THE POWER OF RESILIENCE: BOUNCING BACK FROM MEDICAL PROBLEMS CAN BE A MATTER OF ATTITUDE
by Maureen McDonald

Crain’s Detroit Business
October 6, 2008
MI

Mida Giragosian looks up at the clock inside her bustling
public-relations agency in Royal Oak. It’s 4:30 p.m. Time to whisk
her purse, briefcase, BlackBerry and laptop into her car and zoom
over to William Beaumont Hospital, just a few miles north.

Three days a week, slogging through heat waves, wind storms, blizzards
and whatever the weather may bring, she takes her assigned chair at
dialysis for life-saving treatments.

Because of kidney failure, Giragosian’s fluid and waste products
build up and the dialysis machine pulls them out of her bloodstream
and returns them cleansed, like a dishwasher on heavy-duty cycle.

She’ll munch on pretzels or pasta while writing press releases,
developing client plans and chatting up the afternoon shift at the
local television stations — all the while hooked up to the beeping
machine for three straight hours.

"Some of the TV and radio producers I talk with almost every day. They
have been supportive through my ups and downs," Giragosian, 44, said.

With good story ideas, she has landed top coverage for car dealerships,
restaurants, boutiques and salons, keeping her PR agency, Lapides
Publicity Giragosian in the black. She also coaches 30 unpaid interns
a year. They learn to pitch by practicing calls by her side. Her cell
phone seldom stops ringing, even through intermittent emergency trips
to Beaumont.

Giragosian rockets forward professionally, while her 145-pound body
struggles to keep up. She has had 300 surgeries since 1986 — coping
with lupus, an auto-immune disease — mostly to clean blood clots in
the surgical port that allows dialysis. A kidney transplant in 2001
freed her from the tether of dialysis, but it failed after a heart
attack in 2006.

"Going back on dialysis was one of the saddest times in my life. I
had freedom for five years with a donated kidney. Then I lost it. I
took it hard. I had to remember I’m Armenian. My people are resilient
by nature," she said. She hopes to receive a new kidney in 2009,
a goal she savors daily.

Her body bears track marks from IV needles. She has shunts in her
arms and a catheter port in her chest.

Giragosian, a Royal Oak resident, diverts attention by wearing
custom baby-doll dresses from Shapes in Royal Oak, jewelry from
Marlaina Stone, also in Royal Oak, along with carrying Gucci bags and
wearing Stuart Weitzman shoes from shops in the Somerset Collection
of Troy. She walks like a model strutting down the runway during
Fashion Week. Every step is a celebration of life.

What is emotional resilience?

How do business leaders like Giragosian soar when others take to the
bed in depression and fear? Is it cultural, genetic, personality-driven
or learned?

"Emotional resilience is a well-kept secret. Most of us significantly
underestimate our ability to overcome adversity," said Dr. Peter Ubel,
director of the Center for Behavioral and Decision Sciences in Medicine
at the University of Michigan. He wrote the book, You’re Stronger Than
You Think: Tapping Into the Secrets of Emotionally Resilient People.

Ubel and his research team found that most people were so convinced
that happiness is a matter of circumstances that they forgot how much
they were actually able to adapt to their circumstances.

But adaptation doesn’t happen overnight.

"One reason to encourage patients with chronic illnesses to stay
engaged is that it feeds their self-worth, it occupies their minds,"
said Dr. Jerry Dancik, partner of the Michigan Kidney Consultants
P.C. in Rochester Hills. He is Giragosian’s doctor.

"Someone might miss work intermittently, but they could contribute
much to the workplace. Most people don’t want pity, just support in
re-entering the cycle of gainful, fruitful employment."

Like Giragosian, there are other businesspeople who have struggled
with life-threatening diseases while sustaining the profitability of
companies. Rod Brown overcame a neuromuscular disease by rekindling his
will to live and ditching his combative career. Donna Zobel downsized
her family business, all the while recovering from the first stages
of breast cancer.

By freeing up their partners and associates to travel and market their
respective companies, and by applying their courage to business tasks,
all three bolster the bottom line.

Respect the caregivers

Brown, co-owner of The Shirt Box in Farmington Hills, admits he was
miserable most of 2000, when he was diagnosed with myasthenia gravis,
a disease affecting vision, breathing and swallowing. Then working as
a malpractice attorney, thriving on adversarial relationships with
doctors and medical professionals, he came to the realization that
his future depended on the people in white coats and blue scrubs.

"It was literally a life-altering experience for Rod. He struggled
with the diagnosis and struggled with all the complications, such
as double vision, that came after. He had a rocky road. But he got
through it. It was absolutely incredible to watch," said his physician
and lifelong friend Dr. William Boudouris, of the Michigan Institute
for Neurological Disorders P.C. in Farmington Hills.

After the first round of treatments, Brown, 41, faced a new health
obstacle. He was diagnosed with a thymus tumor the size of a golf
ball, and it required chest surgery. He drove home from the doctor’s
office and hit the bed, still wearing his suit, tie and starched
shirt. He laid there for days — frozen with fear — until his dad,
a manufacturers representative and a two-time cancer survivor,
insisted he go forward.

He still remembers his dad’s words on days when pain strikes and
resolve weakens, "I wish I could give you all my strength. I know
you can get through this," Brown recalls. Happily he did.

