#2376 getting ready for a change

I have been working at home for about eight weeks now, and I learned today that I'll be working from home for the next two weeks and then transitioning back to working in the office starting June 1. The plan is for our team to work in staggered shifts for three days a week in the office and as needed, I'm sure. I'm curious to see what that will be like. 

I have been going to the office at least once a week and usually spending at least a couple of hours there. It seems to be working okay. I definitely haven't missed the drive to and from the office every day! Here at home I have been getting an earlier start at work. I'm usually logged on by 7:30. This week I was covering for a co-worker who is on vacation and I was on by 7 am. I was a little rusty in doing her job and I had a couple of long days (last night it was nearly 8 before I was finished, but I solved all kinds of problems!). I don't know that I would have been any faster at it if I had been in the office.

That's what I always think about: would I be done with this task more quickly if I was in the office? I do think that some of my tasks take a bit longer at home because I am working on a laptop with one screen instead of at my desk with two big screens and a nice ergonomic keyboard.  Overall, though, I think I have completed my work in a timely manner and done a good job. Maybe I even get more done at home because I don't wander around and chat with people LOL. 

What is amazing is how quickly I adapted and figured out how to do stuff without all the physical paperwork.  I'm sure all of my coworkers would agree that they found ways to adapt to a more electronic and paperless way of doing their jobs. It's pretty cool. I wonder if the electronic files will continue once we are back in the office or if we'll all get back to our paper-ful ways. 

Overall, Utah is continuing to re-open. Most of the state is moving to Code Yellow, meaning a low risk phase. People can assemble in groups of 50 or less. More restaurants are opening as are retail stores. Social distancing and mask-wearing is still expected and encouraged. 

There are three cities that are still in Code Orange (medium risk): Magna, West Valley, and Salt Lake City. I live in West Valley, right on the edge of Magna, and I work in Salt Lake City. I'll just keep doing what I've been doing, which is mostly staying at home and when I do go out, wear my mask. 

Speaking of masks, I just bought a couple more! I got them from Fanatics.com. One is a Utah Jazz mask and the other is a New Orleans Saints mask. I wanted a San Diego Padres mask, but I skipped it. I can add to my mask collection later if needed.  Now I will have three masks that I can rotate. I think that's good. 

Weekend plans: I don't have many. I would like to fix the barrier fence that my dad built. A couple of the boards are loose. If I can't get MT to fix it, I will give it a try my own self. I'm pretty sure MT has what I need to fix the fence right here at home. I won't go to Lowe's. That place is crazy-busy on the weekends. MT went there last Saturday and was in line to pay for an hour! 

Other than that, I've got some reading to do and languages to learn. It's supposed to be warm but windy this weekend. I don't know about a bike ride. I don't like to ride in the wind. I could definitely get out for a walk though. 

Keep staying safe! Keep washing your hands and wearing your masks.

#2087 could have been so much worse

This morning I missed a call from MT and he had sent a text that said, "Call me." Usually we don't talk much when we are working, so I knew something was happening. I immediately called him and he told me that he had fallen off a ladder at work. I asked if he was all right and he said that he was not okay and that he wanted me to meet him at home to take him to the doctor.  This conversation happened around 10 AM.

I locked my computer, grabbed my bag and headed out the door. I did tell my boss and my friends that I was going to take MT to the hospital. I was home in record time; I beat MT there. I located an urgent care near us that took our insurance and I heard the truck pull up in the driveway. I quickly went outside to see MT leaning against his truck with a look of pain in his eyes. T was with him and he looked kind of shaken up too.

MT slowly and painfully got into the car and I headed to the urgent care near our house. The waiting room was packed and we were told it would be about a 90 minute wait. MT could barely stand up on his own and he kept grimacing in pain. His knees buckled when a spasm hit his back. I decided to take him to the emergency room at the hospital down the road.

