You’re Still Not Right! (PG13)

You’re Still Not Right! (PG13 - Enter at Your Own Risk) (Beware of Potty Talk)

Well, the neck tumor was out and I was healing well.  No massive bulge in my neck when I strain lifting anymore, and if I flex my neck (yes, that’s a thing) I only have veins and muscles on one side!  So, that is almost as cool and I was a little excited I still had a party trick! My neck is numb on that side, so shaving sucks and I don’t really know what I am doing unless I am looking in a mirror.  So there is a fear that I might accidentally cut my throat and not even feel it.  But overall I feel good, and getting back to normal, except I am still not right…

About the same time I was getting my neck diagnosed and treated, I was also dealing with sleep issues related to having to get up and urinate 6-10 times a night. I was barely getting any sleep at all. This had been going on for well over a year and was definitely wearing on me in ways I didn’t even realize.  I understand why sleep deprivation is used for interrogation purposes because I would have told you anything you wanted to know if you promised me I could sleep. Granted I drink about 1 to 1.5 gallons of water per day but most of that is before noon.  The longer this went on the longer my bathroom breaks would take as well and the “Flow got Slow.”  There was a hope that “MAYBE” my tumor had been pushing on some nerve that was affecting my bladder, or at least the neurological relay that said “dude, you ‘got’s’ to go man!”  This was a slim hope and unfortunately one that did not hold true.  So after the neck surgery it was time to figure out what was going on below the Equator, South of the Mason Dixon line, way down South in Dixie (anatomically speaking).

My family doctor referred me to a urologist.  Again, I don’t do doctors.  Not because I don’t like them, but because I never needed them, so now another specialist to add to the list!  I think I knew a couple jokes about Urologists when I was in Elementary School?  Maybe that was the planet Uranus? I don’t really remember, but somebody has to be the butt of the joke!  My frustration was starting to build and I wanted to know, “When was this medical stuff going to end?” NOT ANYTIME SOON!  I got my referral to go see a urologist and waited about 2-3 weeks to get in.  I show up for my appointment and I was the youngest one there by 30 years. I didn’t know if this should concern me or if the staff would like me more because they didn’t have to deal with a really really old dude (just an old one). 

I am not really shy, and not much embarrasses me, but this was new territory.  Why am I here?  Well, (in a really quiet voice I explained) I have been peeing 6-11 times a night and can’t sleep, and my “flow won’t go” (this became one of my rapping tag lines).  It has been happening for nearly a year now and thought I ought to have it looked at.  Little did I know they were going to do a whole lot more than look.  

The nurse took me back, “Hey Brice, didn’t think I would see you here.” Not for sure what that means?  Is it a compliment?  “Well, I didn’t think I would know everyone who works here, so that makes us even”.  She asked me more questions than a four-year-old trying to figure out the purpose of life.  She moved me from the interrogation room to the waiting room for the doctor.  His room was different.  There were new instruments out that I had never see before so I was excited to have things to touch and play with while I waited.  Don’t worry I didn’t blow up the plastic glove to look like a giant turkey (although I have gotten in trouble for that in the past).  Eventually, the doctor came in with a new nurse and I told him my entire story again.  He asked some questions like:  does it hurt when you pee, is there blood, do you leak during the day?  Seriously, this was getting weird now.  No, no, no.  I just go to the bathroom a lot and can’t sleep and now my “flow won’t go.” 

He wanted me to do a pee test in the corner of his office in a bucket that had a plastic cone around it.  Kind of like the “cone of shame” a dog wears to keep it from biting or licking itself after a surgery.  It really kind of made me feel the same as what a dog must, I thought to myself.  He was working on the computer and the nurse was laying some things out for the second part of this party and here I was in the corner trying to pee.  Seriously, this is a lot of pressure.  Supposedly it was like a radar gun in there and it was going to measure the speed and forcefulness my pee. I felt like I was a being scouted to be called up to the major leagues as a pitcher.  I wondered if I could break 100 miles per hour?  I wondered what the world record was for this contraption? Whatever, I just wanted to get this done.  I had hoped that (I thought very naively) they can tell me what is wrong after this and I could go home and take a magic pill and go back to my awesome self.  I stood there and stared down the cone of shame until I couldn’t hold back any more, but I barely set the pee meter off. Talk about embarrassing.  The doctor looked at me and said my stream was horrible and I should be able to pee a hole in the wall.  That sounded pretty cool but gross at the same time. It recorded my pee failure on a piece of paper like it was an earthquake machine recording the seismic shift, except mine looked like a baby after shock.  Just to make it worse the doctor told me what his score was and mine was pathetic. Really, you want to have a pissing contest?  I thought that is just something people said to prove a point! So, I told him I could beat him in an arm wrestling competition, which seemed more important in my mind.  I really expected my name to be printed on a wall of shame in the lobby the next time I came to an appointment.  And to think I was paying for this. 

