Mark's new job: 7 days, 7 weeks, 7 months

So most of you know by now that Mark has a new job (especially since we announced it in our Christmas letter and it's been all over facebook), that it was a long and frustrating road, and that he was unemployed for two months. Now that he's officially working, I can tell the whole story!

 

His new employer is Southern Utah Neurosciences Institute, a part of Intermountain Healthcare (IHC). Here is a short video explaining who they are and what they do:

He is the physician assistant (PA) to a spinal surgeon, Dr. Stouffer, but is training with several neurosurgeons as well. They have clinics in St. George and Cedar City, and do surgeries in hospitals in both cities.

It took a verrrryyyyyy long time to get this job. Mark's brother asked him, "Why didn't you get the ball rolling a little sooner?"

OH      BUT      WE     DID.

Okay, let's start back nearly a year ago, around June 2014. Mark was contemplating finding a second job for financial reasons. Having Isabelle cost a fortune, we couldn't afford health insurance (we have been completely without it for 7 months), we didn't have a drop in savings, let alone retirement, and things we needed to replace couldn't be replaced. We are up to our eyeballs in debt from PA school and things just weren't getting any better.

We got a call from my brother Tyler, who is friends with a spinal surgeon, Dr. Major. He pulled him aside at church and asked if Mark was looking for a job. (Mark had shadowed Dr. Major several years ago and was offered a job then, but couldn't take it because of his new contract with the National Health Service Corps.) Mark talked with Dr. Major and he said that in August, a couple new neurosurgeons were coming to the practice and they needed more mid-levels part time. He would get back to us when he knew more.

In August, Dr. Major called Mark again and offered for him to join the practice, and it would be full time instead of part time. Mark told him that his NHSC contract wasn't up till January 25, 2015, and Dr. Major said they would be willing to wait for him. Mark accepted and we were very excited! At the time, the IHC job listing was for a nurse practitioner, and it needed to be switched to a PA position. (Both are mid-levels that do essentially the same things, it was just a minor detail.) "The listing will be up in 2-3 weeks." 

  Mark's office at Premier, as he had started to empty it out.

So then Mark and I had to meet with the whole management team at Premier Pediatrics, where he worked for 6 years. He was meeting to negotiate a few things with them, but the new job offer came at the same time, so we decided to tell them that he would be leaving in January. (I had to sit there during the whole thing and it was so very awkward. But it turned out fine.) We were not allowed to talk about him leaving for a few months, though.

Since this all happened 5 months before he was supposed to start his new job, they had plenty of time to hire some new providers to replace Mark. It was agreed that his last day would be January 23rd and his first day at the Neurosciences Institute would be January 26th, 2015.

Fast forward 5 months......

IHC never posted the job listing, so Mark could never apply for it, so the job wasn't official. We have no idea why, but there was one particular person who was supposed to be in charge of making it happen, and they refused to return phone calls or keep us updated on anything. Every few weeks, Mark would try and make contact, and the few times he managed to get through, they'd always say, "Wait another 2-3 weeks." We gathered from the listing (that was still up as a nurse practitioner position) that Mark would need current certifications in BLS and ACLS (basic and advanced cardiac life support) in order to apply. So a few weeks and several hundred dollars later, he got those certifications so he'd be ready to go. 

At one point in November, we actually just drove down to the office and he tried to just pop in to meet with someone. They kept him waiting for an hour and no one ever came out to meet with him.

We gave up and went to lunch and then went back over, and this time we were able to meet with the office manager and one of the neurosurgeons. They assured us that the job listing would be up by Thanksgiving and we'd have everything squared away by the end of the year.

November came and went.

December came and went.

Most of January came and went. 

STILL NO JOB LISTING.

We were at our wit's end, and Dr. Major, despite being the senior surgeon, had no power over this. He did manage to get someone to START on the process of getting the job listed, but then we were told that it had to be approved through like 6 different channels of people. The office manager, upon realizing that Mark was supposed to start in two weeks, said, "Oh! That's not possible! I hope you've made arrangements with your current employer to keep working there." WHAT THE @$%@#$Q%@#$?!

But Mark's replacements at Premier Pediatrics had already arrived--he couldn't keep working there. January 20th rolled around. Finally:

The job listing!! I had been checking like 10x a day for months. I hurriedly applied for Mark. (Or so I thought...)

