Day 15 – More tests, more data…

For today’s short post I’m focusing mostly on the impressive High Tech experiences of my day.

We left home today at 5:00 AM for the the Huntsman Cancer Institute, where I had an Endoscopic Ultra Sound exam, which appears to be directed by the Thoracic Oncology Program.

Tomorrow morning we will leave at the same time, and to the same place, where I’ll have a Molecular Imaging PET / CT test.

Friday I will meet with my oncologist who will then have all the test results to work with, and we will then develop a treatment plan.

So, rather than my doing arm-chair interpretation– which is above my pay scale anyway — I’ll wait until Friday or Saturday to describe my “baseline.”

I’ll summarize by saying that, at the transactional and treatment level, I’m working with world class care-givers, despite my recent experience with “the white space on the org charts” that exists between different institutions, clinics, and labs.  Today, a patient-care assistant asked, “Norm, do you feel like a ping-pong ball this past couple of weeks?”  I replied, “Yes.”

It’s encouraging to communicate with people who can do truth-telling with grace and skill. You can always work with people who can do NCR (name, claim, reframe) with a problem.

Processes, more than people, most often create recurring performance problems.  That’s what Demming, Rummler, and other process practitioners have demonstrated for decades.

However, here’s another wry slogan on the wall behind another receptionist’s desk today, which implies how we tend to do finger-pointing when people (rather than processes) carry the brunt of performance discrepancies:

I didn’t say it was your fault.
I said I am blaming you.

I’m grateful that my care-givers are not blaming me for my cancer, and that they are working intensely to find the depth and breadth of its effect.