Just when you don’t think it was weird enough, the doctor wanted to do an ultrasound to see my bladder up-close and personal. Warm jelly (check). Black and white computer screen (check).  Long wand thingy they are going to push on my bladder area (check).  Paper sheets to lay back on to relax. (check).  Awkward request for me to drop my pants and lay back with the nurse and himself waiting (check).  Well, my bladder was still half full.  He measured my bladder wall which was about 4 times thicker than it should be, so I reminded him I worked out which did not seem to impress him. How they had to check my prostate. No issue there thankfully. After all that was over, he said he wanted to give me a pill!  Seriously, are you FREAKING KIDDING ME!  A PILL, NOW? Couldn’t you lead with that and if it didn’t work go to the next stage.  “You need to take Flomax and this should fix you up.” Great! A Pill! That is exactly what I wanted.  I went home to take a shower, call my therapist to talk through what just happened, and then go get my pills so that I could be alright and my “flow would go,” but little did I know we were just starting in on a journey that would nearly kill me. 

Easy answers are not always the best answers. Take a pill! If life were as easy as 2+2=4 we would all be able to solve the problems of life.  All I wanted was a pill and they gave it to me, but here is the problem—it did not work!  Most of the time in life (not necessarily medicine) if you just take a pill everything will NOT be okay.  If I just do the right thing, then everything will work out okay!  Nope! If I just love my spouse, they will love me back!  Nope! If I move forward and focus on my future my past will go away! NOPE! If I work out and eat right, I will be healthy medically!  Definitely NOPE! If I go to work each day and go above and beyond and become a transparent leader, then I will be noticed and get that big promotion!  I hope so, but possibly NOPE! And the easy answers and the pills of life can keep being handed out but there is no guarantee everything is going to be okay. 

What I have found is in my life for over 20 years is if I kept taking the pills that culture offered, to try to find the easy answers to make everything okay, but the longer I went in life and the more cultural pills I took, the less they worked. Alcohol repressed my past for several years, but its effects continued to wear off and left lasting effects on my long term memory.  Inappropriate relationships seemed like a pretty good tasting pill at the time, but left images in my mind and more pain in my heart.  Drugs?  Education?  Overachieving? Travel? Going to church every time the doors opened?  Serving in my community?  All pills I tried but none seemed to work. All were like Band-Aid’s put over cancer.  I looked okay on the surface but the disease continued to spread underneath eating at every part of me.  I tried everything I could but still didn’t get better. 

All of us have things that need to be treated and I think our “go to” is to just take a pill, the easy way.  Short cuts when we are driving can be great if we know they are tried and true, but if we don’t we can go down roads into places that are hard to get out of and that we did not attend to go to.   I remember driving through the back roads of Arkansas and saw a ferry on the map that would take you across a river instead of having to drive all the way around the river and lake.  It would be a fun experience to drive my car onto a ferry and to float along and save time.  I took the short cut!  I drove to the end of the road where the ferry loaded but here was the problem.  There was no ferry.  No line.  No pill.  Upon further investigation there was a sign at the water’s edge where the road literally ended at. The sign stated, “Sorry for the inconvenience but the ferry no longer runs.”  What?  This was my short cut and it was on the map!  Why would it be on the map if it didn’t exist?  No ferry?  No shortcut?  No pill?  My shortcut added 45 minutes to my trip. 

It’s a lesson that I remember in life that short cuts are just that—shortcuts.  They cut short your learning.  They cut short your experiences.  They cut short your ability to grow and change.  They cut short your relationships.  They cut short (at least in my life) your deeper healing. They cut short a deeper foundation.  Shortcuts do what they are supposed to do, they cut short.  Don’t get me wrong I love saving time but not at the expense of adding in pain and problems.  In life shortcuts usually mean we are exchanging an easy way that is temporary for something later that will be harder because we didn’t spend the time at the beginning laying the right foundation.  I had one friend say it this way to me, “Brice you can play now and pay later or pay now and play later.” 