Three days later, Mark's last day at Premier arrived. He had really loved working with kids, and he was an extremely popular provider. Every day, a mother would be brought to tears when he told them he wouldn't be back for their next appointment. (True story.)

This also marked the end of his time with the NHSC, which saved our behinds by paying back 2/3 of our $150k PA school loans over 4 years. (If you are a doctor, PA/nurse practitioner, nurse, mental/behavioral health professional, dentist or hygienist and can work in primary care in a rural or medically under-served area, look into this program!)

We still hadn't heard anything from IHC, but Dr. Major said to just plan on showing up on Monday. Until we found out that that wasn't allowed...he wasn't an official employee yet. Sigh.

At some point during his first week of unemployment, someone finally called, only to tell us that Mark's application was never received! WHAT THE )@*#$%($#@*^$%?!

So then we had to apply all over again, and this time there were several more pages to fill out. When I'd done it before, after I filled out a bunch of pages, I uploaded his resume, and it brought me back to the home page and I thought I was done. Nope.

 About a week after we submitted his application for the second time and he was interviewed: The official job offer and contract arrived!! We had been told that once his contract was in hand, he could start shadowing at the clinic and operating room.

NOPE.

At this point, we were contacted by corporate IHC, who said in no uncertain terms that he was not allowed to set foot anywhere until his credentialing was done, which typically took "about 12 weeks" and "Official start date is June 8." (WHAT THE #*Q$%^(@&#%^?!) But we were going to be sent a large packet of paperwork to get things started, and the sooner we got it done and sent back, the faster the process would go.

TWO WEEKS GO BY.

We never received the packet. We finally called and figured out that they had sent it to Mark's old work address!! The manager there at the time didn't know what to do with it, and so stuck it in a corner and didn't bother to inform us. When we called, a new manager had taken over, and she couldn't find the packet. Mark offered to drive the 300 miles to SLC to get it from headquarters. So then the corporate lady says, "That is a long way to drive! I can just email it to you."

WHAT THE *(&#%$(&%^#$(&%?!

So we got all that #*^#%$(@# paperwork done in like 3 hours flat, and submitted it.

We finally got a welcome letter from corporate. Welcome, you're hired, we're glad to have you, "You aren't allowed to work until credentialing is done, and on our end you need to allow 4-6 MONTHS." WHAT THE @!%^@#$*#*#%)&*#$_@%^*_(&%)*^?!

At this point, nervous breakdowns were occurring all around. We were just so frustrated and upset and angry, especially because the people at his new clinic KNEW that this would be a long process and yet totally ignored us for 5 months, when they could have, SHOULD have been working on all this.

Mark tried to stay busy (I put him to work on a lot of projects) and he took temp jobs with my dad, with a local hotel changing beds and with a cabinet shop in Hurricane. The only way we were surviving was thanks to a big tax return that we got. We were supposed to use that money for other things, but survival came first. About a month and a half in, I applied for WIC, food stamps and Medicaid to help keep us afloat.

We were able to spend a lot of time as a family (in Zion on President's Day, which happened to be a free day) and that was nice. But still there was a lot of frustration at our circumstances. It was hard because the both of us would get stopped wherever we went and asked how the new job was going, and he hadn't been able to start yet.

Our friends and family were very supportive during this time. My brother-in-law's mom, who is a nurse in St. George, put us in contact with the Medical Staff Coordinator for the hospital there, and she immediately got to work getting us temporary privileges set up. If we had met her sooner, we might not have been in this mess!

Oh, I forgot to mention that Mark has been an affiliate at the hospital in Cedar for 6 years, and had worked in the labor & delivery department with all the new babies. It is an IHC facility....they had credentialed him 6 years ago. It is in the SAME corporation. WHYYYYYYYY they couldn't just give him immediate clearance for the other facilities as well is beyond me. (A few times, corporate  would come across his IHC work records and remark, "You're already in our system! Huh!") Ugh. Anyway.

 

Mark had to be approved by three different Boards of Trustees (one of which only meets quarterly) so that he'd be allowed to work in the two hospitals and two clinics. As a matter of fact, he still hasn't been approved by them all yet. But we were able to work on getting him temporary privileges in the meantime.

