From KT – August 2, 2014

Good Morning teammates of DaVita HealthCare Partners !

It is Saturday morning.  I am in for a rough stretch as we fly to our cottage in northern Wisconsin for several days.  I was raised in Wisconsin, in a small town outside Milwaukee.  But since I was born we have had a cottage up in northern Wisconsin, originally without indoor plumbing and then modernized bit by bit.  I have been there every year of my life, and a few years ago we built a cottage for me and my family, the 5^th cottage in the family compound up there.

The problem is usually our diets are pretty unhealthy there, compared to normal work-life.  So I will need to rely on the 3600 to help me do better than the norm.

Village Vitality you will have to let me know about any gaps, but let me return to yesterday.  I was still feeling enough better to go in the office again.  I had high fiber cereal for bkfast, and 3 servings of vegetables for lunch, one of them being broccoli, along with my chicken.  This was a good move because Friday night brought 130 DaVitans to our house for the annual summer party.  Denise and I invite all La Casa del Mundo and nearby directors and vp’s and their spouses/partners to our house for simple food and drink.  It is our way of trying to say thank you for all the good work, and invest in our notion of being a community first and a company second, a true Village.

BUT I only had one serving of vegetable, as I gorged on crabcakes, beef brisket, spicy beef, ice cream, etc.  Yikes.

Once again I had to go without exercise, as I am still coughing a tiny bit during the day, but quite a bit when I go to bed at night, which leads to lousy sleep.  Hopefully I can get back to that soon.  It is interesting, however, as typically my body craves exercise every day, as it is accustomed to.  But when it is sick that desire often shuts down.  One of the ways I can tell when I am regaining my ultimate health is the desire for exercise re-emerges.  This morning, for the first time all week, it has returned a bit.  Hope springs eternal!

I had a great HCP strategy session yesterday morning, for 3 hours.  I filmed two videos segments, one an intro for an HCP compliance video and the other the video for this year’s “Village Celebration – KT takes the Village to dinner” event.  That celebration attracted OVER 40,000 teammates, citizens and their spouses/partners last year, our way of saying thank you for another year of hard work and good service.  We can only do a dinner like that when we have a reasonable economic year, which we did!  Hopefully every one of those dinners will show the video AND do a couple Core Value awards.  This year for the first time HCP will be a part of the Village Celebration dinners.

Time to pack.  While in Wisconsin the typical day will be something like business calls from 7:30 to 8:30, workout between 8:30 and 11:00, business calls from 11:00 until 1:00 pm, then free time with family.  This is my mom’s first trip back to Wisconsin since we moved her to Denver to be near me, as she is in Long Term Care now.  We have daily nursing support to help us take care of her up at the cottage, and she was so excited.  I worry how sad she will be to leave there once again.

I hope all of you are well.  Picture the 3600 of us, locked arm in arm, proceeding across the country together, striving for better health.  I am already quite sure that I will be eating more fruit and vegetables after MTM VII than I was before it – and that is a very cool thing.  Thanks to all of you.

One for All ….. KT