As I went to graduate school I didn’t make the time to read every book, so I read the reviews of the books that I was supposed to read.  It was a shortcut that cut short the depth of my education.  In college I couldn’t stand American Literature class so I listened to people talk about all the stories and sat in on their study halls, but I did not read the stories.  Another short cut that cut short my collegiate experience.  I could go on and on with short cuts I took in life. If only I could just take a pill!  Wanna lose weight? Just take this pill! But, it would take years and even decades to finally figure out that I was still not right. 

It would take total failure, and my life falling apart, for me to look for the deeper issues. It would take the collapse of a marriage, the loss of more friends that I care to think about, the loss of employment because I would quit my jobs and move on because it got too personal, the loss of some of the best years of my life, the loss of wealth and personal growth, and the list could go on and on.  I found that there would be no short cuts to healing. Dealing with the cracks of my character, integrity, and the person I had become and in many ways still am and fight against every day of my life.  It was not only going to take avoiding the short cuts of life, but it appeared that I was going to have to take the longest way there, pull over at every rest area, go below the speed limit, and then stop and talk to people along the way to be sure I was still on the right track. In other words, a pill was not going to fix it, it was going to require pretty evasive surgery.  If I am honest with you I would prefer to take a shortcut, until I find out it’s just a dead end.  Even though the doctor did some weird stuff to me, I still left happy that I only had to take a pill.  Or at least that is what I thought, but medically—just like in life, I was getting ready to find out that I still was not right. 

As a Transparent Leader we are called to stop taking short cuts because all they do is cut short our influence on the people we are leading.  If I only share 50% of who I am with you in these pages then that is all you will see.  The same is true in our marriages, workplace, friendships, etc.  I am the poster child of sharing “just enough” to get you to shut up and stop asking questions. But I have found that my influence and growth stop where I stop.  Of course I have to learn when and what to share in an appropriate manner.  This chapter is proof of that.  This is the extremely edited version of my doctor’s room experience, but you know 100% of what happened in that torture chamber.  We all have to choose how we say things, where we say them at, and who we say them to—that called “wisdom.”  Something, I don’t always have (just ask around). 

My hope for each of us is we can get real and stop just taking the pill, the short cut and start looking for deeper ways that we can invest in those that we are leading.  I know it’s hard!  But I have come to learn that if it is hard for us who are developing in our leadership, then how much harder is it for those you are leading.  Be a conduit of change for those around you and let’s show them that there is something better.  Lets’ show them that they can be Transparent Leaders who show others who they really are!

Hurry Up and Wait!

Hurry Up and Wait!

I was discharged from my neck surgery to go home, heal, and to wait.  Recovery was supposed to take 4-6 weeks, and this included not lifting anything over 10 lbs. (which is basically a gallon of milk).  I weighed the vacuum cleaner and would you believe it was 11 pounds. Dang it!  The trash can was 12 pounds (I might have put something heavy in it before weighing it)!  Double Dang! Laundry basket was easily 15 pounds!  I HATE THAT I can’t do these things and now I have to hire a house cleaner, yard care, and a pool boy (Let the sarcasm ooze). My goal of making myself NOT go to the gym 25 days in 2019 was going to be fulfilled, and then blown out of the water. Seriously, what would it would REALLY do?  Don’t doctors just cover their butts by saying 4-6 weeks, when they really mean 2-3 weeks? 

Sitting is not something I do well.  I get up at 4:00 a.m. and hit the ground running.  I usually go as fast as I can all day long until I recharge at 8:00 p.m.  (This routine got really complicated this last year and I will deal with that more in upcoming chapters of my continued saga.) Hurry up and wait!

So now, there was no real reason to get up early since I can’t go to the gym—but I did!  No real reason to stay on your special diet to eat clean and healthy—but I did!  No real reason to keep the same schedule throughout the day eating 6 meals (except lifting weights that was off limits)—but I did!  I quickly learned that keeping a schedule was one of the most beneficial things I could do for myself. I filled my time with typing thoughts I had been wrestling with in a journal.  Doing the things around the house I could do, without overworking myself.  Don’t worry, I was able to resist picking up the vacuum and trash!  Took a few naps to help the healing process.  Got off of the narcotics as soon as I could (This was more to save a few pills in-case family came to visit). And went back and started re-watching all the episodes of Seinfeld to brush up on my one liners and party references. 