 

So we've spent the last two months waiting, doing paperwork, waiting, MORE paperwork! Phone calls, emails and faxes and yes, more paperwork. Blood tests. Drug screenings. References. College diploma and medical license checking. They were waiting on a reference from Mark's previous attending physician, Dr. Dowse. He faxed it over, but all they got was a blank fax. So that was another bump in the road.

At some point, it finally did dawn upon corporate (a.k.a. "Medical Group") that this guy they were getting 10 emails about per day needed temporary privileges! He had already been granted them by Dixie Regional (hospital in St. George) and Valley View (hospital in Cedar City) but Medical Group needed to grant them too in order for him to be allowed to see any patients in the clinic or the OR setting. 

Finally....FINALLY....they said he could attend New Employee Orientation on March 16th, one week ago.

We were so excited that we hung out on the lawn to greet him as he came home from orientation. 

Mark is going to be in training for the next 6 months. He is having to learn spine surgery/orthopedics as well as neurology and neurosurgery, what to do in the clinic, how to do rounds in the ICU, etc.

He had two days of orientation last week, and then three days of surgery and clinic. They meet at 6:30 am, and Mark has an hour drive to get there, so he has to get up at 5:00 and leave at 5:30 am. So far, he has been working about 12 hours, plus driving 2 hours, getting home around 7:15 pm. It has been exhausting for him and exhausting for me to be alone with the kids all day! I've had a low grade headache ever since he started.

This job is a big change for us, but we know that it will be good in the long run. Mark has always wanted to work in surgery and is very excited about that aspect of it. Standing for 4-5 hours at a time is tough, especially since sometimes he has to wear 3 lead aprons the whole time (because multiple x-rays are taken during certain procedures).

Most of what he's doing is assisting with spinal fusion surgeries, which is where they fix compressed vertebrae. They have to stick wedges in between, do bone grafts and put in titanium rods and screws. He has assisted in a couple other procedures, too. The other day, he had to stand and hold a guy's spinal cord while the surgeon was drilling around it. "Don't move or you'll paralyze this guy for life." No pressure, haha.

Practicing sutures on pigs feet last night.

While the hours are long, we are hoping that eventually he will be able to spend 2-3 days a week in Cedar City, so he won't have to commute. We will be getting family medical/dental/vision coverage, a 401k and a pension plan, all of which we have never had before. He will get paid per mile for his travel, they will cover testing and licensing and continuing education fees, and once his training period is done, he'll get paid overtime (everyone seems to work at least 60 hours a week). Not to mention, his salary is higher overall.

It's a good thing we don't believe in fate or bad omens, otherwise we would have given up on this job a long time ago! It has been 7 days since he started, which was 7 weeks after the date we THOUGHT he would start, and 7 months since the offer from Dr. Major.

Now we just need to get that first paycheck on April 3rd. Then I'll really be able to heave a sigh of relief.

Feb-March happenings, snow, and the Worst Week Ever

If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you've probably already seen/heard about all this. But I've been wanting to get the details on the blog.

First, here's a bunch of my Instagram photos (low quality because my phone camera is junk)

 

 We had a family gathering at my parent's house in LaVerkin, and the kids got filthy playing on the trampoline. It's too bad you can't see how black Jack and Luke's feet were.

This is my sister Maria and my sis-in-law Monica, who are both preggers with baby girls, due this June and July!

Luke scarfing a giant cookie

The "Tooty Ta" dance

Tiger snuggles. Madelyn said to me: "Mom, I bet if we had all the fur from Tiger's nine years then we could make a set of pjs or something." Ok....ew.

 

When did they get so big?!

 The snows finally came. We had the driest, warmest winter in years, which I was quite alright with (68° in February? Hello!) But it was decided from church headquarters that the entire state needed to fast and pray for "moisture". So we got 28 inches of snow in a week and a half--no kidding. 

Those are my own tire tracks in front of my house, after I unsuccessfully tried to drive Madelyn to the bus stop. They don't cancel or delay school for snow here, but they should for days like this. Madelyn's bus got stuck on the hill and they were all an hour late. Mark had to drive down to Hurricane on the freeway for 40 miles and could only go 35 mph. I do not like the snow!!!

 

 

 On the morning of the biggest storm, there was about 13 inches of wet, heavy snow and I had to go out and shovel the whole driveway by myself because Mark was gone. I have taken it for granted that he has always shoveled for me. It sucked. It took me two hours. This is Mark shoveling, again, because it would NOT STOP SNOWING.

