of you that have prayed for Tony and his job without knowing any of the specifics, I truly thank you and please know that your prayers were and are coveted. We still have many unknowns about what his job will be like from now on but we feel secure that he still will have a job and that reassurance has been a blessing.

My love to each of you, Leah