When Lightning Strikes

Did you ever have a "lightning strike" moment when a problem or situation shifts from seeming impossibly complex and complicated to becoming crystal clear? When, in an instant, the fog of uncertainty and indecision lifts and the path ahead comes completely into focus?

My moment came many years ago as I was exploring how an already successful independent community pharmacy might expand to include a diabetes management center and become a seamless entity serving people with diabetes. This was then an unheard-of combination in the health care field.

I had spent hours researching the idea and wrestling with indecision about entering an area that had been reserved for hospital outpatient clinics and doctors' offices. Most of what I was considering had not been done by a pharmacist at that time. And being a "pharmacist/diabetes educator" sounded not only intimidating but also demanding of time I wasn't sure I had at that point in my business life.

The encounter that changed my career, my business, and my life happened late at night after a grueling day at the pharmacy.

The fear and helplessness in this man's voice came through so loud and clear that night that it stays with me to this day.

But I knew I wanted to do more than what pharmacy was then asking of me. I wanted to see the impact and outcomes of my work, face to face with patients.

That's when lightning struck.

The encounter that changed my career, my business, and my life happened late at night after a grueling day at the pharmacy. I received a call from an older customer who lived in a remote area of the county in an already rural part of Texas. As I picked up the phone, his first words to me were, "Jerry, I'm in trouble."

He explained that he had mixed up his long-acting, once-daily basal insulin with the rapid-acting Humalog he was injecting 3 times a day. The result was that instead of giving himself 4 units of Humalog, he had injected 30 units.

The fear and helplessness in this man's voice came through so loud and clear that night that it stays with me to this day. Keeping my own voice calm and steady, I told him to grab some juice and other carbs along with his BG meter and take a seat in his BarcaLounger. I said it might be a long night but that together we would figure it out.

We exchanged phone calls all night long, with him testing and me making suggestions while also chatting about how the rest of his life was going. The end result was a call early the next morning when he reported a reasonably normal BG.

The next time I saw him was just before noon the following day, as once again I was in the middle of an extremely busy prescription dispensing day. I looked up from my work, and here was this older gentleman with a big grin on his face saying loud enough for the whole pharmacy to hear, "Come around here young man, I want to shake your hand and take you to lunch. I think you just saved my life!" I thought about it for maybe 2 seconds, looked around at my fellow pharmacist, grabbed my coat, and said "I'm going to lunch!"

That day, I enjoyed the best lunch I'd had in a long time. My newly inherited patient and I talked about all that he had gone through as a person with diabetes—in his words, "lost like a cork bobbing in the ocean"—and how I was "his port in a storm." I learned a lot about his life and told him a bit about what I wanted to do with mine, but mostly I just listened.

My newly inherited patient and I talked about all that he had gone through as a person with diabetes— in his words, "lost like a cork bobbing in the ocean"—and how I was "his port in a storm."

I knew right then that I needed to feel like that much more often in my professional life. I ramped up my diabetes knowledge and became a Certified Diabetes Educator while finalizing plans for the wellness center that would become the first free-standing independent ADA-recognized pharmacy-based program in the country.

Lightning strike moments do that for you. After they hit, the status quo is no longer an option, and the decision to move forward is crystal clear. The result for me has been a more meaningful, more rewarding career than I could ever have imagined. ■

I knew right then that I needed to feel like that much more often in my professional life.