But after about a week, I was bored to death!  I called the doctor and asked what physical activity I could do after 7-10 days of being a pretty good boy.  His response surprised me.  “Brice, your blood vessels and veins in your neck were about 7-10 times larger than the average man (I knew I was way above average so I asked if he could relay this to my friends).  Because of that, the walls of those blood vessels and veins are much thinner. If you choose to lift weights and strain at any level above what I told you, you will most likely blow one of them, bleed out and die”. (Well, that seems a little dramatic)  So, my follow up question was pretty stupid thinking about it now, but I did ask, “So you are saying absolutely NO lifting, not even the pink girl weights?”  Doctor, “DID YOU HEAR ANYTHING I JUST SAID?”  Yes. Hurry up and wait.

So what do I do for 3-4 more weeks? Sure, I go back to work in a week, but that still did not fill the void of time and energy that I needed to exert.  I went back to writing more in my journal, but honestly there are only so many feelings I want to see on paper. I continued to wipe the counters but they were pretty freaking clean. After getting off of the narcotics, I finally got my car keys back which meant I could do grocery pick up. Unloading the car took forever, due to the fact 10-11 pounds adds up quickly, so I made numerous trips back and forth to the car to unload everything. It didn’t take long and again I was BORED!  Hurry up and wait. 

When I got back to work everyone watched over me like a hawk.  “Don’t do that,” “stop lifting things.”  I know they all did it out of love, (except for one of them who I think always had dreamed of telling me what to do) but I was tired of waiting, and tired of being told what I couldn’t do. I had people bringing me things at work and at home that were over the 10 lb. weight limit.  I was starting to feel helpless, and honestly starting to get angry. Not at the people, but at the process.  Waiting sucks.  It’s for non-driven people. Lazy ones, I told myself.  I am a type A++++ personality and waiting must be for type B,C,D, and especially type F people.  I had too much to do, and what I had to do was obviously too important for me to be living this way. How will the world survive with me sitting on the sidelines?! I should have just had the stupid tumor drained and just lived with it.  Then I could be doing important stuff, because I am SO important! (I hope you are sensing my sarcasm and not narcissism)…

Week 4 of recovery finally arrived—The doctor said I could start lifting after four weeks (He actually said 4-6 weeks, due to the size of my tumor the and the amount of real estate it took up in my neck, so the longer I waited the better). But what I heard was FOUR WEEKS!  So I made plans to go back to the gym but that idea was nixed until I saw the doctor for my follow up and he medically cleared me. The last conversation we had didn’t go my way, and I didn’t anticipate this one being received with open arms either.  I called the office and left word with his nurse and got a call back fairly quickly that went something like this:

“Mr. Early”.  Yes.  “Dr. Gibson wanted to see if you remembered the last conversation you all had about how big your tumor was and the trauma it caused in your neck?”  My first response was to say NO, but then was afraid he would bring me back in to see if there was any neurological damage and add more conditions to my recovery time.  So I was honest and said “Yes, but he had stated 4-6 weeks and I am feeling great and thought I would check to see if I could start going back to the gym and going light” (I did not define what light meant).  Nurse, “He said ABSOLUTELY NO LIFTING not even the ‘pink weights’ as you described them (by the way this was a female nurse and she sounded very put off by my description of “pink weights”), but he did say you could go back to the gym and start walking on a flat treadmill for 20 minutes a day with no incline.” (Dang, that was specific and he obviously knew I would cheat if he was not). 

However, I just felt like I had won a hostage negotiation, and talked him down into giving in a little to my demands.  I was back in the door baby!  Back on the treadmill, like a rat chasing cheese! I got to go see all the people that I know, but don’t really KNOW, aka my “Gym Friends.”  I envisioned myself walking back into the gym and everyone having prepared a run-through for me like they have on the high school football field.  I saw myself stepping up on the treadmill and almost floating as I cranked the speed up to a whopping 3.0 miles per hour.  So I laid out my gym clothes that night (it was like picking out an outfit for prom—it had to be just the right one, I mean I had to look good).  I put on my lucky ball cap (go back and reread that chapter) and set out the door at 4 am. 

When I arrived at the gym there was no run through, no high fives, no floating on a treadmill and very few we missed you’s. Did no one miss me or even know I was gone? It was kind of a humbling experience.  It made me wonder how many people I had not noticed, who had been gone for longer than I had. 

