SARAH'S LIFE-CHANGING STORY
Based on a true story
Everyone has dreams, yet life changes, and as a result, so do dreams. Sarah had by all accounts a wonderful life with a loving husband – Kevin, a teacher, a lazy yet loveable basset hound named Mumbles whose only vice was loudly and sloppily crunching baby carrots, and a fulfilling career as a histotechnologist. Secretly, Sarah felt that her life was in fact a dream come true, but would never say so out loud just in case the mere sound of her voice might cause her to wake up.
Then, one day Kevin started feeling different. He shrugged it off, but the symptoms became worse very quickly. Then almost in the blink of an eye, life would never be the same. Kevin was diagnosed with a chronic debilitating disease. His condition went downhill faster than anyone had expected, he soon needed care at times that Sarah’s unusual histotech work schedule could not accommodate. Aside from facing the loss of her husband’s career as a 9th grade history teacher and beloved JV track coach, Sarah faced choices that can only be described as a nightmare - quitting her job and going broke, or continuing to work and allowing her husband to suffer.
The stress was taking its toll on Sarah. Normal work stress such became more pronounced and to make things worse, she had heard that her lab was going to implement Tissue-Tek® Automation. Could she lose her job to machines? Would her skills and delicate artistry, finely honed over years be rendered devoid of value like John Henry when he lost to the steam hammer? She was out of options and the choices she had were not viable solutions. Sarah silently kept it all inside but her friends could see it on her face.
On a chilly, dark, late October day, Sarah watched as very large containers were unpacked and a team of unusually cheerful people wearing bright red flower shaped logos descended upon her laboratory. In a couple of days, these machines were installed, and the training was complete. It was all so easy, so simple. This made Sarah even more uncomfortable. How could completely changing one’s life be so easy? Everything was going to be different and there was nothing she could do about it. The machines were incredible, they could do work in hours that would normally take days. They could even get a tissue sample prepared for evaluation and diagnosis in a single day – no overnight processing. Kevin had to wait a week or more for results several times and Sarah was a bit angry that she had to endure that excruciating mental suffering more than once. Kevin, Sarah’s husband had deteriorated to the point where Sarah needed to be home to prepare him and the house for the caregiver’s arrival at 9AM. 9AM was the earliest that the insurance company would pay for, yet still no solution.
Then she saw it. It looked normal enough, a table written in green ink on a well used white board. The headline said – “shift options.” A sense of doom overcame Sarah as a knot tightened in her stomach. “Here it is” she thought. The final shoe has dropped. But as she read the table, she noticed something. The shifts were not like anything she had seen before.
The shift options increased and each tech got to choose his/her own hours! A feeling of excitement and elation came over her as she started to realize that these changes would allow her to spend mornings getting Kevin ready for the caregiver, and continue to work the same number of hours as before. Sarah did a double take, then a triple take, and even a quadruple take to make absolutely certain that the numbers she just saw were real, and not some sort of wishful thinking mirage generated by her overstressed mind. But each time she looked, the schedule did not change. It was real. All of a sudden a feeling of relief washed over her like a warm bubble bath.
As time went on, Sarah’s life not only stabilized it turned around 180 degrees. Not only was the monumental burden of her family life now that she was able to devote time to caring for Kevin, Sarah found that other things were improving as well. She was more relaxed at home, which made Kevin more comfortable, and her work became more satisfying as well. She was feeling more valuable and increasingly effective at her job. She noticed that because she spent far less time doing tedious menial tasks like moving baskets from a stainer to a coverslipper, things went much more smoothly. The work seemed to flow evenly. They were not deluged with massive batches of blocks or other repetitive tasks like hand coverslipping with high stress deadlines, sandwiched in between periods of waiting and baby-sitting ornery equipment that couldn’t be trusted. Now her skills were utilized even more effectively than they ever were. Sarah started to notice that her longtime friends who worked beside her every day for so many years appeared happier and more fulfilled as well. The fear of change had melted away to a much needed release of stress, and had transitioned into a much better way of life. Then the thought hit her – “there might be no knights on white horses or magic castles, but, real dreams change over time. This is now my dream - and yes, they do come true.”
