Work and More Work

I truly love my job. Running this business is a blast for me. The part I didn't realize would be so tough sometimes is employees.

First, I don't want or expect this business to be like our competitors. All of our competitors are big corporate companies. We're the only locally owned DME company in the area. This being so, it makes it a little tough staying competitive. They have the big AHCCCS (medicaid) contracts which leaves us really focusing on the smaller ones plus of course Medicare.

What I hear from employees of the other companies is that they have quotas to fill every month. This I believe is the their downfall. When employees are focused on quotas, then every patient they obtain becomes another number in their quota. Don't get me wrong, some of the people I know from the other companies are super people. I even believe that many of them have their hearts in the right place. The problem lies in that their hands are tied with the corporate red tape.

Oh, ya back to employees. When you are the owner of a company, you hope and dream that your employees will have those same hopes and dreams for your company. Well those people are few and far between. We hired a biller a few months back. I thought this would alleviate some of my headaches. In the end though, it's created more. We aren't your typical medical supply company. I insist that are patients are treated like people and not just out there to help us make a buck. Our biller was doing a good job but I had found that there was very little rapport with the patients and it became all about collections and collecting every dime. That's not the business I started, nor will it be the business I run. At the end of the day, if our doors are still open and I can sleep and night, then I'm good with God and I'm a happy camper. Needless to say, I've taken back over the billing. I enjoy helping our patients. Most of patients have insurance. If they have a primary insurance but don't have a secondary, I'll do what I can to write off the secondary portion of their bill. After all, people pay ungodly amounts of money just to have insurance. In my opinion if they have insurance, they shouldn't have medical bills. With the cost of insurance, it should pay 100%.

Before I go, I gotta talk about a patient I met this weekend. I got a call for a 90 year old man who needed home oxygen. When you hear that some 90 year old man need O2, you expect to walk into the room and see a feeble old man on his death bed. Well what a pleasant surprise I had. This was the coolest guy. He was everything but feeble. He was sort of semi laying on the hospital bed with his hands behind his head like a teenager does when he's watching tv. This guy was sharp as a tack. He stood up straight, shook my hand firmly, and listened to my instructions on how to use the oxygen. At his house, his son and just finished canning all the grapes from the vines out front. They gave me some canned grape jam as well as some homemade grape juice. Oh my gosh it was delicious. The family was awesome. Super down to earth people. It reminded me of the people I frequently met when I was shoeing horses. Not rich snobby people but those good ol small town folks. The type you can sit down and talk with and just enjoy all the stories they have to tell.

Well I think I've rambled on enough for now. Have a great day.

Low Fat

Well the doctor called this morning and told me I had to go on a low fat diet in order to try and bring my cholesterol down. I knew this all along, but it's a little more motivating when the dr tells you to do it.

I'm going back to the chiropractor on Friday. I'm hoping he'll have some miracle treatment for my back. It's driving me crazy. I want to ride so bad, but I know it will just set me back further.

That's it for now. Bye

Inspirations

I have found that it is so important to have those special people in your life that inspire you. Without these people it is so easy to find yourself in a rut.

Of course my wife and boys have their own special place in my heart and my life. My wife has a graceful way of pushing me to be my best. It's not so much in what she says but in the way she helps me approach lifes everyday challenges. My boys are like my miniature baseball team. They bring out the best in their coach. When you have young boys looking up to you, it's your responsibility to be at the top of your game. Whether you are or not is debatable but as long as they know youre giving it 100% then that is all that matters.

A few of my friends each have their own special place in my life as well. First there is CE. He has sort of become my "business advisor". If I've got a question involving my business, he always has a special way of getting his point across. He pushes me to be more and inspires me to push my business toward different avenues. I wish I made enough money to hire him but he's already making the big bucks. His knowledge of money and business is so impressive and the cool thing is, he's learned it on his own.

RH is my athletic inspiration. Now he is no star athlete but to see where he started and where he is today is truly impressive. I believe he is about to do is 5th Ironman Triathlon in November. When he first started competing, I believe he was about 180 pounds and very rarely rode a bike. Now he rides a better bike than me and is currently at 162 pounds. The cool thing about RH is that he is out there competing against himself. He's not worried about placing but rather in improving his own time. He manages to juggle running 5 Subway stores, teaches full time at Arizona State, and still finds time for his family and training. I'm jealous of his energy. Were the same age, but I don't think I could put in the hours he does. Even more impressive is that he is always in a good mood.

As I mentioned before, it's so important to have these inspirations in your life. I count my blessings everyday to be blessed with such a support crew.

Thanks for Reading

Biggest Loser Family

Biggest Loser started again tonight. This time it involves Husband/Wives vs Children/Parent. It is so cool to see the transformation that these people go through. If you google Biggest Loser and then look at images, you can see the dramatic weight loss that some of these people achieve. Granted these people have quite a bit of weight to lose, they are losing some big time weight in only one week!!! They are losing in the double digits. It's so awesome.

One may wonder how these people allow themselves to get so big, but my heart truly goes out to them. Just dealing with my back, I find myself eating more crap just out of frustration. I get sick of not being able to ride my bike, dealing with the back pain, I end up just chowing down the chocolate.

I'm doing my best now to stay focused on the end results. I'm slowly getting back to eating better and I'm really focusing on my core exercises. I just have to realize that my back didn't get this way overnight, therefor I cant expect it to improve overnight as well.