After a couple days of doing cardio as bad as I wanted to keep doing it, I couldn’t.  Due to pushing myself further than what the doctor allowed and going 3.4-3.6 at a 2-4 grade, it caused me to strain in breathing, which caused my neck to hurt a lot!  I know, keep shaking your head, it gets worse I promise.  Everyone around me told me to take it easy.  My family, my friends, the people at work said “DON’T OVER DO IT!” (Like they were just waiting for me to fail).  My doctor said to take it easy.  I even got in my car one morning and the Eagles were singing, “Take it Easy.”  Ironically I had been going over my 60 plus pages of notes from my 6-week summer sabbatical where the whole purpose was to take it easy.  But I don’t know how to take it easy, not for very long anyway.  I don’t sit well.  I don’t wait well.  Therefore, I don’t heal well.  Hurry up and wait!

I learned three things about myself during this “time out”: 

1)  I am not patient and do not wait well.  This is true about every area of my life.  I have always been impulsive and impatient.  When I see something I want, I have always tried to figure out a way to get it.  If others are moving slower than me, it is really hard to wait for them and be patient (Maybe Darwin was onto something with that whole “survival of the fittest” thing and this was a natural way of thinning the herd).  That seemed like a great premise until I was the one in the hospital bed that couldn’t keep up, or because I was so tired for the past year I couldn’t do the things at work and home that I normally did. Waiting to go back to the gym seems pretty petty now compared to being patient and waiting on others to develop in their leadership so that I can help them rise to a new level.  I get so impatient with co-workers, friends, volunteers, because they just don’t get it or don’t move fast enough.  I mean, I have to explain it like 5 times—everyone should be able to read my twisted warped mind by now!   

2)  I am unwilling to die to myself so that I can heal properly and can really fully live.   This is such a great leadership principle that is a polar opposite to what culture teaches.  My role as a leader is to serve others, not be served.  I was in the gym (legally, don’t worry) and between sets I many times look for something to do because #1—I am not patient and do not wait well.  So instead of sitting down and resting, or scrolling through Facebook and social media (although I also do that sometimes), I got up and walked around and straightened the room. I put weights back from jerks who left them out, moved cleaning supplies to the different stations, put all the dumbbells nice and straight with their numbers pointing upward and threw away trash that got left from the jerks who did not put their weights up.  A lady in the gym said, “Brice you need to tell the owner you do this for him all the time and maybe he would give you a discount!”  A discount sounds nice doesn’t it, but I learned long ago (even though I fight against it every day of my life) that if I do anything for the appreciation of others I am ALWAYS going to be left disappointed.  Honestly, this is easy at the gym and really, really, really, hard at work.  I always start out strong but then after a while, start to feel unappreciated and I fall back into wanting more praise.  It goes right back to not wanting to die to my wants and desires, or not wanting to wait and allow the process to work itself out.   

3) I am selfish!  And here is the thing, so are you! We all are actually!  Don’t believe me?  Who do you spend the most time on during the day?  Oh sure, we have seasons of small children, but even then we always figure out a way to take care of us.  Its ok and somewhat natural, but many times can get in the way of our healing if we don’t keep it in check.  It can get in the way of us serving others.  It can build a wall where we are not transparent leaders, but leaders who are just “getting ‘er done”.  Selfishness inflates our pride, and pride isolates us from those we are trying to lead. (re-read that) When I am selfish it gives me a false reality of how important I really am, how needed I really am, how together I think that I am. When I get prideful, others drive me nuts, because they can’t do anything right, like I can.  If they would just listen. If I could just hire competent people.  I wish I had spent more time reflecting and planning during this “forced” waiting period.  I usually learn these leadership lessons on the wrong side of the problem, and that once again proved true.  So what should we do to be transparent leaders? 

Simply, the opposite of these 3 things: 

1)  Be patient and wait!  Reflect during these times on what is causing you NOT to sit still well.  Why you feel you have to get back after whatever it is you are trying to get after?  Self-reflection is a great thing if we will take it and apply it to our leadership and how we can use it to help make others better.  If you are Type A personality like me, I promise you have surrounded yourself with others who find their worth in what they do, and not who they are.  They derive their value from their occupation, and not their creation.  The problem with this is what happens when they lose their job, or the contract, or their solution does not work on real life like it did on paper, or the next super star rises faster than they do?  I can tell you first hand—you feel worthless as a human being. I was reminded on my sabbatical however that I am a human BEing not a human DOing.  Therefore, we many times need to stop doing and just start being!  Being present. Being aware.  Being mindful of others.  Being relational.  Being loving.  Being transparent.  Being quiet!  Just being. 

