Tag Archives: resolutions

Out of a Cannon

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I have never been terribly enthusiastic about New Year’s Eve resolutions. This is not because I lack resolve, but because the start of a new year has usually struck me as a rather arbitrary time to gain such resolve or to turn over a new leaf. If one is committed to certain goals and principles in life, then almost any day will do for fashioning new objectives in serving those goals, depending on circumstances. Why January 1? I suspect that it is mostly a reminder for many people that they have not spent enough time thinking about or pursuing their goals. They may need to develop the habit on an ongoing basis rather than pretending that the start of a new year will make things different. Will power and commitment matter. Do you really want to make things different? If so, then why not make the decision on February 4, or your birthday, or even the Fourth of July? Any day of the year will do, as long as the commitment is real. That commitment may arise out of a life-changing event, but it does not have to. New Year’s resolutions often fade into the ether of our dreams because those making them have not developed an adequate habit of connecting their dreams with a determination to make them happen.

All that said, on this particular trip around the sun, New Year’s Day seems for me a perfect day to launch some resolutions, even if many are focused on unfinished business. But I don’t just want to pick up the pace in 2024. I want to be metaphorically shot out of a cannon on New Year’s Eve. I want to start the new year with a passion.

I say this not because I changed how I feel generally about new-year resolutions. It’s because, for me personally, January 1 is a remarkably convenient opportunity for reclaiming lost energy. What happens a year from now may be different.

For one thing, although I don’t want to overemphasize this, as early as April, there were signs that I was facing a reckoning with regard to a medical problem that had been dogging me in one form or another for about a dozen years. Somewhere back then, my physician referred me to a urologist because of high PSA scores. PSA refers to prostate-specific antigens, antibodies that fight cancer or infections in the prostate gland. That led to a long series of periodic biopsies to monitor the possibility of cancer serious enough to merit surgical attention or radiation treatment, but doctors found only the slightest trace of an indolent cancer and never acted on it. Over time, it became harder to take it seriously, but such monitoring at least produced reassurance nothing disastrous was happening.

But that is not the whole story. In 2012, during a flight from Chicago to Los Angeles for the annual APA National Planning Conference, I became very ill. It felt like influenza, but by the time I left the plane, my only priority was to find a taxi for a quick trip to the hotel, where I promptly became seriously ill after checking in. Only a long-distance consultation with my primary physician, followed by a visit to a nearby urgent care center, confirmed that what I thought was the flu was actually prostatitis and required a major regimen of antibiotics for the next two weeks. I spent much of the conference in bed, sweating through a fever and visiting the bathroom frequently, occasionally struggling to attend events, only to succumb again. Fortunately, the antibiotics salvaged a post-conference road trip with my wife, Jean, to visit relatives in northern California and return to LAX along the gorgeous Pacific Coast Highway.

As for my urologist back in Chicago, when I later recounted these events, his eyes widened, and he said emphatically, “People have died from infections like that.” I did not, and I think I was otherwise far too healthy for that outcome, but it was unquestionably one of the worst experiences I have had with any sort of illness. Prostatitis is simply not fun. It is a bacterial infection, not cancer, but it can drive up PSA scores to drastic levels.

Prostate cancer drives them up much more slowly. It is a grinding menace, and because I have known people who died from it, I took it seriously all along. In the meantime, however, a less potent but serious problem developed called benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). Basically, it involves the enlargement of the prostate gland, a process that is typical as men grow older, but the big question is how big and how rapid the growth. By April, one of those periodic biopsies produced very uncomfortable impacts just as I was about to undertake a full week of online teaching for the Emergency Management Institute, for which I am a certified instructor for courses related to post-disaster recovery. The biopsy occurred on Friday. I was in miserable shape on Saturday, and I was already exhausted when I logged on with the class, another instructor, and our course supervisor at 7 a.m. on Monday. Although the course supervisor said he did not notice much difference in my delivery, it was a case of only making it look easy. When the day was over, Jean could see that I was thoroughly exhausted. It got a little better later in the week, but it was still a struggle.

