15 Years Later

Alright, so now we’ve established that Larsen and I are going to tell you this story together, as student and teacher reunited.  It’s like Breaking Bad, only with wings, beer and bullshitting instead of methamphetamine and international gang violence.

When you catch up with someone you haven’t seen in a decade and a half, what’s a topic you would likely begin with?  Work, obviously. No, I didn’t become a high school teacher but the path I followed to healthcare worked out pretty well for me.

In fact, as I write this, I’m en route to Hawaii where I’ll spend the next four months. I’m obviously excited. I love hiking and from what I understand there is no shortage of it available where I’m going. The islands have a rich, unique culture that I’m looking forward to learning about. Mountains, beaches, volcanoes, waterfalls… I’m going to explore all of it, because I get to work here for the next sixteen weeks, doing a job I love and making the absolute most of my days off.

But here on this plane, I can’t help but think about the same thing I said that day in that Buffalo Wild Wings while I told Larsen about my career path since leaving high school.  I can’t help but acknowledge what brought me here.  I have to appreciate why I have such a rare, amazing opportunity to enjoy four months of paradise. And the truth is, it all began nearly a decade ago by simply receiving a text message.

I worked a few random odd jobs in my 20s. My bachelor’s degree – which wasn’t in teaching – didn’t open a lot of opportunities for me.  Quite frankly that’s my own fault.

“Hey, you should check out this specialty within your degree! There are a lot of cool jobs in that specialty. With your degree, it would be a great idea not to ignore this particular specialty,” my advisors would say.

“Nah,” I’d reply. Like an idiot.

Like most people at that age, I thought I had it all figured out. Then I graduated and began applying to jobs.  All – and I do mean all – of which asked for that specialty I so haphazardly passed on.

So I went back to my college downtime job at a local meat market.  In the meantime, I also had aspirations of becoming the next great stand-up comedian. That in itself is an entirely different story, but that pursuit landed me in the sound and light booth of a local comedy club. I spent over a year’s worth of weekends in that dark little room.

It was in the darkness of that light booth one night where I was sitting, brooding about the first quarter century of my life.  I was stuck at home living with my folks because the brutal team of my student loans and my low income prevented me from being able to afford to even live in a closet elsewhere. Financially, I was stuck. Creatively, I was stuck.  Career aspirations?  Stuck.  That’s when I received a text from my sister-in-law, who was a director for a department at the local hospital.

“Come be a transporter,” she said.

“What’s a transporter?” I thought, but so as not to be rude I instead typed, “Okay thank you!”

I spent the next five years as a patient transporter.  This means I would transport patients to their tests and so forth, not that I was a patient person.  It was a delightful transitional chapter in my life. I got to go everywhere in the hospital, see everything, and meet basically everyone. Most of the people I met there had a positive impact on my life (there is one notable exception, but I’m on a plane to Hawaii so let’s address that at another time).

I immediately got drawn to diagnostic imaging; Ultrasounds, MRIs, CT scans, x-rays, all of it fascinated me. I initially decided to go back to school to become a cardiac sonographer, also called an echo tech, where I’d be doing ultrasounds of the heart.

Once I learned that the closest and best echo school was an hour away, I quietly decided against it.  Being young and dumb, an hour drive to school was too much of a sacrifice to change my life. 

Then my sister-in-law texted me out of the blue, again.

“I got you in to observe some echoes, just call the department and set up a day.”

I didn’t want to be rude and say, “Oh well actually I decided against it.” She went out of her way and used her connections to get me this observational meeting for the one imaging test I never got to see on the job as a transporter. I would see it through.  If nothing else it would be a cool experience. So once again, I replied, “Okay, thank you!”

I watched a guy that’s been doing it for thirty years do three echoes, the last one on a kid. I walked out of there saying to myself, “You know, I think echo is back on the table.” Soon I was driving an hour each way to echo school.

Initially, I still went into it with the attitude of, “Okay, I won’t hate this.” I just wanted a job I wouldn’t hate that would pay me enough to move out of the house. Somewhere along the line while I was in echo school, I fell in love with it. 

It was interesting. It was challenging. It was specialized for an organ that we can all agree is pretty important.  It was like playing a video game, but with people’s hearts.  Every heart was a little different.

I soon developed an idea. I would get a couple of years of experience and then become a traveling echo tech. Yes, just like a traveling nurse, but not a nurse. I had no idea how it would work or where I’d end up, but I had somewhat of a plan, which was rare for me.

In the meantime, I went back to become a lab tutor for the next class of echo techs at that same school. There were a lot of people that helped me along the way: tutors, mentors, friends, colleagues and teachers that were all pivotal in my initial success as an echo tech. So I decided to try to pay it forward. I thought maybe it would last a year.

It turns out I still have that teaching itch that the other jackass inspired me to find, because I loved it. I loved being an echo tech in the hospital, but I LOVED the tutoring gig.

Now, for the first time in my life I have a “five-year plan” for my career. The timing may be more or less than five years, but you get the point, damnit. I’ll travel around the country getting as many different perspectives as I can, both professionally and personally.  Whenever and wherever I decide to settle, I’ll seek an echo lab or classroom instructor job, hopefully splitting time between that and a hospital setting. Not bad, right?

Along the way, as I prepared to take that next step, I got a lot of helpful advice from – yep, former travel nurse – my sister-in-law. Maybe you’re noticing a pattern here. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve worked my tail off.  But yes, I do basically owe her for my whole career.

I got three years of experience at my initial echo job near home.  And I’m going to brag just a little bit here, but I’m pretty good at what I do. So with that experience and confidence, and some great support from some amazing people, I set off on the next chapter of my career and my life as a traveling echo tech. I took my first travel contract and trekked all the way to… Green Bay, Wisconsin. 

Okay, okay, so maybe that’s not the most exciting place to spend a summer. It wasn’t on my wish list, but my agent mentioned it to me and I decided, “Okay, I won’t hate this.”

I loved it. I even extended my contract there for additional time. I spent half a year in Packer territory, and it was perfect. I learned a ton. I gained a lot of confidence and useful experience.  And the people I worked with are now friends of mine for life. 

And now I’m on a plane to Hawaii.

Life can be very busy and very loud. There are distractions, stressors and obstacles in everyone’s lives. Occasionally I enjoy taking a few moments to trace the good things back to where they began. It helps me ground myself and practice gratitude, but to be honest it’s also just personally very interesting to me.

This is the story of the last nine years of my life and career, more or less the way I told it to Larsen. Tomorrow morning I’ll wake up in Hawaii.

And it all started with a text message.