2)  Die to myself, so I can help others truly live. My life is not complete if it is just about me.  I was created to help others grow to their full potential just like others invested in me to grow to where I am at today.  Stop and think about all the people who have invested in you in a good way to help you become the person you are.  I can think of several negative people as well, but we will get to them later (even though they caused pain, wounds, and scars there are still life lessons we have learned that we can take and apply to helping others as well).  I can think of an older gentleman who took me fishing and taught me how to tie flies to fly fish.  I remember catching a few fish and actually still remember how to tie a fly, but I remember more the talks we had on the banks of Sheridan Lake, South Dakota and the life lessons he taught me.  I remember an elementary teacher who invited about 8 kids over to her house one night a week to do a ceramic class. Honestly, I could care less about ceramics but I really respected her and wanted to spend more time with her.  We painted and talked and then talked and painted.  These were some of my best memories of my childhood that sucked in many other ways.  I remember a high school teacher the same way who took stories in literature and showed me how they related to MY life.  Poetry that helped me understand MY pain.  And then, get this, I got to dance with her at prom!  We dance to Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band’s Old Time Rock and Roll.  A memory I will never forget.  Or how about that college professor who took me under his arm and invested me and my roommates.  I could go on, but I am sure you have yours as well.  So the question is, “How can I die to myself and use all the good and bad of my life to lift others up?”  In other words, how can I be a transparent leader?

3)  Be SelfLESS—Did you know that generosity is contagious?  Imagine living in a world where people are trying to out give each other?  How cool would that be. “No, I will pick up this check”, for no other reason than I really want to. “Let me help you with that”, not because you need it, but because I just want to hang out.  You go to your neighbor’s house and mow their yard while they are at work, not because it really needed it but because you simply wanted to bless them.  This past summer I could not mow my yard or take care of anything outside due to my surgeries.  I wasn’t supposed to sweat while my neck healed (great thing I live in Florida where it is nice and cool) and then for my second surgery I could not push things or walk much.  I have 2 friends that own lawn companies and they took it upon themselves to take care of this need for me. I didn’t have to ask, and they didn’t ask me – they just did it.  They wanted nothing in return and wouldn’t take NO for an answer.  Imagine if we lived in this kind of world where we all had this desire, focus and (catch this next one) FOLLOW THROUGH.  You have probably said it like me, “Hey, if you need anything at all just let me know.”  That is a weak attempt of trying not to look selfish, but still being selfish because you know you are probably not going to be asked.  But you did your part and cared, right? No. JUST DO IT!  Don’t ask, DO IT!

Hurry up and wait!  It is still not fun, but there is much we can learn in the process of waiting.  I don’t know if you are in a holding pattern, or a season of solitude and waiting, but let me encourage you “wait well.”  Use the opportunity to reflect on yourself, and then how you can help others.  Ask yourself some hard questions during this time, and get transparent so that you can let others see you and so that you can see yourself for who you really are. 

What’s Wrong With Me?

What’s Wrong With Me?

It’s a question all of us ask at some point in our lives.  “What’s wrong with me?”  Maybe it’s after someone we love has left us, or after losing a job. Or maybe you are like me, and you locked your keys in your car 3 times in 2 weeks and the same locksmith came to your house each time and you walked away from that situation asking, “What is wrong with me?”  We ‘kind of’ mean it as a rhetorical question, but at the same time we ‘sort of’ want an answer—but only if it is a good one.  “Brice you are so focused on others you just forget where your keys are sometimes!”  “You were too advanced for that job and probably just threatened the CEO!” “They were broken and just didn’t know how to be loved the “right” way!”  Those are the good answers we want to hear but somewhere inside of us (me) I know that there was actually something wrong with me.  “Brice, you are too scattered and disorganized right now in life, slow down and pay attention!” “Your personality was too combative, you were too passive, your skill set wasn’t quite right, you didn’t fit on the team the way you should have so we had to let you go.”  “You didn’t invest yourself in the relationship like you should have and closed yourself off and became cold.”  What’s wrong with me?

It is a tough question to ask and an even harder one to hear an answer to sometimes.  Nearly three years ago I was forced to ask the question, “What is wrong with me?” After coming home from the gym to a group of friends who arrived early at our house.  I walked in the door and one of my friends who was an ER doctor came over and asked, “What’s wrong with your neck?”  There was a bulge on the right side. I told him I had been working out so there was a pretty good chance it was just muscle.  He told me to go get it checked.  Like a good man I did exactly what he said to do, ONE YEAR LATER.  The bulge continued to get bigger and when I lifted weights and strained, it protruded out of the side of my neck.  Personally, I thought it was pretty cool to brag about and for party tricks, but I finally relented and went to get it checked.  I started with my family doctor, who immediately sent me to an ENT. What’s wrong with me?

