Routines
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
Are traditions the same thing as routines, they're just done less frequently? And if the tradition is both loved and hated, what does that mean? On today's Keepin It Real, Cam shares that he both loves and hates them. ----- I have a routine that I practice nearly every day. I both look forward to it and hate it. I wake up shortly after 5am. I have clothes laid out on a chair next to the bed and I dress and go into the kitchen and start the coffee. I fold laundry while it brews. I then pour myself a cup and sit in my morning chair and write in my journal for about thirty minutes. I then...
info_outline
Work Week
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin It Real, it's Friday and Cam's brain has had enough. He once wanted to keep going. Now, he's just hoping to make it to today. ----- I can remember complaining that there simply weren’t enough days in the week to get all the stuff I needed get done done. I wished that each day was longer and the work week had more days to it. I wanted a twelve-hour workday and a ten-day work week and a three-day break at the end. That would be preferred, I thought. That way I could get everything done and take a break when it was over. Wow, have times changed. Or maybe I’ve...
info_outline
Turn The Page
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin It Real, another chapter closes in Cam's life. And he wonders what comes next. ------ John Cougar Mellencamp has a song called Ain’t Even Done with the Night. It’s one of my favorites. That song became a regular part of my days four or five years ago. I’d pick my daughter up from her volleyball practice and as we made the turn from the gym onto the larger road, I’d ask Siri to play it. My daughter would protest and moan. “Not again, Dad” she’d say. I’d sing it loudly. It became our song in a weird way. She didn’t like it, didn’t want to hear it...
info_outline
Side By Side
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam Marston continues to be interested in the research he's doing on retirement trends. He's discovered something called a Men's Shed which is different from a Man Cave where men can go and stand next to each other. ----- My work continues to lead me into retirement research. Specifically, how to make retirement fruitful and productive. One of the leading causes of an unhappy retirements is too few friends or no friends at all. Referred to as social isolation, the US Surgeon General said that social isolation is as unhealthy as smoking fifteen cigarettes a...
info_outline
Retirement Ready
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam Marston and his buddies are beginning to discuss retirement. Cam's learning, though, that maybe working so hard to get to retirement may not be worth all the effort. ----- The subject of retirement has come with my crowd lately. A few years ago, we maybe whispered about retirement, but now it’s a full-on conversation – when are you going to retire, we’re asking each other. How will you know it’s time? The answer from nearly everyone is “as soon as possible” and “I’m ready right now.” Last week I had breakfast with a lady in healthcare...
info_outline
Meeting and Convention Bingo Card
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week’s Keepin It Real, Cam’s on his way home from a conference. He began making notes a few days ago about what his years and years of attending conferences has taught him. A bingo card might be fun, he says. ----- I speak at few dozen conferences each year. My audiences are the same – thinning brown haired, slightly overweight, middle aged white guys dominate each room. These are my people. I’ve learned how they like my content delivered and I do it for them each time. If I do it well, it may get me invited back. After twenty plus years, I’ve seen hundreds of events,...
info_outline
It's Different This Time
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week’s Keepin’ It Real, Cam admits he feels helpless in today’s political climate but he’s found something he can do. It’s very small, but at least it’s something. ----- I have quite a few friends who, over the years, have tried to persuade me to get out of the stock market due to some crisis or another. “Pull all your money out,” they say, “this time it’s not some run of the mill crisis. This one’s real. It’s different this time.” It’s different this time. We are so often tempted to think that whatever the crisis, this one is different. Rarely, very...
info_outline
Large Adult Pool
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin' It Real, Cam's visit to a hotel on the Gulf this wekend got Cam to thinking about how some people, well, they just don't get it... ----- Tuesday I checked into a hotel in Gulf Shores at the Gulf State Lodge. “Where is the free parking?” I asked. “We don’t have any. You can pay to park or pay a little extra and I’ll park it.” This is the bell staff at the front door. I handed him my car key. “Where is a luggage cart? I have a bunch of stuff to get to my room for my workshop tomorrow.” “Guests aren’t allowed to use luggage carts. Only bell staff.”...
info_outline
Mercenaries vs Hessians
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
In today's Keepin It Real, Cam Marston laments the significant changes happening to the things that he once believed were fixed in place. Attitudes and beliefs once firmly held are vanishing. Even predictable things like football rankings have been deeply shaken. ----- To say that our world is undergoing a remarkable paradigm shift today is a ridiculous understatement. Each morning I look over the headlines prepared to be blown away by how formerly predictable things are now upside down or simply gone. On the political front, an economist at a meeting a few years back told us it was...
info_outline
Pushing Electrons
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam discusses his largely sedentary life and the fulfillment he gets on the rare occasions he can see the results of his work. ----- Most weeks, my work mainly involves pushing electrons around. I sit at a computer and do stuff. Recently it’s been requests for short training videos for clients to use with their teams. I write scripts, edit scripts and record videos. Other weeks I prepare presentations. Lots of PowerPoint editing, lots of rehearsing content. Lots of time online. Lots of buying tickets. It’s all sedentary stuff. Me plus a keyboard plus a...
info_outlineOn this week's Keepin' It Real, Cam has seen much more of the healthcare world these days than he would like. His advice: Stay well.
-----
I’ve been given an up a close look at our health care system over the past several months. It’s been, well, disappointing. And this comes after hearing a remarkable speaker discuss the importance of customer service on company culture.
I made a reference several months ago to the pain I’ve had. It’s finally been diagnosed as polymyalgia rhumatica, or PMR. It showed up around February first and has been a part of every day since. It’s a sickness that can’t be confirmed through tests. Once they rule out everything else, it’s one of the ones that’s left.
I’ve dealt with some pain in my life. Cluster headaches. A blood clot in my lung. However, nothing day in and day out has been like this PMR pain. On a scale from one to ten it’s regularly an 8 in the morning dipping to a four or five in the afternoon and back to an 8 the next morning. I need help getting my shirt on and off. I can barely brush my teeth. Right now, I’m on a steroid that masks the pain and I pray that the pain ends before the prescription runs out.
Now, the heath care system. I’ve seen five different doctors to try to diagnose this. I’m guessing I’ve spent less than an hour total with all of them. Averaging, maybe, ten minutes each. They burst through the door, they ask a handful of questions, they order tests. It’s quick. I’ve spent lots of time with nurses and assistants and in waiting rooms. But the doctors are hard to come by.
One hospital wouldn’t let me speak to a doctor who I heard might can help. “Unless you’re a patient,” they said, “you can’t speak to him.” “Well, I might become a patient if he thinks he can help. I’ve seen others of his specialty, but I hear he knows more. “Sorry,” they said. So, I wrote him a letter to get him to call me. I got a voice mail from the office supervisor – “you can’t talk to him. Please call me back,” she said. And I tried, got an exhaustive phone tree, zero’d out and asked, “Can I leave a message for the supervisor?” “Sorry,” they said. “Her phone isn’t hooked up to the system.” Over and over. Round and round. There were some phone trees that never allowed me to speak with anyone. If I weren’t in pain already my experience with today’s health care system was getting me there.
Another – “before I can treat you further, I have to do some tests,” the doctor said. “Make an appointment on the way out.” “We don’t make appointments,” the front desk said. Annoyed. Staring at her phone. “Someone will call you.” A day later, “Our next available appointment is in July.” “So, I have to live in level 8 pain from early April to July?” “Sorry. That’s all I got. You want the appointment or not?”
The culture of healthcare today is painful. Don’t get sick, folks. Don’t get sick. If your sickness doesn’t kill you, finding the treatment just might.
I’m Cam Marston and I’m just trying to keep it real.