Yo DaVita!

Sorry I was too tired to get a message out last night. Given I was up at 4 am, I felt pretty tired at 11 pm when I turned the lights off, too tired to even finish my nightly treat of reading the paper.  So here is a quick note while I am running from meeting to meeting.

I don’t have my notes with me, but my life cycle time was about 24 minutes yesterday at above average intensity.  I also did an above average quality/quantity of rehab, I think about 20 minutes.  I learned that one of the advantages of getting up at 4 am was that I had more time to workout!  I don’t like doing the rehab because it is not really a strong cardio/strength/flexibility or balance experience – but it is what I have to do to try to get my shoulder back to where I can do more of the stuff that does score strongly on those four important categories.

It was a wonderful diet coke day, I had 1/3^rd of one can.  That was a good discipline in itself, to take the sensible step of not always drinking a full can once it is open.

On the weight front, it appears I may  be down a pound.  But my weight fluctuates quite a bit, so let’s hold judgment on that for a couple of days.

Yesterday was a pretty normal workday.  It included; listening to voice-mail as I pedaled, doing a conference call as I drove into the Casa (that is the office),  a one hour meeting on government stuff,  a reference call,  a meeting with a candidate running for an important School Board position, and I spent 30 minutes on Village Programs – including a neat Community Care site that will be up and running any day now on DaVita.com. I also did a town hall with the Pioneer Division which is doing some awesome work (100% of centers now have the new P&P system, 33% have the new water check process, one group has the new DaVita Experience working outstandingly well, the new inventory process that pilots in a bunch of centers is going well, etc), had a 2 hour Board of Directors call, and reviewed a letter going to CMS, etc.

The one unusual thing about yesterday was an event at 6 pm that was focused on ensuring that all of the best candidates for the Denver Public Schools district are well-supported in their campaigns. Then there was a dinner where one of the major scholarship foundations that benefit low income kids in Denver was discussing their future strategies.

Then home at 10:15 pm, and the rest is history.  I will provide some more stats on our shared adventure in my next journal entry.  I hope you are all well!

One for All,

KT

Good Morning DaVita Citizens!

Quite a bit going on in DaVita-Land! I woke up at 4 am and could not get back to sleep.  This is very unusual for me, especially since I did not get to bed until midnight.  Oh well, at least I will get some extra email done.  This may be a day when I consume more than one diet coke, it will be a long day.

Monday was a good day.  Zero diet cokes.  My normal morning workout session included 24 minutes on the bike, and 13 minutes of rehab.  Reasonable consumption on the calorie front, although not enough to make big progress.

I was in the Casa all day at meetings, but left at 6:45 for an event with my wife.  Then I had an executive recruiting dinner from 8:30 to 10:30, and back home for a little email, reading, and bed.

We are over 4700 teammates and FOD’s (friends of davita)!  This includes 375 folks from our new sibling, HealthCare Partners!  Poland is now up to 20 participants, and Malaysia has surged into second place with 7.  2300 clinical teammates from KC (kidney care) and 1600 from the major neighborhoods (meaning corporate offices).    Almost 100 friends, on top of over 300 family members.

Pretty cool global tribe to be getting exercise with.  Over 41,000 exercise minutes a day, with many folks having a goal that did not include exercise minutes.

I wish you the best today!

KT

Dear DaVitans,

I am off the grid from 3:30 Saturday AM until noon on Sunday.  So I will leave a journal entry for this weekend on Sunday!  Hope you are all achieving your goals, and encouraging others to do the same!

Yo!   KT

Dear DaVita,

Can’t talk long tonight, have to get to bed since I am getting up at 3:15, the 50 mile mountain biking race/ride starts at 6 am and I need to drive up there and meet my mountain biking  buddies.

I did not work out today. I wanted to give my legs a totally quiet day given they will be working for about 8 hours tomorrow.  I did go to Physical Therapy for my shoulder, and I  got an MRI on my knee … so I did invest in my health today.  The 30 minutes in physical therapy legitimately counts in my mind, but I will respect the vote of the people, let me know!

I went without a diet soda.  And my weight was 190.6 … although I think I was dehydrated from all the airplane time the previous day, despite my drinking water steadily.

I hope you all had strong days – and I hope you take advantage of the weekends to take GREAT health strides.  While having some fun dinners as well, like the pasta dish with pancetta I devoured an hour ago.

All the best, teammates across the Globe.  Greetings from La Casa del Mundo in Denver Colorado!

KT

Yo DaVitans,

Over 4,500 of us now, banding together to improve our health!  Other late breaking news includes the fact that Poland has surged into the non-US lead with 13 teammates rocking and rolling in MTM VI.  Perhaps the MTM administrator can tell us which state in the US is ahead …(NOTE from MTM administrator: California is in the lead with 659 TMs followed by Colorado with 513 and Texas with 358).

I did 25 minutes on the bike this am, good minutes with a few intervals at the end.  Up until the intervals I can listen to my voicemails.   I can’t answer, but I can listen.  Then I did 10 minutes of rehab.  Off to the airport I went, only to find that bad weather meant I could not fly to Rochester for my lunch meeting.  Instead I headed straight to LA.

