In the last issue of DevOps’ish, I stated, “I’m under explicit doctor’s orders to cut stressors out and do things that bring me more joy… I need to stop doing so much.” For this post, “we” could be a combo of myself, my medical team, and my family. We’ve been monitoring many health metrics through many sensors. (Yes, I should put it all in Grafana, but time). I have no days off from pain....
In November, I went down to Raleigh to meet my team for planning meetings and team building. For a few of my teammates, this is our first face to face interaction with each other ever. My boss wisely gave us a relatively simple assignment. Create a slide sharing what we’ve done this year and want to do next year (which I’ll share to an extent in a later post). Create another slide listing three things that make us who we are (born in a unique place, grew up on a farm, etc....
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I have mentioned this a few times in various talks, on social media, and in my newsletter; the importance of psychological safety in creating effective teams is often overlooked. Google did an enormous amount of research to determine, “the secrets of effective teams at Google.” Code-named Project Aristotle, Google wanted to nail down, once and for all, what factors contributed to team effectiveness. The number one contributor to team effectiveness at Google was surprising at the time; psychological safety....
I’m Chris Short and I have Long Thoracic Nerve (LTN) Palsy with Winging of the Scapula. On October 12, 2003, during a military hurricane evacuation exercise at Avon Park Air Force Range, I managed to permanently damage my LTN leading to winging of my right scapula. Continued service and aging has led to multiple bone spurs in my neck. My life has changed dramatically since I got hurt. Pain is something that I am constantly learning to live with and occasionally thrive with....
I had my “procedure” done on my shoulder this morning. Everything went fine. I was asleep and woke up and mobile so that is a good thing. However, I still feel like I’m having an out of body experience at the moment. The good news is that the pain I had this morning is pretty much gone.
When I first started writing this article I decided to write about how bad the military health care system is and what a farce TRICARE (the military’s HMO) is. However, I think that’s not in the best interests of myself or this web site so I’ll provide an update on my shoulder (back, ribs, spine) injury. But, please allow me to say that you get what you pay for and, in the military, you don’t pay for health care....
Costovertebral Dysfunction of Rib T-8. That’s what’s wrong with my shoulder. After a year and a half of worthless medical treatment the military doctors have finally figured out what’s wrong. There is a rib bulging out from my spine just below my shoulder blade. This is what is pushing back against the muscles in my shoulder thus making my shoulder hurt. Last Tuesday, a physical therapist folded me up like a lawn chair trying to discover the cause of my pain....