Follow me on IG: @kathy_mead_fronheiser
Check out my website: www.kathymeadfronheiser.com
Follow me on IG: @kathy_mead_fronheiser
Check out my website: www.kathymeadfronheiser.com
Hey guys, I am super excited to be here today for the second to last podcast or no wait, the last podcast, yes, of 2024. I think that's right. That should be right. I can't keep up. Do you get like over the holidays, where you know you got days off and you have kids like home from school and like you don't know what day of the week it is? I totally feel you on that. So I think this is the last podcast of 2024.
Speaker 1:Either way, I'm excited to be here at the end of the year and just kind of give you a little like year and review in real life of what's going on with me, because I don't really think I talk about myself and my life all that much on this podcast and like behind the scenes basically, and there's a lot that's been going on this year and I really haven't shared a lot of it on the podcast. I have sort of here and there but I haven't really shared any updates. I thought I'd give you an update on behind the scenes of my life and I would love it, if you know you let me know a little bit about what's going on in your life behind the scenes, because I genuinely love getting to know each one of you and I genuinely like want to know you. So if you are listening and you're a regular listener, you know maybe you get my emails. You're always welcome to reply back to my emails, because that is me on the other side, or you can always send me a direct message on Instagram. That's another good way to chat. So, anyway, I'd love to hear from you here how 2023 went for you. What are you looking forward to in 2024?
Speaker 1:So 2023 for me started off fine. I had started a new job full time job in August of 2022, after being unemployed for about two and a half months, which was the first time in my life that that had ever really happened. Not by choice, you know what I mean Like I'd left a job before to start my own. I used to have a fitness center a small like boutique fitness center in Nashville and I'd left my full time job to do that, but that was my choice. Well, in May of 2022, I lost my job which had never happened before, and I was unemployed for about two and a half months, and I started a new job full time job in August of 2022. I was working for a large flooring manufacturing company and I was technically in their HR total rewards department managing all of the wellness benefits, if you will, and wellness programming and that sort of thing. So it was pretty cool because I'd never worked in HR before. I had always worked what I like to say HR adjacent working with HR departments on like wellness incentives for the year and wellness programming for the year, but now I was the one that was developing those programs and that sort of thing. So it was a pretty cool job. Unfortunately, after being with the company only 10 or 11 months, they had a big downsize and I lost my job in 2023 in mid June. I literally found out two days before we were supposed to go to Maine.
Speaker 1:So we live in Chattanooga, tennessee, which is about halfway between Nashville and Atlanta, and it's a huge kind of outdoorsy town, beautiful, like mountain biking, hiking, lots of water like white water and that kind of thing, so you can lazy water kayak or white water kayak. Anyway, my husband rides bikes, cycles with a local cycling group here and every other year they do kind of a big trip. So when we first moved to Chattanooga a couple years ago, they went to California that year so we went with them and then this year we had scheduled to go to Maine and I've never been to Maine. I was super excited to ride my bike all around Maine in mid June when it was going to be nice and cool up there, when it's kind of like humid and hot here in the south. Anyway, so I lose my job on a Wednesday and we are planning to leave on Friday to go to Maine.
Speaker 1:And first of all, I was like I cannot believe this is happening again. Right, like how is a smart, intelligent, driven, kind, loyal, devoted, committed woman such as myself losing a job twice in the span of 13 months, basically a year like and literally my whole life before that? I mean the job that I left to open up my boutique fitness center. I had been there for like 12 years or something. So I mean, I am committed, I am loyal. As long as you're treating me well, I'm in right. So it was just a real mind messing with my mind thing. I'll try not to cuss. It was a mind mess. It really affected me I don't even know how to say it like affected my feelings of self worth.
Speaker 1:I did a lot of like thinking through and finally appreciating and understanding that I placed a lot of my own value on not so much my job like what I actually do for a living, but the fact that I make money like I can support myself, I bring home money, I have my own insurance, I take care of myself right. So I think into just like work at least eight hours a day. I'm just used to doing that. I mean, I'm 47 years old. I started working when I was 15. That's when I got my first job. I have worked my whole life. I've never had a period of time where I didn't have a job. So just realizing how much of my own value I place in working and making money and taking care of myself or being able to take care of myself by making money and that sort of thing, and also just that structure that a full-time job or even part-time job, whatever, but just the structure that a job brings to your life or my life, I just I'd never thought about that stuff before because I guess I was just so busy doing it that when I lost my job it was anyway. It was just really hard. So I went, we decided to just take the trip to Maine, which PS always take the trip PS. It was amazing and wonderful and awesome.
