The past week has been tough; it always is when a loved one is in the hospital. The post below is a rerun from 2013 and it’s similar to what I’m going through now. This is a great reminder of what’s really important, even when work is swirling out of control or we’ve had a bad day at the office.
It’s usually not a good thing when the phone rings before 8:00 am. Mom sounded nervous, telling me she didn’t feel well. Hubby and I raced her to the doctor, and then to the ER. Losing feeling and movement in any part of your body is not good.
Tests were started in the ER and when it was determined her condition was stable, we transferred to a room and waited while they took more tests. And waited, and waited….
The waiting seemed so long. My only solace was texting Hubby who had gone to work, or watching TV, scrolling through Facebook or playing solitaire. I had rushed out of the house that morning with just my handbag and phone; thank goodness I had a charger with me.
The good news is that her hand showed improvement within hours. Bad news is that this happened on a Friday and weekends are definitely not a good time to be in a hospital – ask anyone who’s been there. Skeleton staff makes it almost impossible to get tests done and read. Not sure why they don’t have a full team that works weekends too. Illness doesn’t take a holiday.
More good news; mom is improving and is now at our house. Her hand, while not 100%, continues to show signs of improvement. Tests revealed no major issues. This was clearly a fluke, and she was lucky.
I had lots of time to think during those days in the hospital. Too much time, in fact. Thinking about mom, wondering how I’m going to help her without taking independence away; how am I going to “not worry” about her? It’s sobering to realize that her life – my life – changed with one phone call.
What I didn’t think about during this time was work. Funny how that happens. I had worked late for three nights leading up to this, completely stressed-out about things. While I was sitting in the hospital, I honestly couldn’t tell you what I had been working on that week or why it had seemed so important.
A phone call, that’s all it took to get perspective. Suddenly I would have given anything to simply be stressed out from work. That would be easy. Sitting in a hospital with your loved one is not.
There’s not even any hospital drama or shenanigans like you see on Grey’s Anatomy. At least that would have been a distraction! Where’s a hot doctor when you need one? And the Grey’s Anatomy hospital seems to be fully staffed every day and at all hours. Hardly real-life.
So what’s my point? I guess I don’t really have a fun business story today. Except to say that wherever you are in your career – happy with work, not happy, laid off and looking – remember to keep work in perspective. It’s important, but other things are more important.
One phone call is all it takes to change your life in an instant. And trust me, you won’t care anymore about work, the stress, the pay, the coworkers, the clients – anything.
Like Tami, I was terminated once (By my best friend, BTW – he is now on the board of the agency I lead, so I got him back – ha!), but you don’t have to be unemployed to learn something from this book. 
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