I dropped MT off at the ER door, parked the car across the street and ran - yes, I ran - back across the street and up the block to the ER. MT had made it into the waiting room but had not reached the check-in desk yet. I quickly filled out the paperwork and asked for a wheelchair for MT. I don't think I've ever seen him in that much pain, including when he broke his ankle when we were in college.

We got into a room by 11:00. There was no position that MT could be in that was comfortable. He would lie down, slowly and painfully turn himself over, get out of the bed, practically on his knees, stand up until his knees nearly gave out (scared me silly that he was going to crumple to the ground in a heap), then he would sit in a chair and repeat the rotation. The nurse did come in to check on us and let us know the doctor would be there "in a minute". That's a lie. We didn't see the doctor for like two hours.

MT was starting to freak out a little and wanted to go to a different hospital. I told him that we would be starting from scratch and that the wait time would likely be the same at another hospital. I did call the nurse and ask for some pain meds for him. I'm not sure why it took so long when the poor man was obviously in a lot of pain the first time the nurse saw him. MT took a couple of Valium then got a pain reliever and an anti-inflammatory through an IV. Those intravenous drugs worked fast. MT calmed right down and was able to sit quietly until the doctor came in. She examined him and decided to do an MRI on his head (which he bumped when he fell), his back and his chest.

Here's what happened: MT and T were working on an outbuilding for a client. MT was about four rungs up on the ladder (about four feet) and stepping onto a scaffold next to the ladder so he could take some measurements. The ladder was a bit wobbly, so when MT stepped off to the scaffold, he kind of pushed off of the ladder and it gave way. MT was caught between the ladder and the scaffold and fell flat on his back, hitting his head on the scaffold on the way down. The impact of the fall knocked the wind out of him and he said he struggled to breathe for about 30 seconds.  Then he got up and said he was done for the day and he and T left the jobsite. I think his being able to get up and get in the truck and drive home was pure adrenaline because when I saw him in the driveway and through the morning at the hospital, he was broken.

A bunch of scenarios went through my head as I was driving home and as I sat with MT in the hospital. Through it all though, the overriding thought in my head was, "He's going to be okay."

The initial result of the MRI was that there were no broken bones or torn muscles. It did, however, show a pulmonary contusion, which sounds dreadful. A bruised lung still sounds awful but less medical-y. A second MRI was ordered to focus on the lung area. That second screening came back normal. Yes, MT was in a lot of pain, but there is no long-term damage that could be identified.

#thankful

With another IV dose of pain meds on board, we left the hospital around 5:30 PM. We got some fast food to take home, since neither of us had eaten since breakfast H O U R S ago. The relief that he was okay drew out all the energy and positivity I had been holding onto all day and I was drained, physically and mentally. How is it that sitting on an airplane or hanging out in a hospital room can be so tiring? I was just sitting there but I was completely exhausted when I got home.

I picked up MT's prescriptions from the pharmacy, then I flopped down on the couch to watch some mindless TV (Queer Eye season two episode one.  Fantastic!) MT is in bed and he's been asleep for awhile. I don't know if he has taken any medicine. It's possible that the minute I drop off to sleep that he will wake up and be in pain. I've thought about sleeping in the spare room, but what if he needs something? It's my turn to help him since he helped me through two knee replacements.

To summarize:
     Always make sure the ladder is on firm ground
     Stay positive. It won't do you any good to worry about "what if". There will be time to deal with reality. Prepare yourself for the worst and always hope for the best.
      Queer Eye will help you calm down and relax. As will chips and dip and a Diet Coke. (I'm a stress eater!)
     We are going to be okay.

#1261 third Thursday: tacos and texting

The third Thursday of every month is a big day at my office. We start off the day with a department safety meeting and then the management team prepares lunch for the group. We've been doing the safety meeting part for several years, but we added the lunch this summer.

There are usually five or six of us who work on the lunch. We plan the menu, shop for the items, prepare the meal and clean up afterwards. Usually not all of us can be involved in all the parts of the meal, but we always pull it off. We've had the standard hamburgers and hot dogs, but we really like to have new and different things. There is a really nice gas grill out on the patio of the office, so when the weather is fine, we want to use it!

