Day 6 of the Blog-a-Thon
Add love and kids. Let simmer all day. Enjoy 🙂
Are you ready for Christmas?
Day 5 of the Blog-a-Thon
Day 3 of #getitout
Are you ready for Christmas?
7 Days until Christmas and 12 days until my surgery. Everyone keeps asking “Are you ready for Christmas? Do you have all your shopping done?” I wonder how we got here? Where Christmas turned into a mad frenzy of go here, go there, buy, buy, buy.
Doing it a little different
This year we’re having a relaxed Christmas. We are not having the big traditional spread. Big traditional spread means we work harder and longer to prepare enough food to feed our extended family and 3 more of equal size. We then eat leftovers until we can’t stand it. Why? Seems really wasteful, not just of money and food, but of time with the family that we’ve traveled to see.
We’re taking our kitchen time and trading it in for some floor time with the kids, maybe a nap or a walk in the snow together. Seems to me like a no brainer. (If you don’t really like your family anyway, this plan won’t work for you.)
So yeah, I’m ready for Christmas. Ready for eggnog and playing with new toys that are the best ever, at least until next week. Ready to relax and enjoy my family.
Now, am I ready for day 12? NO. But with 12 days to get things together, I will be.
I have a plan
Day 1: Kitchen cabinets -seems like a silly place to start, but I’m use to my kitchen, I’m comfortable with it. But today, Day 1 is cleaning (sorting and organizing more than cleaning) the kitchen. Of all the things I don’t let go of freely, control of my kitchen is high on the list.
But when you’re physically not able to do things for yourself, you have no other choice but to let go.
I was surprised the first time I had this surgery. I was certain I’d just have a day or two in bed and be able to enjoy the rest. I had a much longer recovery time and I wasn’t ready for letting others help me as much as I needed.
Organizing my cabinets lets me surrender control easier. After a conversation with Jennifer Hollander, an organizing professional, I felt much better about tackling the days ahead. She said that people don’t know how or where to start and then get overwhelmed and quit before they begin. She told me to take it in little chunks.
Chunk one – the kitchen.
The Current Situation
Day 4 of the Blog-a-Thon
Day 2 of #getitout
The Current Situation:
So here I am again, one side filled with stones. We knew they wouldn’t stay clean, but I was really hoping for a longer time in between.
I‘ve been passing stones again, and it’s sucking the life out of me. Remember the “I can’t do that” declaration? I can’t / won’t just take pain meds and be zoned out. After evaluation, the doctor and I have decided that a repeat of the previous procedure is necessary.
I will be undergoing this procedure on Dec 30. I’m sharing this not for sympathy, but for growth. Talking about pain is not easy for me. I am one of the best at faking not being in pain, but this is the true reason I am doing the blog-a-thon.
I will be chronicling my journey to prepare for and undergo this event. I have several friends who, like me, don’t discuss their health. It’s almost taboo. I also have friends that turned to social media in times of pain and distress. I am attempting to explore the latter.
Please connect
So do you get kidney stones? Are you a doctor or nurse or somehow in the medical field? Have you used social media to find support? I want to talk to you. Tweet me, Facebook me, or just comment here. (If sending an e-mail or fb request please tell me who you are.)
Don’t forget to follow the other bloggers in the blog-a-thon, and let me know if you want to join us, I will add you to the list!
The History:
Day 3 of the Blog-a-Thon
Day 1 of #getitout
The History:
Kidney stones. Ever had one? If you have you would not wish them on your WORST enemy. I get them. Plural. I get them a lot! You see I have Medullary sponge kidney disease.
Meaning? Means my kidneys are stone formers. When this really hit me, it was sudden. I thought I was dying for sure. That first one passed ok. (<– That is relative. It still hurt like hell.) They got bigger and more frequent. The doctor told me my scans looked like I had been hit with buckshot in both kidneys.
Standard Treatment
I was offered medication to comfort me. (Knock me out and keep me from losing my lunch.)
In tears I followed my doctor out of the room and begged him to fix me.
I can’t do that
At the time I was passing 3-6 stones a month. They took anywhere from 2 days to a week to move through and get out. He contacted come colleagues in other cities and offered me a solution that involved open kidney surgery and the equivalent of a medial dust buster. They were just going to suck them out. This option was not a good one and he knew it. It was really risky and he knew with my condition that I would be right back to full kidneys within 2-5 years.
He cared enough to find a solution
After talking to more colleagues, he came back with a different idea and one that could be done right here in Evansville. I would not have to travel to a larger city. They proposed a ureteroscopy with lazer lithotripsy to be done. This is a “standard treatment” for stones, but only when they are in the ureter. They proposed that they extend the ureteroscope up into the kidneys. They would then go up into each of the 5 or so pockets in the kidneys and blast the stones away.