Speaker 1:Well then and this is the part that I think I had one podcast episode called Layoff Lifelines or something like that that you can go back and listen to, where I did talk about being laid off. But outside of that, I don't think I really talked about it a whole lot. But let me just break it down for you. I stopped counting at one point how many jobs that I applied for, but it was at least 200 or more. As far as interviews, to be honest, yes, I had some interviews. I didn't have a whole lot. It was a lot of applying and either hearing absolutely nothing or just the you know, get the regular thanks for applying whatever. Whatever you know, we'll let you know if we're interested, and then nothing. Or maybe a month later, two months later, you might get an email that just says we've gone with somebody else. You know, that's it. So it was.
Speaker 1:It was tough, like at first. It's nice. You're like oh, I've got some time off and I did have severance. I should say that. So that was great. I'm definitely grateful for that. And the severance also included not just my weekly pay, because I got paid weekly, but also my insurance, and I also covered my husband because, again, I don't know if I've ever really talked about this on the podcast. My husband is a plumber. We moved to Chattanooga about two and a half years ago with his company, but then in October of 2022, you know, after I'd gotten that great job with the manufacturing company and we had good benefits and all the things, he decided to start working for himself. So now he's working for himself. I get laid off again. You know we have benefits for three months and then we have to figure out, like the benefits thing, which is a whole nother animal. So, anyway, just a lot of nothing happening.
Speaker 1:To be totally honest, and if you were unemployed this year, or you knew someone who was, or you just are on LinkedIn at all you knew that and maybe it still is, but you knew that it was a tough, tough year to be unemployed. There were a lot of people unemployed losing their jobs and so a lot of people in the job market. So I lost my job in June. I started immediately applying because I knew from the previous year when I had lost my job, it took me, like I said, two and a half months. No, I'm like three months. It took me about three months to find it, to start a new job, find and start a new job. So I was like, well, let me just take advantage of this time that I have severance and, you know, apply for jobs, because I know it takes time. And then, of course, you start networking with as many people as you can. But also there was I had a lot of embarrassment because it had just happened to me the year before, and so these people that I was going to network with right like people, coworkers I'd had, like that job that I was at for 12 years. I still have a lot of great former coworkers, now friends, that I network with. And you know, in my mind I'm like gosh, they're going to think what is wrong with Kathy, I've got two jobs in a year, like what is going on. But hopefully nobody ever said that to me. That's just like the tape you play in your head, right? So, anyway, but I finally started networking and I did finally start, you know, getting some interviews after several months and I finally accepted a position. But between the day that I lost my job and the day that I started my new job was almost exactly six months. So during that six months, guess what?
Speaker 1:The other surprise that I know I haven't talked about on this podcast is in mid August. So I got laid off mid June and mid August I had a complete hysterectomy. That was something that I had been talking about with my gynecologist for a while because I had a lot of fibroids, so I had extreme amounts of heavy bleeding and to the point where, in November of 2022, I had an iron infusion because my ferritin was so low. So it was and it affected, like you guys know probably. I mean, I ride bikes, I like to be out in nature. Sometimes bike rides can be hours long, right Like camping trips, all the things. And guess what? I noticed that I stopped doing things like that because of you know what was going on. I didn't know.
Speaker 1:And then also, in addition to that, right Like I was going through perimenopause. So many of you who are also going through perimenopause maybe have noticed shifts in your menstrual cycle, like they used to be like clockwork, you know, every 28 days or 27 days or 29 days or whatever they are, and now they're just not anymore, even if you're on birth control, and maybe you used birth control to help you sort of keep a you know rhythm or whatever you want to call it with your cycle. Even now it might still be out of whack and that's just perimenopause. So I had that happening too and I realized it was just really affect, adversely affecting my life. Like when we talked about travel plans, my husband and I, it was the first thing I thought about Well, it just depends, I don't know if I'm going to be on my period or not, and then if I was, I mean I was miserable, like felt awful for several days, so it just wasn't good. And then I did some ultrasounds and found like, yeah, I mean, I just had, I had a lot of fibroids, and so it really was the best decision for me. It wasn't like an emergency situation or anything like that, but I just decided like, well, I'm not working right now. I have insurance, you know, I have some severance money and of course we have savings and that sort of thing. So let me just do this. Never did I think that I would do that in August, and it would still be until December that I would start a job. I was thinking like, well, I'll be interviewing and I'll let them know that I can start, you know, october 1 or whatever, because, like with a hysterectomy, it's typically like a six week recovery period is what's recommended. So but let me just say I had plenty of time to recover. But another fun hiccup was two weeks after surgery. So the weekend of Labor Day weekend I ended up back in the emergency room. Not back in the emergency room, I wasn't in the emergency room to begin with, I ended up in the emergency room with an abscess.