Plane flights are kind of wonderful for me, because I work every minute and get huge amounts done.  And the DC to LA flight is a good long one, so I got hundreds and hundreds of emails done.  Once I landed I did conference calls for 2 hours, then went to a business dinner with the folks from Amgen.  The dinner started at 6:30 and went until 8:30, at which point I scooted to the airport to fly to Denver.  

On this flight I got thru another couple hundred emails.  I will land a bit after midnight, and get to bed a bit after 1 am.  Not a good thing, given I have to get up early.  I really wanted to get a big night of sleep, because on Saturday I have to get up at 3:15 in the morning to drive up to the mountains for a 50 mile Mountain Bike “Race” (for me it is a ride not a race!) with 5 friends.  The race starts at 6 am.  If I make it I will probably finish in about 8 hours.  The race is called the Bailey Hundo.  Other than my little morning pedal-fasts in the gym, I have done very little biking for a month, and have spent almost all of the last month at sea level.  So this will be a most interesting adventure.  There is a lot of vertical in this course, so I will be pushed to the max.  It will be glorious!!

I did have one diet soda today.  And I live in fear of the scale I will get on tomorrow am.

For those of you who have not done a big walk/run/ride/race for years and years, you may want to give it a try with some friends.  Although exhausting, it is equally exhilarating (after you are done).

I hope you all did well today, and met your goals.  Let’s keep encouraging one another.  We give life!  Starting with giving it to ourselves …

One for All, KT

Part 1:

Good evening to the good people of DaVita!

It is midnight here in DC.  I had quite the day.  Breakfast was a CFO interview; a meeting with Fresenius executives for a few hours to discuss kidney care policy; meetings with Senators and Representatives for the balance of the day; a meeting with former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle from 5 to 6:15, an old relationship that was great to renew; and a meeting with a potential facilitator for an upcoming conference we are sponsoring, which ended at 7:15.  

Then what was supposed to be a 30 minute single beer session with another US Senator – the single beer part turned out to be accurate, but we talked for 90 minutes instead of 30.  Good for the Village, bad for his planned evening with his daughter. 

We are slowly but in some ways surely building recognition for the amazing gift we could give patients and America if they let us manage the patients in a holistic and coordinated way.  I have been fighting this battle since 1994, and am not ready to give up.

I had one diet coke today.  I was dragging.

I had a short workout, 19 minutes of solid bike intensity, 5 minutes of PT.  I overslept a bit, because I took 33% of a sleeping pill and did not realize how stultifying that was.

One for All, KT

Part 2:

Yo Fellow Citizens!

A quick addendum to last night’s message, I was tired and so I had a few gaps. 

After the 90 minute session with the US Senator from Pennsylvania, Bob Casey, I had a 90 minute career/discussion session with one of our promising young executives.  Then I did email until about 11 pm, ate some dinner …. And then turned to my daily MTM note at midnight.

And the reason I took part of a sleeping pill in the middle of the night before is that I re-aggravated my rib issue and the pain was waking me up again.  

I have continued my 2 week stretch of eating terribly; it will be interesting to see if I can curtail that shortly.

Finally it may be interesting for you to know some of the other Senators I had sessions with on this trip – Hagan from North Carolina, Cantwell from Washington, Wyden from Oregon, Baucus from Montana, Carper from Delaware, Rep Black from Tennessee, Udall from Colorado, Isakson from Georgia, and I am forgetting someone.  Some good meetings with staff as well.

Ok, have to run to do my workout and PT.  Hope you do well today, all 4000 of you!

KT

Yo DaVita!

You are now teamed up with over 4000 teammates!!!!  Almost 400 of them family and friends.  That is a cool global team; please picture 4000 people in a huge arena, all working out in unison, a global village.

Speaking of global, we have 25 folks from outside the U.S.  Malaysia and Singapore are tied for the lead with 7.  In second place is American Samoa with 3, which is quite noteworthy since we don’t do any work there!

I got up at 6:15 this am, did a few emails while I continued to wake up after my 1:15 am lights out the night before (unfortunately treating myself to a dessert after I stopped doing email at 12:45 am).  I did 22 solid minutes on the bike in a dingy small hotel workout room, then only 5 minutes of PT as I had to rush out for my first meeting.  The day included individual meetings with 7 different United States Senators and one Representative, as well as a couple phone calls and an internal meeting at La Casa Blanca, our DC office.  The day ended with a dinner with Senator Wyden from Oregon.  He is a senior senator on a key committee, and very thoughtful on healthcare policy, so we had a great 2 hour discussion.  After dinner I had one in person meeting, then one more call, but at 10:45 pm I wrapped up work for the day – except for this email, which I don’t really count as work.

The bad news is I was dragging a bit, so I had 2 diet cokes today to keep myself going.  I am still well ahead of my goal, but the recent trend must be taken seriously.  I also doubt that I have lost any weight. 