The happy ending…
I underwent this procedure with great success. I was mostly stone free and after a longer than I expected recovery, I felt like a 100% new person. Amazing how good you feel when your kidneys have room to actually work! <– That was a little over 2 years ago…
Let’s get REAL
No seriously. I am a real person on twitter. I love to have conversations on facebook. I talk about a variety of things in my life, not just about my business. But I have a few “off the wall” subjects. These are things I hold to as private and I just don’t feel the need to share.
One of these topics is health. I don’t with the exception of my toe, which was not thought out, tweet or post about my health. I might mention a cough or a headache, but not much else.
So here goes. I am getting real. Real personal for me. I am going to take the next 30-45days to do a few different things.
I am going to blog daily. This is a technique I have seen others use or suggest to help build the blogging habit and to help overcome the fear of content creation. *I encourage you to join me in this 30 day blogathon. You can blog about whatever you want! I am going to need the reading material! J
I am going to blog and tweet about a health matter from the point of the patient. So Medical fields are more and more jumping into the world of Twitter, Facebook, and youtube to get better connected with their patients. But here is the thing; patients have been here for a long time. They find each other and use Social Media as a world wide support system. For the next 30-45 days I am going to actively seek and have conversations with other people that are going through the same or similar situations, as well as doctors in general and doctors in the field, nurses and researchers.
I am going to try to keep a good attitude. <– That is not a promise, just a goal. This is going to be a tough journey for me physically. But mentally to open up and share what I
am going through is going to be just as tough. My friend Stacey Shanks who teaches Yoga is always encouraging me to stretch. I in turn am making her stretch mentally. So now it is time for me to do as I say and hit the downward dog with my brain. Because she is doing the Blog-a-thon with me , it will be easier to keep the attitude in check.
I am going to encourage others. I am going to challenge others to do this blog-a-day with me to be a better writer. I’m going to post tips, tricks, recommend books and tweeple to help us all get through this process.
Please comment on this and let me know if you want to join me (include your twitter handle and a url to your blog.) I will update this post with the people who are on this journey with me.
Name Blog
Stacey Shanks www.YogaAndLife.com
Zachary Long www.fenglongphoto.com/blog
Shanna Hall www.healthyfitandsexy.com
Bonnie Schnautz www.brenewed.com
Blog-a-thon
“The more frequently you write, the faster you’ll improve, and the stronger you’ll get.” (from Copyblogger)
- I need to get better at writing
- I need to be a better blogger
- I am so not inspired to write
- I don’t have enough ideas
- I don’t have enough time
If you want to be a blogger, but hid behind the excuse cloud, you can come out now. It’s ok. I will be right here with you.
That quote from Copyblogger is from a post in which he compares it to going to the gym.
I am going to get more specific and say aerobics class. We have all been there. Decided to go to aerobics and there is this cute little instructor that seriously worries you that her legs are going to snap if she starts jumping around. But then she does and so does everyone else. And you feel like a fish trying to dace at a performance of the NYC Ballet. Everyone else knows the moves and you… you’re just a cod standing there with your sweats on.
Ok. So the good news is that I am the one with the sweats on. I might be here all by myself. But you are welcome to jump on in here with me. And if you do, you won’t be alone. We will all be looking at that skinny instructor together and wondering if her legs are going to snap.
So take the 30 day blog a day blog-a-thon challenge with me. It is about building a habit, being creative and having people here to encourage and support you while you do it. Are you with me?
Hello world!
Welcome to your WordPress site hosted by Wurv.com. You can delete this post, of just start posting!
Company Policy
Guest Blogger today:
Janet Laane Effron ( @janet_frg )
She is a Managing Principal of the Four Rivers Group where she works to support businesses and educational groups in the selection and implementation of processes & technologies to enable organizational learning and informational management.
Company Policy
I was asked, recently, about the advisability of including the Blog function in a Sharepoint implementation. The answer to that lies in a question, the same primary question that needs to be asked if your business is looking Twitter, Yammer, an in-house wiki, or a host of other Social Media tools. The question is a simple one:
Is it your company policy to hire stupid people?
I’m guessing the answer to that question is “no”; that your HR policy is to hire talented, capable, highly motivated professionals who want to excel in their careers. Assuming that is the case, then there are some other questions to consider:
Do you want to leverage the talents of your workforce to achieve the greatest business results?
Do you want employees to have access to the best in-house knowledge to support their performance?