Speaker 1:The first week after my surgery I felt fine. I mean, I didn't feel I wasn't out like running five miles a day or anything, but I felt like I was making progressive recovery each day. But then around week two I just was feeling this awful sharp pain in my abdomen, my lower abdomen, and I had started walking. So they recommended that I walk. That was actually PS, the only exercise I could do. So I was walking a lot for my physical help and my mental health. And after the first week I had gotten up to one day I walked like five miles, not on purpose, and I was just walking flat. So I wasn't doing any hills or anything like that, just walking flat. But I had gotten up to five miles because I remember I was talking on the phone with one of my girlfriends and we were just talking and talking and talking and talking while I was walking and I looked down at my watch and I was like, oh my gosh, I've been walking five miles. So I was doing okay, obviously.
Speaker 1:Well, a week by a week after that I could barely walk a mile and I was walking so slow. I mean, I was just miserable. I would have to stop and sort of bend over. You know, when you've got a pain in your stomach, you kind of like bend over. So just imagine me doing that, like in the middle of the neighborhood and almost like we see women like have a contraction, right If they're pregnant, have a contraction is like bend over. It was like that because I would have these pains. Well, my friend Hilary.
Speaker 1:So, first of all, shout out to my friend Cindy, who flew to Chattanooga from Baton Rouge to be my nursemaid the week after surgery. Because, yes, my husband was here but, as a reminder, he works for himself and Kathy lost her job. So, guess what, he needs to go out and make money and so he needed to continue working. You know it's. He works for himself, so he doesn't have any, you know, vacation time or anything like that. He's a plumber, so he needs to go work jobs and you know sometimes he can be in situations where he can't leave, like his. He's up to his knees and water who knows what right. So God forbid something were to happen that first week and you know he would obviously do his very best to drop what he's doing. Get to me. But I think it just made him feel better, and me feel better, that Cindy could come. She worked remotely, she brought her computer and she just came and hung out with me for like the week after surgery. That's what I heard.
Speaker 1:And then also shout out to my friend Hillary, who came to visit over Labor Day weekend. She lives in Atlanta, so she's just a couple hours away. She came up and we were just going to hang out. Like she's one of those friends. So is Cindy where like literally we can just sit around and like watch TV, hang out, and it's great. You know you got to have those friends. Ps, one of our air conditioners went out at this time as well, august, in Tennessee we have two air conditioners for this house, so we just Hillary and I, just stayed in like the master bedroom and watch TV from there. But anyway, I was feeling awful.
Speaker 1:Finally, on Sunday of Labor Day weekend, hillary was supposed to be driving back home that day. She said we're going to the emergency room because her sister had actually had a hysterectomy in January of that year and she had had an abscess. So I think in the back of her head she kind of was like this could be. You know what this is. So we go, and I think in the back of my head I must have been like, yeah, because I'm in a lot of pain and it's not going away, right, so she takes me to the emergency room. First time I've ever been in the emergency room, I was scared to death that it was going to be like a 10 hour wait, right, like you hear those horror stories of like I went to the emergency room and I didn't see anybody for eight hours or something and I was like I can't deal with that, like I'm just going to go back home. If that's the case, well, thank goodness.
Speaker 1:It was like during the day on Sunday of Labor Day weekend, and they said you know, if we walked right in, there was one person in line in front of us. I mean we, literally within 15 minutes I was in a room and they said you know, if you came back in five hours, like in the evening, it'll be crazy, but luckily it wasn't Got a room. They did a CT scan. It was. It was an abscess which is basically like a pocket of infection. I'm sure you probably heard of like tooth abscesses, but it's like a pocket of infection in your body. And it did not even occur to me that I wasn't going to go home after I went to the emergency room and so the doctor emergency room doctor is like this is what it is, we're admitting you. And I was like what? I was shocked. I didn't, it did not even occur to me. But here's the deal it's a pocket of infection. If it ruptures it you could have sepsis and then that's bad, right. So, anyway, so Hillary is with me and so I get admitted, she goes to get stuff from the house and I'm admitted.
