STACK THE DECK IN YOUR FAVOR – ISSUE NO. 221

Every now and then I will have an experience that reminds me of my younger days. Usually striking a certain memory of when I was in high school or even college. I recently had such an experience the other week while helping my friend Jeremy move to his new house. I pulled up to his house with another friend of mine, Ryan. The three of us had known each other since playing baseball together in high school. Upon our arrival, we discovered that Jeremy had rented a U-Haul truck. This had seemed excessive for the few things that he previously had described that he needed to move. As it turned out, the details of the move weren't fully explained until we arrived. As it turned out the move was going to be an entire Saturday experience, moving a house full of items a family of four accumulates over the years. Ryan and I spent one summer in high school working at a moving company and as we were filling the entire truck we were quickly reminded of what we didn't miss about that summer! As we were getting close to filling the truck we started throwing additional items on top of other boxes that were previously overlooked or forgotten. Ryan looked at the truck as Jeremy was closing the back and had said, "We overstacked those boxes, everything inside is going to shift." Jeremy had not headed Ryan's professional opinion and surely we were left with mess when we arrived to the destination and unpacked the U-Haul. You may ask, what does this have to do with health care? The moral of the story is to never take short cuts and follow instructions from the IFU's. Once items are cleaned and sterilized, be sure to organize them so they are drying and stored properly. Don't overstack or you could end up with a bigger problem on your hands.