Blog 68: Another Unbelievable Story, The A-Team, and God’s promise

(My brush with a rising singer-actor)

It did not take long to realize that everyone in town was kin to each other and the hospital hired them all. You had to be very careful what you said. While I was creating an old school clinic, that still worked, after work and on weekends, I was searching for a place to live. My roommate Robert could not pay his bills by himself, and so I asked him to move to Albemarle and find a job there. My family helped pack him. So, Mary and Bill Fisher, drove the trailer while Robert brought his car, and we moved into a large, but quaint, house. I showed them the town and then they left.

Again, God knew what I was to do and I never realized it until later. The house was on the Main road that led out of Albemarle. They were beginning to enlarge the road for heavy traffic. What the owner did not tell us was that they would be enlarging the road right through our front yard. They moved out, but rented the house so that the state would pay them to do the work. We got a call from the state that they MUST meet soon to clarify the prices.

(A backfire to the owner)

The state approached Robert and I with a proclamation that we MUST move within the month, we COULD break the lease, and the government would not only give us a large moving expense, they would pay our rent for a year. we found a 4000 square foot home for a mere $800 per month. When the state realized what the owner of the house did to us, they were to get the bare minimal price afforded. And, then the government changed it’s mind and found it easier to enlarge the road on the other side of the street so they got nothing and had two house payments.

So, why the picture of my dog? Well, Mahli, my Bassett hound went into heat. It got out in the hospital and I was approached by a worker that a woman, named Summer, was wanting to sire her male Bassett. I called her and made a date to pick him up to care for him during Mahli’s pregnancy period. When we arrived to pick up the dog, there was a teenage blonde girl holding the dog. Summer introduced her as, KELLIE PICKLER, (pre-American idol.) We talked and then took the dog. Just for fact, no puppies came from the connection.

It was not long that everyone was talking about Kellie being selected for American Idol. We all knew she made the finals, long before it was announced. (Apparently, she was kin to every other person.) I caused a small uproar when the finals started LIVE and I predicted that she would only get as high as fifth place, which she did I think. It drove me crazy that the show was playing her as a “back woods, poor mountains town girl when, in fact, Albemarle was good size city, she was very popular at school, and that the world felt like we all were stupid, unschooled people because of her “role” they had her play as a dumb blonde from the country.

(The Radiology Department A-Team)

When the doctors realized that I knew how to do more studies than the previous technologist, I got very busy. I begged for help. After three people came through to help me move faster, I was finally given a licensed Radiology Tech who was quite smart and learned quickly what needed to be done. We got along very well. We did not have to ask each other what to do, we just knew what the other was doing. Our new goal was for a new camera that could go faster.

We got approved for a new camera to replace ours, but I realized that the room next to us was not being used. I talked to the camera maintenance man that I knew from other hospitals. He said that if we had two cameras, this camera could last much longer, as well as, being able to do more patients. I immediately drew a diagram for a two room, two camera department. I even added a prospectus that instead of replacing our camera that would not increase patient work much, but to open the wall and show how much money and time we could save by keeping the old camera and adding a new one. This was rebuked at first, but I placed my drawing on the wall and every morning I would touch it and CLAIM God’s promise that it was going to happen.

After a few months, the hospital gave in and sent me to the National Nuclear Medicine Convention to not only find a new camera, but was able to take enough education classes to get all the points I needed to renew my license for two years. It was a win/win situation. It took just over a month for the rooms to be connected and the new camera installed. Part of the contract of the new camera was to take a week-long class to teach us how to use the new computer and machine correctly. This was in Cleveland, Ohio. For perks, they included that both of us could go to the training class, (all inclusive).

I took the class first, while the camera was being installed. The other technologist went during the first week of practice tests being done. The reason I called us the A-Team was because the hospital had a huge drop in patients and everyone was told that they could only have 32 hour weeks, but Nuclear Medicine made enough money during that time to enable to us to stay at 38-40 hour weeks. The new camera almost doubled our work and we were able to to do emergency studies at a faster wait time. We were told that our increase in work kept the radiology department out of the red that year.