Speaker 1:So, long story short, I ended up being in the hospital for three days, I think. They administered IV antibiotics the whole time, luckily, praise the Lord. So it's basically an infection you get from surgery. So, praise the Lord. Hillary's sister. Back in January, when this happened to her, she had to have like another surgery to I don't know, remove the abscess? I'm not sure, but luckily for me mine shrunk while I was there in the hospital After getting those IV antibiotics. I felt so much better. I didn't have the pain. They sent me home with a round of like oral antibiotics for the next seven days and then eventually I went back and had another CT scan just to confirm that everything was fine. So it ended up fine. But I was actually in the hospital longer for that infection than I was for the actual day surgery, because the surgery I just had on like early on a Monday morning and I left on like late Tuesday afternoon. So I was only in the hospital one night, which PS.
Speaker 1:They almost had to send me home with a catheter for my hysterectomy, which is apparently not crazy unusual. And I was fighting that tooth and nail. I was like willing myself to pee, like my body I just couldn't pee, like I felt like I had to pee and my body just like wouldn't. And I was going to have to go home with a catheter and I was like no, absolutely not. So I somehow got enough. We're going back to the hysterectomy. My apologies, I was just a little ping ponging, but somehow peed enough that my doctor okayed me to go home, but that first night that I was home from the hysterectomy, if I had to pee, I would get up.
Speaker 1:This is just a little trick for you. I probably shouldn't share this, but anyway, I would get up out of bed and I would go into the bathroom and the way our bathroom is set up is like the vanities are sort of outside and then you go into a little separate area where there's the toilet and the shower and that you can like close that door. So I'd go in, I'd close the door, I'd try to pee, I'd pee as much as I could, and then I could feel like I still needed to pee more. I'm just going to, I'm just being very real here, this is very real. I would get in the shower and turn it on and that warm shower would just like I could. I would pee the rest, and I probably did that for several nights in a row, multiple times in the evening, and so I just told Neil I was like PS, I'm gonna be taking a lot of showers the next week or so.
Speaker 1:It didn't even end up being a week. I was fine with them like a day or two, but I'm happily willing to do that versus going home with a catheter. Now, if you go home with a catheter, it's fine, it's not, it's fine, you're gonna be fine and that's totally fine if that's what happened to you. But I just, you know, I was just in a fragile mental state. Let's just say it like it is. Okay, I was like I cannot take this catheter home with me because I was so uncomfortable with that thing, so uncomfortable. And so I said if I have to get in the shower six times a night, I will, I don't even care, because obviously I wasn't working, I could sleep during the day. I mean, you know, ladies, I tell ya. So anyway, so had to hysterectomy mid-August, went back into the hospital Labor Day weekend with an infection.
Speaker 1:After that, for the most part I was on the road to recovery. At that point I did have to see my doctor a few extra times because of my little quote hiccups and my severance insurance ended in mid-September and I was hopeful to be able to just transition to, obviously, either a new job and their insurance or get my own just personal insurance, because I didn't wanna have to get on Cobra. I've never done Cobra before, I just know it's really expensive. Well, I decided to do Cobra just for ended up being for six weeks a month and a half so that because I had met my out-of-pocket, am I deductible Definitely my out-of-pocket max, for sure. And so I wanted to keep that for at least six more weeks while I still had a couple of doctor's appointments, still was making sure that everything was okay and I could have kept on after that. But after the six weeks on Cobra I was good and so I transitioned to just like a private insurance, and Neil had already transitioned to a private insurance after severance ran out for me and us in mid-September. Because it was double For me to say on Cobra, I think was $700, $700 or $800 a month, and for both of us it was $1,600 a month. And I have a husband probably very similar to many of yours they like never go to the doctor. I mean, luckily he's healthy, right, but it just was definitely not worth an additional like $800 for him to be on the Cobra. We definitely got him covered but anyway.
