HELLO again everyone, I’m so glad to see you back today. My name is Linda Frame.
As you know, if you’ve followed my blog, I am an Entrepreneur and post everyday a few words of encouragement and sometimes I have a story to share with you that will help you see you are not alone. Oops, I see where your thoughts are going first, what’s an Entrepreneur & can I even trust you since I don’t know you, or even heard of your before. Those are all great questions, so let me answer them for you, but to first ‘clear the air’ about who I am.
I’m a career long RN – Registered Nurse and spent the majority of my career working in the emergency room & the trauma unit. Yeah, all that “gross” stuff, but I stayed there a long time because my work as an RN came from my heart & not my bank account. Frankly there isn’t enough money in the world to pay someone for the work RN’s do. So, rest assured I stayed and did the work only from my heart. Now, I have phased out of ER & still do some urgent care work, but my passion has been refocused on YOU. You say, why me I’m not sick, I’m fine! I’m sure you are, physically, but, are you emotionally? We’ll come back to that question in just a moment……..
I was in an accident quite a while back and after a two week hospital stay and surgeries for multiple fractures and injuries. that kept me home for a very long time for recovery and rehabilitation. Now I share this with you not for pity, but for understanding of how I could possibly understand what someone with adversities are going through. Well, we’ll come back to this point also in just a minute……..
Now I mentioned I’m an entrepreneur and yes I am. So what does an entrepreneur – a business owner and a nurse whose had an accident, have to do with you? You say to yourself: well, “I’m fine, not sick, sorry to hear about your accident. that’s nice for you to have a business but I don’t see why you’re here telling me this”.
As I briefly indicate in my opening sentences, I will be here everyday posting this blog to share encouragement through words to you or an occasional short story. These are meant to speak to your heart and soul about things we generally do not share with our family, our spouses, our children and many times not even to our BFF, our best friend.
So if a particular topic of the day here doesn’t suit you, or as I like to say: “speak to you”, that’s fine maybe tomorrows message will. Just remember, I speak only from my heart through whom I have become, as a person, from the adversities I have have faced throughout my life. I speak from my heart as a nurse who has experienced a lifetime of witnessing adversities individuals have gone through. I speak from my heart as a patient, an individual who has faced adversities daily. I also speak as an entrepreneur who has made and grown very successful businesses from an embarrassing and humiliating negative bank balance, into a lucrative lifestyle no one ever thought I could do by myself, but have.
So, WELCOME, here we go with today’s thoughts about adversities, some call challenges, hurdles, road blocks, bumps in the road. What ever fits your case today, lets talk about it.
Now, yesterday I talked about “Why does everything have to go wrong??” Part One. I talked about how some people seem to stumble under pressure where as others strive and many times do their best work under pressure. Now once again, people who handle pressure better than others acquire this ability by a “learned” behavior and not any sort of genetic super cell. If you are one who does not handle pressure or negative situations well, there’s nothing wrong with you at all, pressure and negative situations have just not been your strong suit. We all have things we do well and for those areas that need a little help, that is when we need to support one another.
For now, let’s get to the story. I’m about to share with you how MY life took a very unexpected turn and how I went from a positive world to a negative within seconds. I am also going to share with you how I handled all the obstacles and why. Will it be a bit graphic, well probably, after all I am a nurse from a life of ER work and we seem to forget to leave out the messy stuff sometimes. However, remember I am not sharing this story for any pity, instead I’m sharing this with the hope of helping at least one of you reading this, to know that you are not alone.
THE FOLLOWING IS A TRUE STORY:
As you know, I’m a career nurse working 3 jobs: one full time in nursing & a second part time, which I called my fun job to help with the bills, as a licensed bartender on the large excursion boats for tourists and charters, for the Cruise Line, locally here on our beautiful lake in Lake Geneva, WI. In addition, I have a third job as a legal nurse consultant where I work with attorneys on medical cases-as needed. I had a great time with the balance in my life of three professional areas that utilized most of my experience and skills, and I loved to stay busy which I was everyday of the week.
The 5th of September, last year, at my “fun” job, I went to begin the preparation for the bar set up with one of the essentials – ice, I mean what’s a drink without ice, right? I stepped in the large Ice room and at the very moment I stepped in there, my life, as I knew it, changed in an instant……….
I found my self sort of half lying and half sitting on the floor, realizing I was feeling the most horrific pain I’ve ever ever experienced in my life. Now when you’re at the doctors they ask you what your pain level is from 1-10? Well mine was honestly 48+……… I looked at my legs and the right one was in different directions. Now as an ER nurse, I knew that wasn’t right and instinctively reached out with my left hand and re-aligned my right leg. The horrific pains got worse and worse, but where else, where was my right arm and hand? Oh, my right arm and hand were behind me, so I pulled my right hand/arm out around me. Now this part may be a TMI moment (too much information) for you, but I knew that my hand was not suppose to hang like that, nor was my arm suppose to look like that either. I’ll just say my quick assessment results were there was nothing about my right hand, wrist and arm that looked right at all. I again, instinctively when I saw it, put immediate support under my hand, wrist (well where it was suppose to be) & forearm, with my left hand/arm. Even with this horrific pain, I did mutter some un-ladylike excerpts I won’t repeat but I think you may have done the same.
From this point, I yelled for help, which came instantly, then the next while, days or so, was pretty fuzzy for a while. First, there were a lot of people, voices of those trying to help me when I fell and everything seemed to move in s l o w m o t i o n for me, until I heard a familiar voice right at my left ear, it was my brother. At that moment, I was hearing in present time again, he told me: “Linda, it’s bad, it’s really bad”….. Well, that confirmed what I thought too as a nurse, but it’s always good to have another opinion.
