Thursday, August 18, 2011

Customer Loyalty?

I just read an article on Scrapbook Update today written by May Flaum entitled "Inspiring Customer Loyalty".  I have to say this was the best article I have read regarding this topic!!   High praise to May for telling it like it is!  Here is a link to the article:  Scrapbook Update "Inspiring Customer Loyalty"
  I  hope and pray that all the manufacturer's out there and the scrapbook celebs with their names on product listen up and take this to heart!!  I have worked in the retail world for 20+ years and let me tell you this article is spot on!  It is definitely time for a change since complacency has replaced customer service!  Tell me what you think.  Do you agree or disagree?  I am dying to hear!

Until next time!,
Tracy

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Time.....

If I could save time in a bottle.....would I use it wisely?!  Time has flown by in such huge chunks from me that I can not even begin to tell you where it went!   You know the saying "time flies when your having fun!", well in this case that just isn't so!!  I have lost a whole year and I truly don't know where it went. Let me explain to the best of my rambling ability how this happened...

Last summer on August 6th, 2010 our whole world changed in the blink of an eye!  I will try to make this story short as possible because I know it could be a long one since I lived it.  On August 6th I ended up rushing my husband to the emergency room at 7am in the morning!  He was having abdominal pain of which I have never in our 28 years of life together seen him in such pain!  He is the typical type of man that my father was in which if you should accidentally break a hand saw blade while sawing and it goes through your hand it is nothing to get excited about, just pull it out and wrap a rag around it and move on!!  Tell your wife it is nothing and you just want to know if she can help you pull it out and put a bandage on it!  Lol!!  That was my Dad and that is my husband!!   So for him to be in so much pain that he was doubled over, unable to stand up straight, vomiting and I might add actually willing to go to the emergency room....scared me to death!!  After a full day and night in the emergency room with them trying to stabilize him and diagnose he was finally placed in ICU with an enlarged spleen.  He was in ICU with severe pain on huge amounts of meds while the doctors tried to figure out what to do.  They did not want to just remove the spleen because that has all sorts of complications in itself let alone all the problems that would follow by him not having a spleen.  They explained to me that yes you can live without a spleen but it is a major surgery and the spleen does do a major role in the filtering of the blood (infection, etc.).  They don't like to remove the spleen unless there is absolutely no other option.  All I could think was "I just can't lose him, please God!".  The real fear set in when they asked me if I had the power to make medical decisions for him?!  "No" I responded!  They immediately said I would need them and a social worker would be in to see me asap to get that done.  He was so out of it that they feared not being able to perform life saving surgery was needed he would not be able to consent.  Needless to say the paperwork got done asap!  After 3 days of ICU he was starting to come around and was able to eat so they decided he was out of the woods and could be moved to a regular room on the surgical floor.  Once that move took place he started to recover his strength and the pain started to go away.  The spleen was still enlarged but the pain was finally all gone 2 days later.  The hospital decided their was nothing more they could do for him except send him home and tell us to see his regular doctor soon.  Flash forward to today....he has gone through so much testing it is unbelievable an the spleen is still the size it was back in August 2010.  They have ruled out everything possible that could be causing the enlargement of the spleen.  He is unable to do some of the things he loves like playing basketball, football, racquet ball, etc., so no contact sports of any kind.  He needs to avoid any blows to the abdomen of any kind.  He just had an MRI to rule out Cirrhosis of the liver or any cancers in the abdomen.  The MRI results came back excellent meaning that they could not find anything wrong that he is extremely healthy with the exception of the enlarged spleen which they have now diagnosed as portal hypertension.  Next they will be looking at his heart to rule out any problems with the blood flow through there that might cause portal hypertension of the spleen.  They have ruled out all blood diseases that could cause this as well.  So basically we are in a holding pattern waiting and wondering what they heck happened.  The doctors and all the specialists are stumped.  He just woke up one morning in pain a little over a year ago and his whole life changed!  He is also fighting to keep his job due to this.  The Coast Guard wants to make sure he can still run his station completely and do his job all the way.   The stress has been unbelievable, but we are so blessed!  He is alive and for now he is able to all the things that his job requires!  He loves what he does and excels at it so the thought of him losing that is just devastating to him!  I pray every day that he can continue to do what he loves and that the doctors will figure out what is causing this and fix it.

I have not really been able to do what I love as much because the stress has made my blood pressure go all out of whack along with a problem of not being able to sleep.  Creativity and mojo have definitely taken a back burner in my life.  I desperately need to get back to some sense of normalcy and start to get us back on track so that our life can become less stressed.  I know that what caused it to spin out of control will still be there but I truly believe that how we respond to stresses is more than half the problem.  I need to start getting myself back on track so that I can create which in turn de-stresses me and helps me to be happy, lowers my blood pressure, helps me sleep at night, and point blank makes life better!  In turn hubby will start to feel less stress because everything at home is good again!!   (Note to self:  DO IT NOW!)

I guess just getting this all down in writing is what I needed to do and I knew I could not do that until I was ready to.  I guess you could say I was ready!   Now you know what has been going on in our lives for the last year.   I want to thank family and friends who have been here whether it was in person (meals, holding my hand, visiting Terry, fixing things when Terry couldn't etc.) or in thought (cards, emails, phone calls, etc.)  from the bottom of my heart for being there for us through all of this!  I truly believe that without you all we never would have made it thru this as unscathed as we have!    Thank you can not even begin to express how much it all means to us!!

So if I could save time in a bottle would I use it wisely?  I guess the answer to that is still under much debate and still weighs on my mind heavily.  I just know that the passing of time does make us older and (hopefully) wiser from all the experiences we go through while said time is passing.  Hmm...on that note I will leave you
until next time,
Tracy