The ENT ordered an xray, CT Scan, MRI, and did an ultrasound on site. I started looking all this up to see what it actually meant and after the ultrasound I was excited to find out that I was not pregnant—it was only a tumor in my neck!  I thought he would just say something like, “It’s all good, bro! Just rub this cream on it and it’ll go away!” I wish it was that easy. The doctor said, “while you’re here today, we might as well drain it.” Honestly, I wanted to go home and keep my cool party trick in my neck, but I didn’t want to turn in my ‘man card’ for being a wuss.  “Okay, let’s do it”. What’s wrong with me?!

The nurse was very nice, but a little condescending when she took my hand and held it and said, “It’s going to be okay. The bigger they are the more scared they are (kind laugh ensues)”.  My first thought was—note to self, no Christmas card for her.  The doctor inserted the needle guiding it with the ultrasound machine so that he hit the problem area.  He started draining it and filled one giant syringe and then ½ of another.  He pulled out the needle and held gauze against the side of neck as if I were bleeding out and asked the nurse to get me a glass of water. Personally, I was thinking whiskey and a stick would have been a lot better twenty minutes ago, but whatever.  They sat me up and gave me the water and I asked if I could lay back down.  I about fainted, 3 times.  I WAS a wuss!  What is wrong with me?  I looked in the mirror and I had completely sweat through my shirt. I looked like I had run a marathon. Regardless, I was glad it was over.

I asked the doctor what was next, and he said, “we will let you know but don’t worry”.  Don’t worry?  Seriously?  I came in to have you give me topical cream to make all my problems go away and now I have been lanced and drained and my “specimen” is being sent off for pathology. Are we talking about cancer here? And I can’t even stand up straight without fainting. Don’t worry?  What is wrong with me?!  He told me, “You have nothing to worry about.  We see these all the time, although yours is bigger than most - almost all of them come back clear.  We will call you in 2-3 days to let you know”.  “Almost always?”  I am the guy that locked his keys in the car three times in the past two weeks.  I am the guy who has been trapped in the lady stall of the public restroom more times than I can count because I don’t pay attention to small details.  I have been lost driving, over-drafted my bank account because I tried to predict when my paycheck would get deposited and when the check I wrote would clear and usually always came up short.  I am that guy! so “almost always” doesn’t really apply here. Two days later I got the call that the pathology came back clear.  What is wrong with me? NOTHING—or at least that’s what I thought. 

I thought it was just a weird fluke cyst, until about 6 months later I was lifting weights and I noticed something bulging out of the side of my neck again.  My first thought was, “hello little friend, you are back to go do some more party tricks!” and then reality sat in and I thought well that has to be a muscle because I had the tumor drained.  So, I did what any good man would do, I watched it grow for the next month or so.  But I started having other symptoms, like losing my voice, having difficult hearing in my right ear, and trouble breathing and sleeping at night. After avoiding it for as long as I could and trying to hide it by wearing turtlenecks (which are very unstylish and hot to wear in Florida) I went back to my ENT.  I did not want the needle again, but knew I needed to get this thing checked out.  Upon looking at it this time, he told me I need to go see a different ENT.  My first assumption was I must be special and deserve better care than the medieval torture that I had received prior.  I came to find out they just have fancier equipment and charge your insurance company more, but they did have free coffee and bottled water in their lobby so I attempted to drink the value of my copay. 

After more weeks of waiting I finally got an appointment and went to see him.  After another x-ray and MRI, his first words to me after introducing himself were, “Man, that is a big bulge in your neck!”  My response was, “Actually doc, I am just excited to see you.”  The fun part about going to lots of doctor appointments is you can repeat the same jokes over and over to really perfect them and see what works.  So it was that response or “Thanks, I get that all the time!” The first one was a winner and got a good laugh out of him, although I have found that the ENT community lacks in humor compared to the Oncology department (those are some funny people). 

After telling me everything the last doctor told me, he said that the cyst had grown back larger and much faster than it should have, and he wanted to send me to a head and neck surgeon. Well, that escalated quickly!  Can’t we try the needle thing again? I was out of jokes. Cancer was back on the table now. What is wrong with me?!  This doctor was concerned how large it was and that it’s likely attached to some lynch nodes. He referred me to a surgeon in Pensacola that was supposed to give me a call in the next few weeks.  A few weeks? Whew, I thought this was important.  So I went home and downplayed it all again but told some friends and family who then started advocating on my behalf by encouraging me to call and push them to act more quickly.  This was too long to wait!  Well, I really wasn’t looking forward to having my head filleted open and what happens if they DO find something.  At least right now I just have a cool party trick that I can show off and share couple good jokes about. 