I hope if youre reading this you'll try and watch a few episodes of the Biggest Loser. It's really inspiring.

I'm Healthy (The Doc Says)

Well the physical went well. I was actually sort of nervous to have it done. You never know what they're going to find. He told me that I was one of the healthiest 37 year olds he knows. So I figured he's tell everyone that or he doesn't have very many 37 year old patients.

I had my thyroid levels checked and they look great. My TSH was .80 which is perfect. The range is from .34 to 4.82 but most people do best below 1. I was a bit worried that it was going to be high since I've been gaining weight, but obviously the weight gain is from my crappy diet.

The downside was that I had my cholesterol checked as well. My total cholesterol was 206 and my LDL was 133. Both of these are way too high. The cardiologist told me a year ago not to worry right now because my arteries looked great on the cardiac catheritization. My family doc though says I need to start bringing that number down. So from here, I guess I'll be eating less meat. In the long run it's a healthier diet anyway. My wife and I decided to by 1/2 a slab of local beef this year. It's free from steroids and antibiotics so hopefully it will be healthier for the whole family. A friend of ours raises black angus and had one steer left. So we took him up on his offer and bought one.

Well it's Monday and I should start working sometime soon. My back is already starting to bother me just sitting here so I've gotta get up and do something. Take Care, Have a great day.

Back On Track

Well I'm slowly getting back on track. I spoke with my ortho the other night and he's allowing me to start back on the bike. I'm 37 years old and my doctor insisted that I have a complete physical, so at 9am this morning that's where I'll be. I haven't had one since playing high school sports so I have no idea what to expect.



As I mentioned, I've been allowed to slowly start pedaling again. I started last week by riding 10 minutes on the spinning bike at the gym. I think I'll continue down that road for a while. While at the gym I've been averaging about 300 situps along with a bunch of hamstring work. I sure hope over time that this will make a difference. Heck I'd be happy with that six pack I've never had.



On another note, I'm psyched about the return of Lance Armstrong. In fact, the day I heard about it, I renewed my subscription to Velo News and Cycle Sport. There are so many that are doubtful about his comeback, but I just don't see him losing. I'm anxious to see the change in the peloton. Nobody trains as hard as Lance and again I think we'll see the pay off. If anything though, it will make it much more fun to watch. You just know all the leaders from the last two years are crapping their pants. If they want to contend, they'll increase the intensity of their training. That or they'll get hammered by a 37 year old cancer survivor.


Anyway, gotta get back to work. Have a great day.

Ryan's First Road Race

Before the Race

I've been wanting to put this up for quite some time but I couldn't find the cord to my camera. Ryan, my nine year old did his first 20 mile road race about 3 weeks ago. I could tell he was pretty nervous but he took it on like a champ. It's a small local race and being scheduled the same time as a local triathlon, there weren't as many racers as usual.

It's a mass start so my goal was to have Ryan stay out of the fast guys way and then find his rhythm. I could tell from the start he was going to learn the hard way about pacing himself. As soon as the gun went off, he took off. Not quite as fast as the lead guys, but definitely faster than he could hold for 20 miles. So I finally got him to taper it back a little. About 4 miles in, two older kids passed him. I told him not to worry about it and that he would catch them by the turn around. He insisted on picking up the pace again. Right away he caught to two boys that had passed him. We were only about 6 miles into the race. I was actually pretty impressed. He was kicking butt. Suddenly his left pedal fell off. I couldn't believe it. We quickly pulled over and I had to take his shoe off to pry the pedal off of his cleat. The two boys he passed earlier quickly passed him again.

I had no tools so I could only hand tighten the pedal back on to the crank. We were off again. We passed the same two boys and sure enough it fell off again. Long story short, this happened six times. I'm not sure the distance, but he ended up pedaling quite a bit of the race with one leg. He was a tired boy. The final mile he was behind one of the boys that he had been leap frogging throughout the race. The other boy had blown up a few miles back. He ended up crossing the line with one leg and second in his age group. I was super proud of him. Not one time did he complain about the pedal. He just kept pedaling.

On our way home he was exhausted. I don't think he had ever ridden this hard in his life. He laid down on the floor of the van and was out. It was only about 9:30 in the morning!!!! He was wiped. I was super proud of him. He's already been driving me crazy about what ride were going to do next. What sucks is that I haven't been able to ride so this has really limited his riding as well. Hopefully soon we'll be able to hit the road again.

After The Race

Palin.........Oh Ya!!!!

Less Government!!!! Less Taxes!!!!!!! Palin Kicked butt tonight!!!!!!!!

I'm sick of Sit Ups

I'm so sick of doing sit ups. By the time I'm done with this rehab thing, I better have the stomach of the guy pictured above. I signed up for gym on Friday and used all their ab machines on my first visit. I was super sore the next day, but it was a good sore. The dr. also wants me doing lunges and hamstring work so that's what I did today. I'm guessing I won't be able to walk tomorrow. My legs are just skaking as I sit here. I figure for this treatment to succeed, I need to get my stomach muscles burning as bad as my back muscles do when I'm on the bike. So far I haven't hit that point. I really hate ab work. It takes forever and it hurts. At least on a bike youre actually going somewhere. Well that's my whining for the day. Take Care.