I almost died from a staph infection; what it taught me about having a good strategy

My year didn’t start as I anticipated. As others were making plans for the year and enjoying their summer, I nearly lost my life to a staph infection that went rogue. I’ve spent the last 13 years of my career in Strategy but being forced to relearn how to walk - re-affirmed my belief that a good strategy delivers results. The patience required to see it through, are seminal.

“Would you like a mask, or headphones?”  Darren the MRI tech said with an upbeat voice.  My concern drowned out his question as I wearily starred down the barrel of the MRI machine.  I don’t want to do this, I thought to myself.  “Can I have both?” My voice cracked, as I begin to cope with the realisation that I am in fact going through with this.  Darren quickly responded “absolutely!” “What kind of music do you want?”  My mind recalled when my father required imaging for his knee. When given a choice of music he selected 70s rock.  As he was moved into the machine “Highway to Hell” bellowed from his headphones.  Hmmm, I think I’ll skip the 70s rock for today. “Do you have anything soothing?”  Darren smiled, “of course, it’s a common request.”

I stood there gripping my crutches. I lost the ability to walk four weeks earlier while traveling internationally.  Since, I’d been to four doctors across two continents. They all disagreed in the cause of my inability to walk but shared the alarm of my crippling pain worsening with each passing day. 

Darren held out his hand to help me onto the examining table. “Can you straighten your leg?” He asked knowing the answer was likely “not a chance Darren.”  My brain had systematically shut off each muscle in my right leg, paralysing my ability to use it.  “Do you have a pillow I can tuck under my leg?”  “Absolutely,” Darren tucked the pillow under my leg with care. “Oh, I nearly forgot” he said with angst “here is your panic button - just push the button if you need me – I’ll come rescue you,” he said with the confidence of a man that had done it before.  I slid the mask over my eyes, put the headphones on, and promised myself, under no circumstance would I press the button. Darren pushed me into the MRI machine, “let’s just get this over with,” I muttered under my breadth.

Minutes felt like hours. I was making great strides with my “I am at the beach, not stuck in a noisy tube” mantra, but I could feel my hip was nearing the end of its stamina in keeping still. Darren must have sensed its haste; over the loudspeaker I heard “are you ok Dannielle?” for a tube MRI acoustics aren’t great. “Actually Darren, I need a break, can you come get me?”  “No worries, I’ll be there in a second.”  Darren helped me out of the MRI machine. I hoisted myself off the table and onto my crutches; they had become my safe place.  Darren looked at me with a stern face.  I only spent twenty minutes with him, but this already felt uncharacteristic. “You need to go to the ED” he said with urgency “you have an infection.”  The only words I could get out in response were “like antibiotics infection?”  He responded, “exactly.”  Darren supplied me with my images, a practice only reserved for the urgent.   As my friend drove me to the hospital the words “you have an infection” played over and over in my mind.  In part I was relieved. I finally had a sensible cause.  The other part was apprehensive, what happens next?  I was admitted into hospital that afternoon. 

The next 24 hours resembled that of what I assume medieval torture looked and felt like. A series of invasive tests were performed to isolate the type of infection, and its progression. They concluded my situation was dire and was rushed into emergency surgery. “The next six months are going to be hard Dannielle, you may never walk again,” Fatim the ED doctor conveying the serious nature of my situation.  I will never truly know how to thank the team of people that worked tirelessly to save my life. To them I remain grateful.  

So, What Happened?

Let’s rewind. For the Christmas break I travelled overseas. During this time my hip seized up and to relieve it, I went to a physio, who performed dry needling. Within 12 hours, I lost the ability to walk. With no visible signs of an infection, the orthopaedic I saw four days later concluded steroids would be a temporary fix to get me home. He gave me a cortisone shot and oral steroids, to alleviate the inflammation. Both are common practice. Unfortunately, what we didn’t know, was the dry needling introduced staph bacteria into my hip. The cortisone shot fast tracked the bacteria to my bursa and hip joint.

The oral steroids did the trick; I could hobble enough to travel. Just two weeks after this ordeal began, I braved a 23-hour transpacific flight across three continents. My risk of a blood clot increased by a multiplier of six.  Forty-eight hours after returning home, I lost the ability to walk, again. I was put on a second round of steroids at a level reserved for autoimmune patients.  At three weeks in, with a suppressed immune system my odds of going into septic shock were 90%+.  Septic shock in my condition had a near certain fatality rate.  It was four weeks between being dry needled, and meeting Darren. 

I was diagnosed with a psoas abscess, a deep bacterial infection that led to septic arthritis. Not a great prognosis if you enjoy an independent and active lifestyle. Both can be fatal and both can hamper long term mobility.  Despite my prognosis, doctors intervened in time. I not only didn’t die but my leg, in due time, will be fully reinstated.  Statistically, this makes me an outlier - a term my ego relishes but wishes I earned another way.

What does this have to do with Strategy?