Do you want to increase efficiency and productivity?
In this case, I’m guessing the answer is “yes”.
So, if you’ve hired intelligent, motivated adult professionals, maybe you need to let them be just that. Given the opportunity, it is likely a good portion of them will have expertise and insight that they want to share. And if that expertise is shared on an in-house blog or wiki, then that means the next time someone needs input or advice they’ll be able to track down the experts in the business instead of taking Hobson’s Choice, merely asking the person at the water cooler or in the office down the hall. And as questions get asked, it’s good odds that more and more of the most needed information will end up on your blog or wiki so that the experts only have to put it out there once, not in twenty separate conversations. More efficient for the information seekers; more efficient for the information sources.
Now, of course it is not that simple. It’s easy to fritter away time on blog posts, micro-blogging or wikis. It’s easy to spend too much with social media and not enough time on projects. But you and the rest of your organization face this already, with phone calls, email, the internet, impromptu conversations in the hallway…. Wasting time is a product of people and the company culture, not of tools.
In the same way, success of Social Media tools will also hinge on your business culture. If you have a culture of information hoarding, or of viewing “failure” as worse than inaction, then the best tools in the world will not be effective in leveraging the knowledge and talents of your employees. Because, as was said before, your employees aren’t stupid. They’ll contribute and innovate in direct proportion to what your corporate culture really values.
Building Brand Advocates
This article is featured in this month’s Evansville Business Journal.
How does a company build its presence on social media on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedln? What are your customers most interested in: what you say about your company or what your friends and their friends say? Kyle Lacy, author of “Twitter Marketing for Dummies,” often says, “I don’t care about your clients. I care about their friends:’ 
How do you find and empower brand advocates? Start from within. Your best and most loyal brand advocates are sitting across the cubicle from you. Stand up look over the cubicle wall and say “Hello” to your next brand advocate. Wait, she’s not in sales! He’s not part of the management team! He doesn’t deal directly with customers! However, who are his friends? Or her friends’ friends?
Companies across the nation are scrambling to find and create ways for their brand advocates to show themselves and endorse their brand or product. The companies that do it best start from within. They don’t hire a single person to do all their social media. It is a team effort, built with a strong foundation in goals and strategic planning. Part of that foundation is relying upon the very men and women who make up the work force of the company to tell the story like it is. Today’s customers can spot a smooth campaign. They will trust an authentic voice – from you and your employees. Customers appreciate real engagement, with real people, in real companies.
Your employees are your biggest brand advocates. When you remind them that you believe in them, they will want to tell others they believe in you. Not only that, your employees will be more loyal and dedicated to you, their work and your company.
Put goals, policy and strategy in place before implementing any social media programs. Thorough training is essential for everyone involved so all will advocate well. After these tasks are complete, you start the process of building your advocate base.
Empower advocates from within your company ranks for your social media. The stronger relationships you build with your employees and your customers will position you to engage in the 21 st century. Oh, and it will build your bottom line sales numbers, too. EBJ
A Community Comes Together
This year, the farmers market, downtown received quite a bit of social media chatter early on in the year for having a larger variety of vendors.
Last month, one of those vendors was asked to leave based on the product that they sold. The reasons that they were asked to leave in many people’s eyes were not valid reasons based out of perhaps ignorance for the products. 
The owner, who had established a local e-mail database, sent out a notice regarding their situation, ending it with a call to action asking GAGE to do something about it.
That chatter quickly changed and suddenly the downtown farmers market exploded all over social media. I saw several blogs regarding the situation. One in particular was written by a newcomer to Evansville who utilizes her blog, twitter and Facebook very effectively. Through the power of social media, the particulars surrounding the circumstance of this farm being removed from the farmers market became known to a large number of people. Those people started talking, and spread that news very rapidly. (See her blog here – With updates)
This news struck a chord of emotion with those people who frequent the farm, with those people who appreciated the product, and with people who’d never even been there; based on principle.
My point is this: a well-written blog, circulated amongst the followers of that blog, that is also
promoted across multiple platforms (a link to it was place on twitter and Facebook) can have an extraordinary impact on a community.
Community can mean:
- a small micro area such as your downtown area
- a certaingroup of people like environmentalists
- people who are traditionally stereotyped
- the planet we live on and ourselves as a whole race
No matter the size or scope of your community
you have the ability to change it.
I remember thinking when I was growing up:
“How can I change the world?”
Thanks to the power of blogs, cross-platform social media, and our tendency as humans to truly want to help one another, a single person with a small physical voice can translate that voice to words and change the world. YOU have the power, you can change it.
So tell me, how are you going to change the world?