 We had quite the snow pyramid built up from shoveling the driveway, so Mark decided to stamp in some stairs and a big, slippery slide into it.

When Mark was home on a Saturday, he and the kids played outside in the front yard and then went sledding with my sister's family for a couple of hours.

Maria took these pics, that's Mark and Madelyn flying through the air, lol!

Luke was covered head to toe in protective snow gear, but he still came home soaking wet, especially in his boots. He and Madelyn had the sniffles, and I should have known better and kept them home, but they were so excited that I let them go.

 So of course, by the next morning, Luke's chill had set in and he had a pretty bad cold. This was nothing surprising--he has "delicate health" (as they always say in Jane Austen novels) and since he has reactive airway disease, it's almost a given that it will cause him breathing problems. We have drugs and a nebulizer on hand because he gets sick about every 3 weeks during the winter.

Madelyn was sick, too, but she never gets a very bad case. She bounces back after 2-3 days every time. Tiger just looks for a warm body to lie on, no matter what's going on.

I was fasting that day because of Mark's work situation. I hadn't fasted in years and it was really tough. I almost fainted and had to end a couple hours early to eat. It weakened me quite a bit, which did me no favors in the days to come.

 

That night (Sunday, March 1st) turned out to be very rough. Luke's symptoms turned more flu like and he was delirious with a fever, was sweating, shaking, coughing, wheezing and vomiting. He vomits a lot when he has a cough, so I was never sure if this was from that or if it was from the flu. He slept propped up on the couch and Mark got up with him in the middle of the night to do a nebulizer treatment. When I saw him in the morning, he had vomit dried on his neck and his jammies--I'm pretty sure he threw up in his sleep because I never heard him get up. I was freaked out because a friend of mine had a brother die from aspirating on his own vomit. Yikes.

Monday morning (March 2), I gave him a bath and he ate a little bit, and I thought the worst was over. I had a lot to do that day, and luckily Mark was home--too snowy to go to work in Hurricane. We were out of children's ibuprofen (Isabelle was teething and using quite a bit herself) and so while I was out going to parent teacher conference with Madelyn, going to the grocery store and getting stuff for the science fair and then getting Madelyn to gymnastics, Luke's fever got worse.

It was 103° by the time I got home and was able to give him the ibuprofen and he was really out of it. An hour went by and he wasn't improving--I took his temp again and it was 107.5°!!!! Mark said to check it again on the other side of his forehead (we have a forehead scanner thermometer) and I took two readings, and they were 105° and 106°. That is far too high, especially since he already had ibuprofen in his system. By this point I was TOTALLY FREAKING OUT, but I do have a resident pediatric specialist at home, so we just did whatever Mark said we needed to do. From then on, it was Tylenol and ibuprofen every three hours, alternating. I had to sleep with a timer under my pillow so I could get up and give him meds through the night. He received a priesthood blessing and seemed to be able to rest a little. Mark drove through the storm that would never stop storming and got him some antibiotics.

 Tuesday (March 3), he seemed to be doing a little better and I was so relieved.

 

 It kept snowing, and snowing.

But then Luke got another 103° fever, even with the Tylenol, ibuprofen and Azithromycin. And we were also giving him Singulair, Albuterol and Orapred for his breathing. We finally took him to the clinic as they were wrapping up their night clinic. Mark had heard some "gunk" in his lungs the day before, and Darlene was able to confirm that he had pneumonia in both lungs. GROAN. His oxygen levels were only 87%, which Mark told me later that he could have been admitted to the hospital with that low of a level. We decided to give him a shot of the heavy duty antibiotic Rocephin. It was painful and I was crying from worry, stress, and tiredness.

 

Wednesday, (March 4) Isabelle woke up with a fever. Noooooo

Luke spiked another 105° fever even with his constant meds that day. He was lethargic and weak and slept all the time. He hadn't eaten in a couple of days. I really should have taken him to the hospital for some IV fluids. But we don't have health insurance and Mark was in the middle of a two month long unemployment and we really couldn't afford to go. We were doing everything we possibly could and he was not responding to the antibiotics.

I came down with a cold at that point, too. I hadn't slept in about four days and was really worn down.