Long story short! A friend knew one of the surgeons in the area that specializes in this and he called on my behalf and they got me an appointment the following day. Other people told me this was God working in the details of my life and my story, but to me it seemed like things just kept getting serious faster than I was ready for. Honestly, I have a lunch appointment tomorrow so it might not be a good day for me.  I changed my plans (by request) and went in to get another MRI, CT Scan, and Ultra Sound (Still not pregnant). (keep in mind this is now the 4th doctor I’ve seen for the same issue). I imagine the people at my insurance claims division were cussing my name by this point, but little did they know it was about to get worse.  The doctor sat me down after looking at everything and said, “you have a cyst about the size of an oblong softball in your neck that you probably have had from birth, but for whatever reason it’s filled up and grown recently.” It’s called a bronchial cleft cyst.  It appears it is attached to a lymph node and runs down past your voice box into your chest cavity.  We do not know what damage it has done, and probably has all of the nerves on that side of your body wrapped around it.  It may even be pushing on neurological portions of your brain that could cause problems”.  My first thought honestly was that is why I keep locking my keys in my car and losing things!  I knew it wasn’t really my fault, it is a medical condition!  (I wonder if I will get a handicap sticker or if this will get me to the front of the line at Disney.)

What about a cancer doctor? We are not sure, but need to test for more types and places but it is definitely not in the cyst because due to the size you would already be dead.  Which I told him, would make this appointment very awkward, i.e. Weekend at Bernie’s.  So what do I need to do?  Drum roll… More tests. He sent me to Shands Hospital Oncology department in Gainesville for specialized cancer testing and… we need to drain it… AGAIN.  What is wrong with me?? 

At some point you start wondering where this is heading.  Does it really matter?  I am worth more dead than I am alive (at least on paper).  When you get to the point of 4-7 doctor appointments per week you start feeling like everything is slipping out of your control.  Here is the thing though, I know it is not too much different in most areas of our lives.  We all love control at some level.  Control of our job, our schedules, our relationships, where the peanut butter is on the shelf, if the toilet paper is rolled over or under, etc.  It doesn’t really matter but when you feel like everything is slipping out of your control I usually try to hold on tighter.  What is wrong with me?

“The pain we hold onto from our past only prohibits the purpose of our future…“

At our fundamental core all of us have SOMETHING wrong with us.  Past pains, problems, broken relationships, financial failures, sickness, depression, anxiety, pride, and a few of you reading this actually think you have it all together which is the scariest WRONG you could ever have because there is no acceptance or awareness of the issue.  Once we embrace our problem(s) and allow others to come alongside us, the quicker we are able to start growing through them.  Please don’t miss these steps:

1) Admit—you have something wrong with you.

2) Accept—that they have an effect on how you live your life.

3) Ask for and receive help—others to come into your pain and problems and know the real you.

When you do this, then co-workers become friends and family (good ones), friends who you watch the game with or went shopping with are now friends who are closer than a brother or sister.  They can see into you in ways you never allowed before, so that you can continue to grow as a person and as a friend. 

Don’t worry, I didn’t stay at Shands (this made the 5th doc I’d seen for this issue thus far). They stuck things in my nose, down my throat, needles in my gums, and did a head scan (was very excited they found a brain although it was not as large as I thought it would be) and no cancer was found anywhere.  I just had a giant cyst in my neck that still needed to be removed.  As much as I had been feeling sorry for myself and my “condition,” it was humbling walking through the oncology department realizing instantly how healthy and blessed I was. Perspective matters. I was reminded of something my grandfather told me one time: “Brice, if you can wipe your butt and tie your own shoes then you are in GREAT health!”  Pretty true statement right there.  As I drove home after Shands, I simply had to change my mindset to look at what was ahead and not focus on all I had gone through. 

What is wrong with me?  I don’t know, but I promise something is!  What are you going to do with it?  Hide behind it?  Get angry?  Deny it? Cover it up?  Lie about it?  Compensate for it? Or dig in and admit, accept, and allow others to be a part of it!  It is not easy, and I am living proof that these steps will take a can take a lifetime if you don’t face them when you should, but they not only allow me to grow as a leader but help everyone that I allow to come into my circle of influence.  I hope you will continue to grow as a Transparent Leader and show others the real you.