My new urologist, Dr. William Lin, who had performed the biopsy (the original one retired in March), chose in a follow-up visit to refer me to a specialist who was highly trained in a new surgery called HoLEP (holmium laser enucleation of the prostate), for an evaluation of my suitability for this treatment of a prostate gland that was now about three times normal size. Other than aging, I have not found any indication that the medical profession knows precisely why this happens. It was just my bad luck, I suppose. Dr. Amy Krambeck did not have an opening until August 10, but at that appointment, she and her team made clear that I was well above the threshold for the surgery, and we scheduled it for September 29 at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. I also learned that she was regarded as quite possibly the best in the nation at this relatively new procedure, which basically uses laser treatment to hollow out the prostate gland, leaving the shell, thus drastically reducing bladder pressure, the main problem connected to BPH. I’ll let those interested follow the links to learn more. My focus here is still on New Year’s resolutions.

Why? Because the first thing I learned was that for at least a month afterwards, I was expected to adhere to some strict dietary limitations (mostly avoiding acidic foods and beverages) aimed at avoiding bladder irritation and allowing my internal organs to heal as well as possible. I was instructed to avoid most physical activity and not lift anything above ten pounds. The key was an intense focus on compliance, a self-discipline aimed at ensuring the best outcome.

Those who have been following the many blog video postings here in recent months will know that I spent much of my summer on trips designed to develop content for a documentary film about planning for community resilience in the face of natural disasters and climate change. By September, such travel became challenging, underscoring the real need for treatment. I had previously scheduled one more trip for early November in Texas—those blog videos are still coming—and deliberately asked Dr. Krambeck about the wisdom of its timing, which was tied to a Texas APA conference in Corpus Christi. She said I should be fine. I did get through it, but setbacks in the first week of November made me wonder as I worked with one of her assistants to determine their likely cause. They were ultimately blamed on inflammation, which could be addressed with Motrin or Ibuprofen. The trip took place, but not without its own challenges.

The reality is that recovery is often a bumpy road. Dr. Allison Shafron, who will see me on January 2 to assess my progress, texted a patient-portal welcome to “the roller coaster of recovery.” That struck me as curious because we use that same phrase in helping communities and local planners prepare for the long road to recovery after disasters. We even have a graphic slide in the EMI courses to illustrate the idea. By December, some other troubling personal matters were also seizing much of my attention, and I was feeling significant fatigue, sometimes as a result of a bit of sleep deprivation. I was also trying to rebuild strength and stamina by resuming a workout routine that I had suspended for nearly three months. I had to temper them initially to avoid overdoing it, but have gradually ramped up much of the exercise to pre-surgical levels. Some people might wonder if that might wear me out, and the answer is yes, but only temporarily. I have pursued fitness goals, on a noncompetitive basis mostly related to personal health, for years and know that the long-term benefits completely outweigh any short-term fatigue. That includes recovering from medical setbacks and injuries.

The reason for describing this at all is that it relates to my stated desire to be “shot out of a cannon” on New Year’s Eve. During much of 2023, I was decidedly passive about pursuing the sort of consulting work I have done in recent years because I was not confident about meeting the challenges involved while awaiting or recovering from the expected surgery. It did slow me down in ways that I am not used to. But I have also grown impatient to get on with normal life, to tackle new professional and volunteer challenges, and to achieve personal goals. These include raising money for and producing the HMDR documentary film, Planning to Turn the Tide; completing redesign of the disaster planning course I teach for the University of Iowa School of Planning and Public Affairs; possible additional course instruction for EMI; and finally, outlining and moving forward on some long-planned book projects. That is to say nothing of reinvigorating this blog with new content, as well as planning at least one personal trip to relax and see the world.

On December 20, I became only 74 years old. I expect to be around for a while, and I don’t plan to occupy a couch. For the first time in years, January 1 seems like a perfect time to fashion some resolutions that I will pursue with joyful vigor. Happy New Year, everyone!

Jim Schwab

Resolve to Get Your Hands Dirty

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DSCF1169More often than not, New Year’s resolutions involve aspirations for some type of self-improvement: eating a better diet; exercising more; getting better grades in school; or achieving something in one’s profession. I am no stranger to such resolutions. I am still living with the decision two years ago to start working with a personal trainer. Having slogged through a year following Hurricane Sandy with 23 business trips, three others to Iowa in connection with my adjunct professorship at the University of Iowa, and some personal trips, I finally decided that, if I were to sustain the stamina to continue at such a pace, something needed to change. I signed up at X Sports Fitness, but then was delayed in implementing my plan when I injured myself with a pinched nerve on New Year’s Eve by carelessly tossing a heavy laptop on my shoulder at Barnes & Noble. I started 2014 with a few weeks of therapy to ease the pinched nerve before finally launching my plan. But I have never looked back and recently became my trainer’s first client to do a two-minute plank, just before my 66th birthday.