Healing required a career change. So to move from adversarial to
helpful, he took a deep pay cut to become the co-owner of the men’s
clothing shop. The dividends were life-affirming. He found he relished
coming to work each day. Customers flocked to him for wardrobe advice
for job interviews, courtship or family celebrations. He initiated a
program to give gently used clothes to low-income job-seekers through
Neighborhood Service Organization of Detroit.

"What I don’t make up in money from my legal career, I earn in quality
of life. I traded the Saab for a minivan. I didn’t take the family on
vacations to Europe. I’m no longer a killer in the courtroom. Instead
I’m selecting killer ties for my clients. The culture at Shirt Box
isn’t just sales and bottom line. We develop relationships with
customers. That wakes me up with a smile each day," Brown said.

After eight years, Boudouris says Brown has overcome myasthenia gravis,
but Brown is more comfortable with the word remission because he
still has small but daily reminders of the neuromuscular disease,
including pulses, twitches and a nine-inch scar down his chest.

Don’t overestimate illness

It takes a Herculean effort to overcome nagging fears, according to
Ubel. "People overestimate the long-term emotional impact of illness
and disability, imagining that kidney failure or a spinal-cord injury
will make them miserable, when, as we have seen, the majority of
people with kidney failure and spinal cord injuries are happy."

The Michigan Institute for Neurological Disorders runs monthly support
group and disease awareness meetings. Ubel finds Internet research,
without face-to-face communication, can unnecessarily scare and depress
patients. Veteran nurses and doctors can put problems in perspective.

The late Norman Cousins, editor of the Saturday Review and author of
the 1980s breakthrough book Anatomy of an Illness, wrote about his
battle with acute arthritis and the power of Marx Brothers movie reels.

"I made the joyous discovery that 10 minutes of genuine belly laughter
had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of
pain-free sleep."

How do you get happy?

"Rent funny movies, read funny paperback novels," said Zobel, 48,
president of Myron Zucker Inc. in Sterling Heights, a manufacturer of
industrial motors and components for assembly lines. She is a breast
cancer survivor. Through the lumpectomy, chemotherapy, radiation and
recovery, she read Janet Evanovich detective stories.

"I didn’t have time for anxiety," she said.

Zobel, a former director of global research at Pfizer Inc., left the
pharmaceutical firm’s Ann Arbor office in late 2003 to take over the
family firm upon the death of her father. It was bleeding gallons of
red ink.

Within the next year, she pruned the company of dead weight, expanded
its reach to lumber mills and wastewater treatment facilities
and outsourced certain tasks. She authorized a move from an old
35,000-square-foot plant to a nimble 8,000-square-foot building in
an office park.

"We focused on priorities, we didn’t horse around with suppliers and
customers that didn’t produce sales," Zobel said.

In three years, the company went from under $1 million in sales and a
loss of $250,000 a year to more than $1 million in sales and a slight
$72,000 profit after bonuses.

"Employees worked hard to make our turnaround happen," she said.

A month before the company’s big move in 2004, Zobel found a cancerous
lump in her breast. She was still an unfamiliar face at the company,
but she had an MBA from UM and an aim to keep people employed. She
called a companywide meeting and asked for help.

"I was able to delegate a lot of things. People wanted to do more;
I just needed to give them responsibility," she said.

Following surgery she planned her chemotherapy cycles for
Thursday-Sunday. After treatments she drove to a duplex she owned
in Ann Arbor, hooked into her computer and responded to calls
and e-mails. Then she collapsed into bed and turned on the DVD
player. Funny movies refreshed and rejuvenated her soul.

"You have no control over cancer — but you do have control over how
you live your life," Zobel said. "The stuff that made you wound up
and irritated is a total waste of time."

What brings vigor?

Giragosian brightens up when client and good friend Adrian Tonon,
owner of Ristorante Cafe Cortina in Farmington Hills, delivers a quart
of handmade gnocchi with heirloom tomatoes to the dialysis unit of
the hospital.

As she eats, he watches the sparkle return to her eyes. Marketing
ideas pop into her head along with topics for new cooking shows where
Tonon can showcase his culinary miracles.

"Mida is very special," Tonon said. "She’s a fighter. She’s a very
strong woman and very focused. She’s like family to us."

Giragosian said she can’t stay neutral about her own happiness.

"If I wasn’t in public relations, I wouldn’t meet all the fascinating
people that I do. I love feeling how the tenacity of my labor produces
really great results."

Business partner Lisa Lapides Sawicki, who hired Giragosian 17
years ago after a productive internship, made Giragosian a full
partner in 2006, based on her uncanny ability to generate press
coverage. Giragosian takes the lead in broadcast coverage for all
accounts and specializes in fashion, food and automotive clients,
while Lapides Sawicki handles small-business owners.

"Mida is the star of the agency. She’s amazing. She doesn’t miss a
beat, even through surgeries. When she goes to the television station,
she brings bagels and donuts. When a reporter wins an award, she sends
a note or card or flowers. She has true compassion and boundless joy
for people."

Giragosian works from a zebra-print chair, surrounded by fresh flowers,
pictures of her nieces and thank-you notes from clients. Nearly
every item in her wardrobe is a gift or purchase from a merchant she
represents. When she orders lunch, she knows nearly every restaurant
owner by name and asks about their families.

"I get excited by my clients, by the possibilities of what I can do
for them. Let me take you to lunch at Cafe Cortina. The owner is just
awesome. Can I tell you more?"

With that, Giragosian is up and running, working her list to build
awareness, drive customers to clients. Her tenacity to succeed keeps
her resilient.