I had too much other work this weekend, so I feel badly that I did not get to respond to more messages.  I did read them, which is a source of great motivation and happiness.  So many people doing good things for their bodies and souls, and for each other!  Please figure out a way to encourage someone tomorrow to take their own small daily step to a healthier life. 

One for All & All for One.   kt

Greetings to the good people of Davita-Land,

It is after midnight on Monday night, I just arrived in my hotel room in DC. Because of storms my plane was late, so I dropped off my luggage at the hotel and went straight to the restaurant where I was having dinner with a member of the Board of Directors. But let’s step back a bit.

It was a bad night of sleep, as whatever is wrong with my left set of ribs made rolling over very painful. I finally got up at 3 am and took part of a sleeping pill to pursue some quiet time. It worked. I then got up at 6 and had a great 53 minute bike ride, solid intensity with some relevant hills. I saw a couple deer, and it was very quiet and peaceful. This helped make up for the uncomfortable night. I did 10 minutes of PT after that, and then hustled to shower and pack.

Off to Omaha I went for a lunch with Warren Buffet, perhaps the most famous investor in world history. We spent an engaging two and a half hours together, I would like to think that is because he found it engaging. He is a genuine and thoughtful human being, just as you might have heard. I felt it was an honor to represent our Village as an example of a company with the kind of values that he believes in.

Having said that, I did have a diet caffeinated soda today, my first in MTM VI. Because of the poor sleep last night I was just dying on my flight from Omaha to DC, and I needed to get a lot of work done. I have to leave at 8 am tomorrow, for a full day here in DC – so I need to keep this message short, as I need to check some other messages. I hope most of you had a weekend where you reached your daily goals, and felt the power of our almost 4,000 participants!!

Until tomorrow, take care …. kt

Good Evening DaVita!

It is Sunday night up here in northern Wisconsin, I hope all of you had as robust and positive weekend as we did.  Some precious time with my mommy, my wife, myself … and exercise!

We were up late once again, not turning off the reading lights (I read myself to sleep pretty much every night of the week – sometimes 10 minutes, sometimes 45 or a bit more) until a little after midnight.  It took quite awhile to get my mom ready for bed, and then we had to drive back to our cottage.  I got a big sleep once again, not getting up until 9 am.

I worked until 10:30, at which point we drove back to see how she was doing.  We helped get her changed out of her pajamas and into her clothes, and gave her the 7 or 8 pills she takes in the morning.  She had to sign some papers, as I am the executor of her and my late dad’s estate. We also chatted a bit.  Then I hustled back for a family conference call with my 5 siblings, which was followed by a DaVita call about our upcoming shareholder meeting on June 17.

Then I hopped on my new mountain bike and got a 64 minute ride in, with solid intensity.  This was followed by an excellent rehab session, 20 minutes long, shoulders only.  I so much want to get these shoulders back into a good place so I can resume more forms of exercise.

Once I was done with my PT, Denise and I took a recreational bike ride together, for about 40 minutes.  Do I get to count those minutes? I will say the answer is no, that was not the spirit of my goal, which was cardio or strength or balance exercise for a certain number of minutes per day.  A recreational bike ride would not fit those guidelines.

I returned to my work office  in the new cottage and worked a couple more hours, until about 7 pm.  We had to do some family administration stuff for about an hour, then we warmed up leftovers for a long and relaxing dinner in front of the fireplace.

It was a glorious weekend overall!  I hope the same for most of you!  I typically like to get more intense exercise, but we simply got in too late on Friday and had too many other things to do…with my mom , the fact that we are still moving into the new cottage, and work for dear old DaVita …..but at least I got in about 2.5 hours of rock solid activity.

This week starts with a flight Monday morning to Omaha to have lunch with Warren Buffett.  That is exciting.  Then I fly to Washington DC for a meeting then a dinner with a member of the Board of Directors.  Tuesday and Wednesday are filled with DC meetings, from breakfast Tuesday until dinner on Wednesday.  Then I fly to Rochester, New York on Thursday for a lunch meeting, then to Los Angeles for a dinner that night.  Then to Denver after dinner so I can get in a full day on Friday.  The good thing about all those plane flights is I can get caught up on a lot of emails and other work, I typically work every minute on every flight, it is kind of a break from meetings.  Unfortunately, as of now, as usual, there is no downtime outside the plane flights.   I am glad I love my job and our Village.

One of the things I love about it is how we band together to do good stuff for our patients, for our healthcare systems … AND  for each other!!!    I am grateful for the positive encouragement many of you have given me to maintain my exercise, and today, with your help, I went my 6^th day or whatever of zero diet poisons, I mean cokes!   I have not done that for years.  You may at the same time be appropriately merciless about the fact I am not dropping much weight, I am accountable and deserve it.

I got to respond to a bunch of your comments late this past week – maybe I will get to do some more this week.  If not, please know that (a) I read each and every one, and (b) that all 3,800 of us are shoulder to shoulder marching towards being the Captains of our own ships, the masters of our fate.

With much respect and affection, with you in service, ….. KT