Speaker 1:So continued to interview after I was recovering and finally interviewed for the position that I started on December 11th. So hallelujah it's been. I just finished two weeks there, my first two weeks, and so I'm excited to report that we have insurance now through my company. So actually I'm working for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee and they manage and I'm managing a fitness center that they have a contract. It's not the fitness center or the employee fitness center for Blue Cross Blue Shield employees, but they have a contract with another organization here in Chattanooga that they partner with and they manage their fitness center for their employees, and so I'm the fitness center manager.
Speaker 1:There. There's an exercise what's her exercise? Specialist? So she's kind of like the fitness center assistant, if you will, and so it's just the two of us and we manage the employee fitness center. So it's some like facilities maintenance stuff, of course, just like the day to day things. But we're also beginning to program some wellness programming and webinars for the new year and we teach some fitness classes and I'm just excited to be working for a great company, of course, but also going into a facility each day is super new for me.
Speaker 1:I actually started working remote in 2008. So this is new for me, but I was excited about it because I kind of needed especially since moving to a new town, needing something a way to meet new people and see people in person, cause I was feeling very isolated. So I think it'll be good. But it is definitely a change, like getting up at a certain time, taking a shower, getting ready for work, going to work, that sort of thing. That's a change for me, but I think it'll be good. It's just getting used to it. But it's a great company. My manager's great. The exercise specialist I work with is great. The employees that we get to see every day are wonderful. So I think it's a great opportunity and I'm just excited to still be working in this fitness space and wellness space after so many years and have an amazing job that keeps me in that space for a great organization. So I just started that a few weeks ago. So wish me luck. Feel free to ask me any questions in the DMs if you want to. But here we are. At the end of the year, I have today off, yay, so I'll continue.
Speaker 1:I'm going to continue doing these podcasts. Of course I'm thinking through different ideas of offers in 2024. I really enjoyed. I don't know if I talked about this a whole lot on the podcast. So you know, as many of you know, I've been a health coach for many, many, many years, 15 plus years, 20 years Gosh. It's been a long time. Like 2024 will be 20 years since I graduated with my master's degree in exercise science and that was when I really started like officially working in the field of exercise and health and wellness. So it's been almost 20 years really.
Speaker 1:But what I did in November was something new and it was really fun. I offered a four session course for health coaches to talk through I should say beginner health coaches to talk through how to get some of your business stuff flowing and going and get a rhythm with that, because a lot of times, as a health coach, we get a certification of some kind, we have an experience of some kind, we have a testimonial of some kind and we want to help other people. Well, that's great. But then how do we market? How do we find new people? How do we nurture those people? How do we make sales? What are we selling? What's maybe a freebie we can offer that will attract people to us? And then, after we attract them, how do we nurture them?
Speaker 1:So just all of those things that I have learned how to do and I've realized that I really enjoy sharing that with other health coaches and I say, beginner health coaches, because I love working with the beginner exerciser as well. I just really help people, enjoy helping people go like, oh my gosh, this is easier than I thought it would be, this doesn't take as much time as I thought it would, and I am actually seeing results, whether those are health results or results in your business. So I think I'm going to continue along that path in 2024. And, of course, I still have all the knowledge about health and wellness. So on this podcast, we'll probably be ping ponging a little bit between business topics and business interviews and also health and wellness topics and interviewing people about health and wellness.
Speaker 1:So if you do have any requests for things that you'd like to hear I was going to say see, but maybe hear more about again you can always reply to my emails that I send out. You can shoot me a DM on Instagram. I'd love to you know talk about things that you're interested in. So, but all of that to say 2023 was a very up and down year for me, probably one of the most turbulent I've had in a super long time, if not maybe ever, except for maybe the year I got married, and that wasn't turbulent bad, it was just a lot of change, and this year was a lot of change as well but I have come out on the other side and if you are going through some turbulent times in your life, I know that you will come out on the other side too.
Speaker 1:But when you are in the storm it's real hard sometimes to see at the other side. So, really leaning on my friends and my family and just having some quiet time and having having faith in myself, you know, believing in myself, even when those voices creep in that tell me something different, right, we all have those voices and they can really end us, but we just can't let them. You know, give them a minute of your time and then wipe them away and fill in with more positive, optimistic words. And, if you need to borrow words from family, friends, books, the Bible, whatever works for you know that each of you listening are wonderful and special and have value and worth outside of what you do for a living, even though sometimes you might not feel that way. So, happy holidays, merry Christmas, happy New Year, all the things, and look forward to moving on to 2024 and for all of you to come along with me. So we'll talk to you guys soon. Bye.