Fates Uncertain Future

The career search continues and many of you know I have turned down full-time jobs that didn’t feel right. And, I have also been debating the direction I should take. Many of my fellow patients have told me to become an advocate and help families get appropriate care since I am so good at translating science into “human speak.” I would love to be a patient advocate but during my illness I also learned physicians and other medical professionals do not always get appropriate information about diseases – especially those which are not always connected. But then again I love my roots of patient education (developing programs to educate patients about cancer, diabetes, AIDS, and other illnesses) as well as public relations and working with the media.

So today I had another job interview for a contract position. It sounded interesting and was back in my field of healthcare public relations. The job is like many I have done before and has a bit of a twist that could make it more interesting to me since it also involves medical education (many of you probably do not know your docs are required to get education every year to retain their positions). This is a field I would love to learn more about and add to my portfolio of patient education and public relations. With knowledge in all of these areas I could develop programs and/or foundations that would really make a difference in medical treatment in America. I would be able to build stronger partnerships between the medical, patient, media and other communities that currently exist in silos. As we all know, there are relationships between PR people and companies, companies and professional organizations, medical professionals and companies and last but not least patients and medical practitioners. Bringing all of these communities together would benefit us all and bring healthcare treatment and prevention to a whole other level. This is where I feel we need to go to make Americans live longer and healthier lives.

I have also had feedback from journalists and television producers to become part of their team since I am such a “critical thinker” and someone who can see the big picture and bring it down to mattering to people like you. I have always dreamed of this and am trying to place my own bylined articles in several publications. It is under consideration by some very prominent magazines now and I am just waiting on the actual results. And if you have been reading, I am being considered for a national cable station segment on my disease and the struggle to return to normal afterwards. I should hear in the next week or so! I truly hope this happens as it would be good for so many people out there suffering as well as for me to feel great about myself (who doesn’t want a makeover). Besides, it may give others hope and get others to seek treatment when they don’t know where to start other than they do not feel well.

More to the point, the fact this job would pay the bills and it may also offer me the opportunity to broaden my experience and work with the medical community on a variety of levels. I love to learn new things and apply what I already know to make things better. If you approach life not wanting to learn new things how does one know their true purpose in life – besides it is boring to stay in a rut just because you are good at something. I am looking for something new and shiny to use what I have learned through my own personal struggles to better medical care and information available to doctors and the public. Perhaps this project is not the one that will make a huge difference immediately but over time I think projects like this will open the debate and improve healthcare as a whole.

Anyway, as you know the past few months of deciding what to do next has been full of confusion and something I have handed over to fate. Which I have to say, fate, sounds a bit confused right now since I have had offers across the board. Those offers have range from starting my own business; becoming a partner to build a practice for a company; becoming a patient advocate (one who helps families understand disease and their options of treatment); public relations; going back to school to become a medical professional; and possibly developing my own foundation to help people post-illness regain their lives. All of which excite me. I do know I plan to go back to college to pursue some type of medical education which can help me do one of these jobs better or start a new career.

So, I’m writing my proposal for this job and ideas are flowing like an exploded pen. I can’t seem to get them out fast enough. I do like to push the envelope with my ideas, let’s just hope they agree that sometimes to communicate you need to be a devil’s advocate. But, I do know I will leave it up to fate as to which direction I should go…through my illness I have learned I can not control everything in my life and to just go with it…perhaps this is the opportunity I have been looking for; one to use my current skill set and also learn some new tricks!

I’ll let you know what fate decides when I hear about this project next week. Keep your fingers crossed and have a great weekend!

PS – As a reminder to you all this is more a train of thought writing exercise and about my personality than about true journalistic writing…

Renewed Hope and New Career...

I have come to some conclusions this past week...many of you know I was close enough to a nervous breakdown to know that I don't want one! I was really upset with my career not accepting the fact I had a serious illness and was still the same brain that performed so many great deeds for them before. Instead they gave me excuses like getting sick again or I might not want to come back to the office...of course I do otherwise I would not be trying so hard! That on top of not being able to go to the doctor when I was sick and not being able to run (literally) out my stress was killing me and just adding to the pile. So I turned off the last three days of last week and took some "me" time to decide my future because trying to do everything was not getting me anywhere. In fact it was probably making me sick!

So I am signing up for COBRA; at least I will have insurance. Hopefully I won't need to use it but at least I know if I have a crisis I can go and be taken care of and figure out how to best treat my body! I am also getting back into exercise with some inspiration on some new running shoes courtesy of my best man! I have also run across some new information about “patient advocates” that help people manage their health crises and get a better life after – one they deserve. It really is not a far stretch since part of my job was patient education and outreach (with a marketing twist of course). I think this is my calling and one job where I won’t feel like a job everyday while helping people who really need it. My focus is now to find companies or start one to help people deal with doctors, understand their diagnosis and treatment options, and whatever other knowledge I can muster to give them.

While I have been sick I have been trying to help others and the little thank you emails and calls are worth the hours of listening and trying to help. Now I just need to figure out how I can earn a living helping others; not be rich just make money enough to pay the bills and feed myself. Perhaps the stars will align properly this time and I will get the job of my dreams helping other people and come home everyday feeling like I am doing the right thing. One of my friends told me if I can’t find it I should build it – maybe she is right but I think for the moment I will take the easier route than trying to build it. Once I have the money I would love to build a foundation to help people in the same manner.

Anyway, I feel like I am headed in the right direction now and perhaps I won’t be beating my head against the wall trying to be someone I am not anymore…

Here is an article that explains it all in more detail…http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/diseases/articles/2006/05/01/for_when_a_doctor_and_a_nurse_just_arent_enough?p1=email_to_a_friend