Now why was my brother there? He also worked at the Cruise Line like he has for the past 52 years: he’s the Captain of the Mailboat and he was just getting ready to leave, or actually, back the boat out for the mail jumping tour, when the office notified him of my fall. I really appreciated his calm, re-asurring, and honest voice., but I knew the “mail must go through” and on time when delivered on the lake to the piers. I told him to go ahead and go and get the mail delivered.
Now the fuzzy journey really started again, the EMS ride to the hospital they said, had to stop and get paramedics to come on for severe pain medications. The Emergency Room which they said seemed like an eternity of waiting, IV’s, x-rays and a lot of them, then hospital admission, most all of which I don’t fully remember too much of except a lot pain. the next several days were pretty blurred.
Overall, I spent 2 weeks in the hospital, had a right leg with fractures, right hand, wrist fractures and right forearm with both of those bones fractured. I had trauma surgery by a wonderful hand specialist who came down from Milwaukee with his team and another week of hospital stuff before finally being able to go home.
So, why in the world am I sharing this gory drama with you? Now that I was home by myself, is when all reality began to set in. Here’s the “why me” road signs I was to turn at, we all do right? I certainly had every reason to, right? Did I turn down that “why me” road?? No I did not, because I realized that I could not. Why? Well, I am not a super woman either, but I had to make a choice. I had to choose to either play the woe is me sympathy card because I can’t walk, I can’t use my dominant hand / arm. OR, I had to choose to heal. Why, when I have everything going against me would I decide to be strong and take some sort of action? I had to, I am self supporting, I own a home with a mortgage, I have all sorts of home utility bills, I have a car, I have many other expenses, but the most tragic, I lost not one, but all 3 of my income producing jobs, plus I had a wonderful dog of 17.5 years with a serious medical disorder that required daily care.
First of all, of course you may have guessed, this was a workers compensation injury because it happened at work. Great, so I’ll get compensated for being layed up and unable to work. That’s what I thought too, we all did, however, I didn’t realize I was in only in the early stages of the many hurdles that were going to be dropping in front of me.
It turned out that workers compensation did not compensate me, the bills kept coming in and by the second month I still had not received anything. Now I don’t need to tell any of you out there what happens by the end of the second month of not paying any bills or mortgage, as to what happens, of course the phone starts ringing off the hook. Bills continue to flood in to the point of being so emotionally overwhelmed I retained an attorney to handle workers compensation issues. Medical bills weren’t being paid, mortgage not being paid, utilities, creditors 3 months overdue by now, still unable to get around very well, and then, the most tragic situation hit: my precious dog Lexie, died. Lexie, was the one constant, reliable, loving and unconditional being I had and bless her heart, at 17.5 years old, she couldn’t hold on any longer. Some of you may not understand, but my world at that moment just went black.
So, you see everyone and yes everyone has issues, hurdles, unexpected things, those things that seem to explode all at once and change your life. Big or small it does not matter because when it happens to YOU, it’s big and WHY does it happen that when something does go wrong, it keeps going wrong with more and more hurdles. You get to the point, and I’m sure someone out there can agree, you do not want to get up, you can’t get up, why get up because something else will just go wrong! If you don’t think so, let’s check this out: Accident happened = multiple injuries, surgery, hospital stay. Lost all 3 jobs = unable to work, unable to get around, having trouble caring for myself. Mortgage company and creditor calls = workers compensation not paying me, I can’t pay bills, I don’t have food. Medical bills piling up = workers compensation not paying me OR the medical bills. Additional surgeries = complications occur from the first ones, more medical bills. I’m told by both surgeons I still have more surgeries pending & will be out of work probably a total of 8 months to a year. Attorneys hired = more expenses to owe. My dog died.
These my friends are the highlights and the greater detail is not necessary because you’ve gone through these things yourself and know what it’s like. But what in the world do you do when you’re in a situation similar to this??? YOU MAKE A DECISION, YOU MAKE CHOICE and YOU TAKE ACTION.
We ALL HAVE A CHOICE in our lives. We can choose to cry and be negative or we can choose to get up and make something happen, a positive action. Even when your life changes “in an instant”, there comes a point when you must decide what happened, what needs to be done and what you have left to get it done with. This awareness which some call ‘taking assessment’. is being responsible or taking responsibility for yourself. Of course again, you can be negative about the entire mess, OR, you can surround yourself with positive minded, encouraging people, and absorb the positive energy, and make the decision to take massive action for yourself and by yourself.
You have to stand strong while you’re going through the struggles of life, you must “hang in there’, as the saying goes. You must surround yourself with positives. Fill your life with positive people, positive music, positive books and positive situations. Stay away from negatives and negative people, let them go. Positives make you feel better, and as you feel better the inner depression loses its grip on you, so fight it.
While you are already down, take a long honest look at your life as you knew it before the incident happened to you that changed your life. Were you happy? Are you happy? Are you doing in life the things that make you smile, laugh and can’t wait to get your day going again? Then ask yourself: why, why are you doing what you don’t want to do? Why are you doing or working somewhere that makes you miserable? That is not living your life. You do realize, I hope, you only have one shot at this, you’re only given ONE life and this is it. So if you’re not happy where you’re at or not happy while doing the job you have, you need to ask yourself WHY?? You have heard this phrase, haven’t you:
“Working hard for something we don’t care about, is called stress. Working hard for something we love, is called passion”……..
You have to fight through the bad days in order to earn the best days, it’s hard but worth it. You have to also believe that you WILL make it to the other side of this hardship, this adversity. One day, you will look back with much wiser eyes, deeper understanding and with much gratitude because of all that you have learned and grown from. Make a choice in YOUR life, live your passion in YOUR life, and do not put it off because YOUR life can change in an instant………
See you back here tomorrow…