Today's lunch was a Mexican fiesta feast! We shopped at Rancho Market, a nice Mexican store that is close to the office. (There are several Rancho Markets in town, including one out here by my house.) We got everything there. On the menu: homemade rice and refried beans, guacamole, homemade salsa and carne asada tacos with fajita style onions and peppers, cilantro, lime and cotija cheese on corn or flour tortillas.  I took part in planning, shopping, clean up and I also got to cook the carne asada on the grill. It was easy because the steak is so thin and cooks really fast.

It was a hit! Everyone seemed to really like it and we had a lot of fun doing it, too. I'm sure there's going to come a time when we can't come up with really delicious ideas for third Thursday lunch, but we've done well so far. Other nice meals were grilled chicken sandwiches with bacon and guacamole and we also did a smoked pulled pork sandwich that was pretty spectacular.

The safety topic that was presented today was very powerful. The topic was texting while driving and I thought the presenters, Abby and Bill, did a really nice job. They started out with a hand-out that gave a bunch of statistics about the dangers of texting while driving. We read through the material, then they showed us a video that I was frankly thankful was pretty pixilated so we couldn't get a good image. It was from England or Australia and it showed four teenage girls in a car. The driver was texting and not paying much attention to the road. Her car drifted into on-coming traffic and collided with another car. In that car was a family: a mom, a dad and two little kids. The mom and dad were killed instantly. The little kids were saying, "Mummy! Daddy! Wake up!" In the texter's car, all three of her friends were killed. The driver was injured. It was horrible.

The next part of their presentation was to remind us of the reasons we should not text while driving. Everyone had given them photos of their loved ones, and the photos flashed on the screen. In between photos, they played voice messages they had collected from our families. One lady's mom left a message to her daughter. Another lady's daughters left a message for their mom. One lady's fiancee left her a message. We were all crying.

At the end we watched another video about a 19 year old guy here in Utah who was texting while driving. He was driving on a two-way highway and drifted over the center line, clipping an oncoming car, causing them to lose control and cross over into his lane. A pick-up truck pulling a trailer did not have time to avoid the car and crashed into the car, killing both passengers. The texter's actions affected four families: his own, because he was sent to prison, the families of the people that were killed and the guy who crashed into the car.

I'll tell you, I have been thinking about that presentation all day. I always have my beloved iPhone nearby when I'm driving, although I haven't texted while I was driving. I think what hit so close to home was that many of the statistics involved teenagers and since T will be driving soon, it really freaks me out. I trust that he will do the right thing and put his phone away, but like in the first video, where the girl was with her friends, the driver was not killed, but her friends were. It's a nightmare.

I told all of this to MT and T while we were eating dinner tonight. I was a sobbing, slobbery mess which I'm sure turned them off from really hearing what I was trying to say. I really can't imagine my life without either one of them and I pleaded with them to not ever text and drive. Just put the phone away. Just because we have the mobile device doesn't mean we have to deal with it every time it rings, pings or dings. We certainly didn't always answer the phone when we had a land-line. And what can you really do for someone when you are driving?

Tonight on my way home, I put my phone in my bag and put it in the back seat of my car where I couldn't reach it. I did hear it ping and buzz, but I figured whatever was going on could wait until I got where I was going (the gym!) and I could respond then, if necessary.

So I send this thought out to anyone reading this:

If you are a family member, please know that I love you very much and I would be so, so sad if anything happened to you. Please don't text and drive. Put your phone away while you are driving, please.

If you are a friend, please know that your friendship is very important to me and I care about you a lot. Please put your phone away while you are driving.

If you are just stopping by this blog because the catchy title caught your eye or because you have read some of my rambling before, thank you for reading. It's kind of thrilling to think that someone I don't even know might be a little interested in what I have to say. I know that there are people in your life that love and care about you. Please put your mobile phone away while you are driving.

Sorry to sound preachy; I try not to get too deep, but it's on my mind today and I just wanted to pass the message along.

Talk to you tomorrow!