So I understand and applaud the best intentions if they become real. But I am going to suggest something much riskier and more profound if you are ready to follow me into the deep water. Oh, yes, learning to swim is also a legitimate resolution.

I suggest that you at least consider resolving to get your hands dirty this year. Metaphorically, that is. On behalf of creating a better society, if not changing the world in some small way.

By getting your hands dirty, I do not necessarily mean protesting in the streets, but what I mean may include some vocal advocacy. It does not mean simply charitable work, such as Toys for Tots, as helpful as that may be. What I mean is getting involved in some way that entails some risk of learning to see the world in a new way because you must be open to new perspectives in order to be effective at what you choose to do. It may involve some reputational risk if others do not immediately see the benefit of what you are trying to accomplish. Some of the greatest leaders in the world had to endure significant opprobrium in order to produce fundamental changes in society that have benefited us all. But the change you initiate most likely will not be so grand and may even be invisible to most people. Let me share our own example.

A quarter-century ago, my wife and I began to explore options for adoption through foster care. One can talk all day long about what may need to change in improving the lives of our most vulnerable children, but until you actually get down in the trenches, accepting one or much children into your home, learning of the life circumstances that brought them there, and really committing to better outcomes, you can never learn what obstacles exist to producing real change. It is deep one-on-one commitment, a leap of faith into generally unknown and sometimes unknowable backgrounds that power deeply engrained reactions by children to the world around them. This blog does not begin to offer sufficient space to explore this topic—I actually started a memoir about 12 years ago that I have never finished—but it does allow me to use this as an object lesson in, first, making some kind of a difference, and second, in how easily you can underestimate how difficult that is.

Children who have suffered some type of abuse or neglect at the hands of natural parents are among the most prolonged sufferers of post-traumatic stress syndrome precisely because they have usually suffered at a time when they were too young to make sense of their surroundings or to understand that what was happening to them was not normal or acceptable. Their supple young minds are simply programmed to react to stimuli that, when they cease to exist in real life, still haunt them in ways they cannot articulate and can only begin to understand with the help of sustained therapy. Sometimes, an overloaded child welfare system compounds the problem by placing them in new abusive circumstances that only add to a child’s confusion, depression, and withdrawal.

Jean with two of our grandchildren, Angel and EJ.

Jean with two of our grandchildren, Angel and EJ.

And then, as a foster parent with intent to adopt, you step in with the objective of trying to help fix all that. If you are like us, you step in with a modest amount of training before certification, but you quickly learn that what you know is a tiny fragment of what you will come to know. Our two daughters are now grown and have their own children, and we and they are all still learning. Yet many people see the system as one in which children are emancipated at age 18, and these new adults who never had a proper childhood are now expected to act and proceed as if they have all the tools to succeed in life, and some foster parents operate on the same assumptions. Our society can be incredibly naïve at times.

Or incredibly judgmental. Unfortunately, one daughter’s penchant for running away, both literally and figuratively, from her problems led to a few encounters with police. It is seldom possible for police to understand even a small portion of the background that leads to such encounters, and most understand that, but that does not prevent some from harshly assuming that the problems were created by your bad parenting, especially when they do not know they are dealing with adoptive parents. There may even be some truth to their judgment at some times, but it is also true, and I know this as deeply as I know anything, that you can make errors of parental judgment simply because you do not know what emotional triggers lie deep within someone’s early childhood experience. It may take years, which is why we try to remain close and supportive but also instructive. Making a positive difference can take a long, long time.

Granddaughter Lashauna engages at the Chicago Public Library.

Granddaughter Lashauna engages at the Chicago Public Library.

I will not elaborate further because it is not my intent to highlight foster care and adoption as the only ways to get your hands dirty. You can undertake many other initiatives, and many of them may involve direct attempts to influence public policy. What I am suggesting is that, if you want truly to make a lasting difference, choose something that challenges your preconceptions, that liberates you from simplistic assumptions, and makes you rethink, over and over again, exactly what difference you are making, why you want to make it, and the best way to achieve it. The most important risk you can take is to be open to challenging your own assumptions about how that change is going to occur and what it may ultimately mean. It means getting close enough to people to get hurt once in a while.

The world is not a simple place, and there is, as some have said, a world of hurt out there. Resolve to change some of that, and in the process, to put as much of your ego aside as possible. Resolve to get your hands dirty. God will appreciate what you do even if no one else does.

 

Jim Schwab