That night, Isabelle had a fever of 101° and tossed and turned and woke up every 15 minutes, crying.

 

 She had a runny nose that wouldn't quit, and she HATES getting her nose wiped, so it was not a happy time for anyone.

But Luke's fever finally broke early on Thursday (March 5) after five days! I gave him ibuprofen at 12:30 am and at 4:30 am he came to me in cold sweats with a temp of 97° and a random bloody nose. His fever did not come back. He still had a cough and a long way to go before his lungs were clear, but he ate a bowl of cereal--the first time he'd eaten in a couple of days.

Isabelle spent a second night waking up screaming every few minutes (how long had it been since I'd slept?!) and finally on Friday, (March 6) Mark looked in her ears and she had a double ear infection! Double pneumonia and double ear infections in one week!! MADNESS! She had a ton of congestion, but thankfully (?) it was just in her sinuses and not her lungs.

We got her on some Amoxicillin and prayed for everyone to get better. 

 

 Luke was finally improving but was still pretty wiped out. 

Then, because everyone else had had their turn, Mark got sick and spent the weekend trying to recover like the rest of us.

OY.

It was a horrible week. Add to that church calling drama, continued frustrations with Mark's unemployment, and about 20 loads of laundry...oh and Daylight saving time kicked in that Sunday, too! We did not even try to make it to 9:00 am church--we stayed home. But the whole rest of the next week was a big, tired blur trying to get caught up on sleep and cleaning and everything else.

We managed to struggle back to normal life, getting Madelyn's science fair project done (whew!).
If you're wondering, hummingbirds prefer red flowers because they are in competition with bees for nectar, and bees can't see the color red (hummingbirds can see in full color and UV). Bees leave red flowers alone and therefore those are more full of nectar, so the hummingbirds will choose them over other colors of flowers. They'll even choose red bird feeders over yellow, like our experiment showed.

 

 Luke went back to preschool after missing a week and got registered for kindergarten (finally!)

Tiger just did what he always does...

And the snow finally melted. 

Let's bring on the spring. Please.

School's back in, hallelujah

 Oh, my poor blog. This past month has been nuts.

 School started on August 14th for Madelyn, who is in 4th grade this year with Mr. Carter. She started gymnastics back up again this week, too and it's nice to be back in a routine! Her homework has been a killer, though. I'm hoping it will be a good year for her. She does not like being outnumbered by boys in her class, but there's not much we can do about that. She is such a smart, sweet girl. She and I already started on her science fair project and have done a book report/presentation on The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling. She's making her mama proud.

Luke had to wait till September 3rd to start his second year of preschool. He was READY and so was I. (He insisted on picking out his clothes--he always wants to wear that Beatles shirt.) He's going to be bored to death by the time he finally gets to kindergarten--he is turning five in just three weeks so he just missed the age deadline. He is super smart, too. He can read like a pro already.

He's attending a new preschool this year and so far, so good. He really needs something like this to keep him busy and out of trouble. Over the summer, he and Madelyn were constantly squabbling--too much time cooped up together. And he has such an active mind, so when he gets bored, stuff happens. Such as!

Luke and Emery (my cute niece, who never has caused any trouble over here) were playing one afternoon, and I knew they were in Madelyn's room with her My Little Ponies. I was taking care of Isabelle and not paying too much attention to what they were doing and hadn't checked on them in a while. Then, they came back out into the living room and wanted a snack, and I noticed a black smudge on Luke's shirt that looked like marker. I decided to go investigate further, because I didn't want them to leave the caps off of Madelyn's new markers. (She has a dry erase easel in her room.)

I got to her bedroom and the door was shut. I opened it and saw a marker without a lid on the floor. I bent down to pick it up and looked up at the rest of the room and saw....

Okay, so they had ransacked a bunch of stuff. But then.......

I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry or be impressed with their handiwork. It was obvious that they had just had the time of their lives getting away with something HUGE. 

Kids!!! I'm pretty sure that Luke was the mastermind behind this.

And then Madelyn got home and took the whole thing very personally.

 

 

But by the time we figured out that the marker would come off with some Fantastik spray and magic erasers, I found the whole thing to be pretty funny. It did take a few hours of scrubbing, though. (Thank you, Maria, for all your help.)

And that's why I'm glad that school is back in session.