My New Dream Job

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

My New Dream Job

In November of 2009, I was walking on 5th Avenue back to the office when my phone vibrated. The weather was brisk and I stopped just in front of Mesa Grill.

“Aaron,” said my mother, “I just wanted you to know we are at Georgetown Hospital. As you know I’ve been so itchy and I was starting to turn yellow as if I had jaundice. Anyway, it appears that I have hepatitis,” she sighed with relief and continued, “I was getting nervous, but we seemed to have dodged a big bullet. Thank God.”

The diagnosis was wrong.

After 6 weeks of trips to Georgetown and Johns Hopkins, countless tests and pictures, we learned that my mother had cholangiocarcinoma, a rare, advanced, and difficult to treat cancer. The oldest of 6, my mother is exceptionally close to my grandmother who turned 100 in May. Understandably, my mother reacted to the news of her cancer with the admission that she assumed she would “live forever like (her mother) Deedee.” Anxiety prevailed at our large family holiday gathering. At my mother’s request, it was not discussed.

In January, my father, sister and I gathered in a townhouse for long-term visitors across the street from Hopkins to wait out my mother’s operation. There were 2 “everything’s going fine phone calls” (the surgery was scheduled to be 8 hours), and then my father’s cell phone rang a third time. This time the nurse requested we come to the Operating Room. This was not a good sign. My father, who strolls a New York City block in about half an hour, nearly sprinted to the room for families outside of the surgery.

Mom’s surgeon, Dr. Wolfgang, still wearing his operating green requested that we take a seat in a soothingly furnished conference room steps from where my mother lay anesthetized with her stomach still open. It was only 3 hours into the procedure. His explanation was comprehensive and clinical. He illustrated the bad news, pecking tiny dots with a ball point pen to indicate the metastases that he had found on her gall bladder. The cancer had begun to spread. Removing the tumor was no longer the prudent course of action.

My sister Eve, a hospice nurse and Hopkins alum, wept telling us this was the worst possible outcome. I finally understood what “ashen” looked like as I watched my father. My voice quaked as I asked, “how long?” Dr. Wolfgang spoke of chemotherapy, radiation and quality of life issues, but then he had to tell us. His inhalation was long and notable, “The median survival rate is 8 months from the time of discovery (November) for her inoperable cancer.

When I returned to New York, I called Mickey Schulhof a director at AnyClip and told him that my mother had terminal cancer and not very long to live. I had to consider stepping down from AnyClip. “Nonsense,” Mickey responded, “You will need the job more than ever. You need the distraction. And you’ll find time to be with her.” Perhaps he was right. And with that I started riding the BoltBus and the Amtrak very frequently.

In order to prolong my mother’s life the statistically intelligent course of action was chemotherapy. Doctors warned it would be rough, and would get worse as time wore on. However, this could (maybe, we think/but don’t know) buy her 6 or 12 extra months. My parents were determined to try it and so it began.

After 1 month and two treatments, my mother was far worse than exhausted. Catatonic, unable to eat, hold a conversation, or even smile she was unrecognizable. I called my sister to say that I thought Mom would not survive the chemotherapy.

Eve is the hospice nurse and, naturally, carries the most weight when it comes to medical decisions. Read Atul Gawande’s superb study of her job in last month’s New Yorker here. She’s exceptionally knowledgeable and has treated several patients with cholangiocarcinoma herself. When Eve returned to Washington and saw my mother, she agreed with me and lobbied my father the lobbyist to abruptly stop the chemo. It took another month for Mom to start reengaging with her world.

My mother started to get better in May and between travel to Israel and California I didn’t see her for a 4 week period. When I did, it was for her mother’s 100th birthday party. She rose to the occasion and gave a moving speech about my grandmother’s joie de vivre and resilience. In past years, these sibling speeches get deconstructed by various family members for their psychiatric meaning. Everybody is a closet novelist/psychiatrist. But not on the 100th birthday. The party was exciting, good-humored, and, amazingly, at least for me, not overshadowed by my mother’s cancer.

In June, word leaked to the media about her illness. My mother is a Washington celebrity because she and her partner, Barbara Meade, own a very famous bookstore called Politics and Prose. Both women are in their 70s and plenty of people had speculated as to what would happen to this Washington institution prior to my mother’s cancer. Now customer anxiety was surging and the Washington Post, New York Times, and New Yorker all wrote about the coming transition and my mother’s declining health.

Throughout the first 6 months of the year, I considered resigning several times. However, as any entrepreneur knows, it’s hard to leave what you begin. The love for my team and the company drew me back. For better or worse, AnyClip was now part of my soul and I struggled to abandon it.

In June, Mom spent nearly the whole month in the hospital on two separate visits because she contracted a life threatening infection. Her disposition was impressive and her bravery surprised and even inspired. Still, pain began to overwhelm her life. With her energy dipping to a lifetime low and her confusion increasing with each does of OxyCodone, I felt increasingly pessimistic. This was not the “quality time” we had hoped to have as a family in Paris (January), San Francisco (May), or even my parents’ garden (June).

The wireless networks are exceptional at the hospitals, but cell phones are discouraged. I instant messaged with my employees throughout the day, but I felt less present and, at times, disconnected. The feelings were familiar. Vastly over-committed, I was doing nothing to my standards.

In early August I stepped down as the CEO of AnyClip. It’s a complicated story and perhaps one day I will share more of it. For now, I’m no longer distracted by work. I can be in Washington every week. And I still advise the company. My email still works. I’m grateful to my team for continuing on. I believe deeply in AnyClip and its people.

Thanks to the highly competent, empathetic Home Hospice Care we are now receiving, my mother’s situation has stabilized in the past few weeks. She has looked the best she’s looked since her operation and has been to the store 2-3 times per week. She even managed two meals at our old local family spot, Parkway deli, with her grandson.

I love startups, teams, and this constantly reinvigorating digital revolution, but during my 15 year tenure in the internet industry, I frequently forgot that family trumps work. People tell me that my parents need me, but spending this time in this way is my current dream job.

Shanah Tovah and Happy New Year.