Healing from a serious staph infection is a marathon not a sprint.  It’s a process that brings you to your knees and asks you to rebuild. It demands patience, humility, and a strategy.

In my case walking again was not medically guaranteed. Even with medical intervention, the process of rebuilding is an active one.  I opted to approach my long road to recovery, as I would undertake any other project. I educated myself on my options and picked the levers within my control to optimise my results. My levers include diet, exercise, sleep and mindset, specifically a positive one.   My “I will walk again” strategy, is no different in how I would advise a client on whether, how and where to use AI, or how to drive commercial growth and transformation.  Same process, different inputs.

Strategy is a confused term. A strategy is a lot of different things compressed into a single word. It’s an objective, one that is validated, comprised of coherent logic and clear actions. You know why you are doing what you are doing. Which are underpinned by purposeful activities that will deliver your end result. Whether that’s temporary or enduring.

My recovery has been informed by four key points. The same points that enable a good strategy.

#1: Get the foundations right first

In my case, the foundation was a high baseline level of health. My lifestyle saved my life. I am an ex-competitive athlete and maintain a rigorous training routine. My diet is plant based (for me this works), I abstain from alcohol, and I maintain a sleep schedule, one I protect at all costs.  These foundations meant my immune system was primed to take on the infection. My body wasn’t encumbered by poor practices weighing it down.  Even after a major infection, surgery and seven weeks of antibiotics, my muscle memory and remaining gut microbiome was better poised to rebuild.  If I didn’t have this foundation, walking would be out of the question, until I established better health practices.  I am lucky I already had this in place allowing me to build my walking strategy off my baseline.  

I speak with Executives all the time that want to implement a strategy but they, often unwittingly, lack the foundations.  Today many executives want to their organisations to be  “AI native.” The prospect of not being “AI forward” risks long-term irrelevance. It’s not a bad ambition but are the foundations in place to achieve this ambition?  If your current data and tech architecture won’t enable this, then your ambition, while laudable, is largely unachievable. Achievable strategies, focus on ensuring the foundations are in place first.

#2 Be Flexible

This hasn’t always been a strength of mine. I am a determined and focused person but sometimes determination can blind you from reality.  Leaving the hospital, I was ready to get back to my life. “This was a fun five-week deviation … but let’s get back to normal.”  It would take another six weeks to fully embrace that the old normal no longer exists.  This has required me to adapt in ways I never anticipated. Yet it also let me home in on what’s most important.  The old processes no longer work; great let’s create news ones.

I work with organisations that know they need to evolve but choose to cling to old processes and ways of thinking. Their value rationalised through corporate folklore. To achieve your strategy, you need to know when things aren’t working, when it’s time to change things up.  This is why point #1 is so critical, if your foundations are set, pivoting becomes easier, you can be flexible. If I have learned one thing in my 20+ year career, life, markets, technology demand flexibility.  

Strategies aren’t set in stone; they aren’t black and white.  Invariably, they will need to be adapted to be achievable, likely sooner rather than later.

#3 Measure and Adapt

In my situation I was clear on the levers I would use to help my body heal.  They are my strategic inputs, the execution arm of my strategic vision.  Each of these inputs are critical and can be measured.  I am lucky enough to have a functional gym in my garage. The assault bike, watt bike and ski erg are my strategic measurement tools.  These piece of equipment allow me to track my wattage. Wattage tracking allows me to evaluate my power output overtime. Because healing is erratic, my performance changes from day-to-day. I am able to measure my performance and adapt my rehabilitation where needed.  This data helps me determine whether my strategic inputs are working. If they aren’t, I am equipped with vital data to adapt them. Notice I said adapt not abandon.

Executives know this, yet the systemic measurement and tracking of key objectives, is largely absent. These practices typically exist in functions like Marketing or Service; functions that are notoriously metric driven. Yet, this metric mindset is largely missing when rolling out a cross-functional or whole of organisation strategic direction.  This is what promotes strategic failure. Life is unpredictable, the ability to measure progress real-time is necessary to inform vital adjustments.

#4 Be patient

When I was in The US Air Force, there was a term commonly used “embrace the suck.” While that has wider implications, part of that is about being patient in circumstance you would rather not be in.  I am not a patient person, surviving a staph infection and waiting for critical muscles to rebuild themselves, forces you into patience.  

It is easy to second guess your strategy. Is it working? Did I do something wrong?  Yes, and No. Somethings just take time. We live in a world where we expect instant gratification.  We need one million subscribers to show progress, or we must achieve 100% ROI in year one. Maybe, but unlikely.  If you got #1 right, you understand #2, and you are actively engaging in #3 then you will get there. You can’t go wrong, you can’t miss – you just have to settle in and let time do its thing –patience truly is a virtue.  I fear in a world that appears to be speeding up rather than slowing down we are increasingly forgetting this point.

As for me, I still remain on walking aids nearly four months since that fateful afternoon with Darren.  But I have a strategy that is working. It’s not instantaneous but it’s effective. For now, I just need to be patient.

The view from my hospital bed