Strategic Discipline Blog

My journey through Acute Myeloid Leukemia continues with the second segment from CANCER CURED - Chapter II Life Insurance.

(See CANCER CURED – What do You Feed? CANCER CURED - Fear Not - TURNING POINT, CANCER CURED – What is Worry? For Chapter I.

 Texting

At night, in the hospital after my cancer diagnosis, I try to sleep. At about 2 am, Michelle and I begin texting. We send a flurry of messages. It’s the first time I recall using texting. Michelle and I share our fears, the questions we have. Tears fill my eyes as I message her. I try to provide hope, yet the unknown -- the fear of what’s ahead, more so for her, and my family, the overwhelming anxiety of not knowing if I can provide for them adequately through this -- leads me to despair. “I’m so sorry Michelle! I can’t believe this is happening to us. What are we going to do? How are we going to survive through this? I love you so much, Michelle. I’m sorry, you didn’t sign up for this!” I have an overwhelming need to feel like I’m taking care of my family. It’s my pride, something that my father instilled in me, and made me recognize as my ultimate responsibility.

Michelle’s responses are short yet confirming. Between my tears of fear and love, I feel I have someone who is listening, someone whom I can share my feelings with, someone I can feel supports me and wants the same outcome I do. At least I’m not alone in this struggle. It’s our darkest hour, yet having someone to share it with feels infinitely better than being alone. At perhaps the most challenging moment in our marriage, I realize now, it is possibly the closest I ever felt to Michelle. At that moment I feel her love, her listening to me in a way I can never recall before. I feel she is with me in the hospital room despite the loneliness, fear, and anxiety I have. I feel her loneliness, she feels mine. I feel her love and sense her fear. I feel her willingness to help me with whatever it requires. It is the most empathy and compassion I have ever felt from her. And yet I’m not sure if she is feeling this or simply listening and acknowledging me.

Michelle was never able to share her feelings with me, and this is the one time I sense she is willing to reveal her greatest fear and apprehensions. I know I should reassure her. But I don’t! The gravest obstacle that fear provides is the inability to listen, to act. It starves our proactive nature. Fear is a great immobilizer. If I had the strength to surpass my fear, I would be helping Michelle overcome hers, and not be so focused on mine.  

I can only imagine what she is feeling. She never actually shares her fears, only revealing her desire to never be alone. I am unable to recognize this emotional impasse, this chasm I was unable to bridge, either due to her failure to emotionally communicate it, my selfishness, my current emotional state, or the understanding of how deep her fear was from this traumatic experience.

Unfortunately, the fear, the consequences of my illness and our difficulties in communicating widened the gap that had already been rupturing our marriage. It is probably the last time I will ever truly ever feel Michelle’s full support and love, though I don’t know it at the time.

Later the same morning, we collect my things and make the short 40-minute drive to the University of Iowa Hospital. I’m placed in a private room at UIHC on the 7^th floor, where they treat leukemia patients. All the rooms on the 7^th floor are private. This is to securely isolate each patient from infection. To make chemotherapy more effective, leukemia patients’ blood counts need to be kept low, which increases the risk of infection. Whenever I go out of my room, and frequently when family and friends visit, they, as well as I, are required to wear masks and gowns. Every precaution is taken to ensure the patient’s safety.

Perhaps it’s entering this new environment, I realize this may be my home for a significant amount of time. Possibly it’s the challenge of the situation. Whatever it is, I feel a surge of energy to meet this obstacle, both my alertness and resolve to discover a solution are awakened!

As we enter the isolation area, I recall one of the books Verne Harnish, our Rockefeller Habits coaching leader, recommended reading as part of my continuing education: The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, by Atul Gawande. It offers insights on the value of checklists. For my hospital stay, it is a cautionary warning. Gawande observes that most patients don’t die from what they initially enter the hospital for. Rather, they die from a malady picked up at the hospital.

At the time I don’t understand it, however, everything up to that point and time in my coaching, and previous experience is girding me for my journey. I had the necessary knowledge and preparation to make it through this not only unscathed but better for this experience. Michelle is the love of my life, the person I feel most dedicated to, committed to, and willing to sacrifice anything to please and avoid disappointing. I may not have completely understood what might happen due to this event, I was committed to doing whatever it required not to let Michelle or my family down and find a way to get through this. Ultimately, I trusted in God to help me discover a way.

My room is in the very first on the floor, located about 30 feet from the secure double doors that serve as the entrance to the 7^th floor. It takes about 30 minutes to check in while they make sure the room is clean, sanitized, secure and ready for my arrival. I can tell my boys, Josh and Noah, are bored, and uncomfortable with having to spend a Sunday in a hospital.

Once I settle in, I make sure to let Michelle know she can leave at any time. We discussed her schedule and when she might be able to visit before she leaves. I sense Michelle’s uneasiness. I feel she’s uncomfortable being in the hospital for this. I feel her tension in adapting to this new lifestyle. She’s never liked being alone. It makes her uneasy, fearful, a consequence, I suspect, results from having been abandoned as a child before being adopted. She spent several weeks in a hospital before her mother and father picked her up. I’ve suspected her fear of being alone stems from this.

In a normal situation, I would have done my best to reassure, comfort her, and let her know everything would be alright. In this case, I’m adjusting to my own new surroundings, and in hindsight, am not very reassuring to her before she leaves. In the moment, I’m not confident about much and unable to fully grasp how my life is going to change here in the hospital.

There’s another aspect that’s playing into my feelings. When I get sick, I’ve always preferred being alone in my misery. I can work through my illness, avoid contact with others, and prevent others from seeing how I look and how I feel. That’s how I work through being sick. Having my family leave, hoping to have the hospital staff disappear as well, I know I will feel more comfortable, and able to concentrate on getting better. At least that’s my belief system.

I’m a person who lives by routines and pays attention to detail. It takes the better part of the week for me to get comfortable, if that is possible, in the room and setting. The first week is filled with a lot of tests, I’m ushered to different floors and labs in the hospital. Aids arrive to ask about meals, medication, and my diabetes.

Challenge your team, your business, yourself. I’m Doug Wick, I’m here to challenge, inspire and ignite purpose and passion in your business!   To create an environment where everyone is inspired to give their best, contact Positioning Systems to schedule a free exploratory meeting.

Growth demands Strategic Discipline.

Next blog I continue to share Chapter II – Life Insurance. A stream of smocked white gowns enter my room the first week of my cancer journey.

Building an enduring great organization requires disciplined people, disciplined thought, disciplined action, superior results, producing a distinctive impact on the world.

Discipline sustains momentum, over a long period of time, laying the foundations for lasting endurance.

A winning habit starts with 3 Strategic Disciplines: Priority, Metrics, and Meeting Rhythms.   Forecasting, accountability, individual, and team performance improve dramatically.

Meeting Rhythms achieve a disciplined focus on performance metrics to drive growth.

Let Positioning Systems help your business achieve these outcomes on the Four most Important Decisions your business faces:

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NEXT BLOG – CANCER CURED – A Packed Room But Not Good News