April 2012 Employee of the Month

Stephen’s Nomination:

“I would like to nominate Stephen for Awesome Employee. We purchased a new trade show display and he color coded the pieces for a quick assembly and did a great job of organizing it for our upcoming show. This work will make the display much easier to assemble and decrease the set up time. Thanks, Kristen Stone

Other Nominees: Jan Wheeler, Adam Ryan, Dale Harwood and James Bender

To join Zac’ team or donate to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, visit the Team Zac page!

http://www.cff.org/great_strides/StephenHogan

2012 Chattanooga – Greenway Farms  Walk Information

Written by Stephen Hogan

GREAT STRIDES is the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation’s largest and most successful national fundraising event. This year, I’m walking in the GREAT STRIDES walk at the 2012 Chattanooga – Greenway Farms walk on 04/22/2012. Please help me meet my fundraising goal of $500.00 by sponsoring me. Your generous gift will be used efficiently and effectively, as nearly 90 cents of every dollar of revenue raised is available for investment in vital CF programs to support research, care and education. Making a donation is easy and secure! Just click the "Click to Donate" button on this page to go to make a donation that will be credited to my team. Any amount you can donate is greatly appreciated! Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a devastating genetic disease that affects tens of thousands of children and young adults in the United States.

Our team name is going to be Team Zac. My son Zac is 8 years old now and suffers from CF. Although he has to take multiple medications and do morning and nightly treatments, he still gets to enjoy life and do almost anything he wants. His early days were not so enjoyable though. Zac was born on January 20th, 2004. He was five and a half weeks pre-mature, but everything was fine in the first couple of days and he came home at 3 days old. Three days later on January 26th, we returned to the hospital to determine why he had not yet had his first bowel movement. Later that evening he underwent his first of many surgeries. This was meant to be somewhat of a minor procedure and was over pretty quick. However, as a result of this, his intestines fell apart in three places. He was placed in the pediatric intensive care unit after having his intestines repaired. Over the next several weeks Zac would face many very tough obstacles. During this time there were multiple complications with some resulting in more surgeries. At the worst point, his feeding tube that was place through his nose punctured a hole into his intestines causing his body to go into septic shock. This almost took him from us. The doctors immediately rushed him to surgery and told us that he may not be back. We later found out that they really only gave him about a twenty percent chance of making it through it. Well, with much prayer and God watching over him and the doctors working on him, he made it through it. He spent the next three weeks on a paralytic and on a ventilator. The paralytic is a medicine that basically paralyzes your body. He was sedated for these three weeks of course, with his stomach opened, but covered. During this surgery he had a feeding tube placed in the side of his stomach and it is still there today at the age of 8. He also, had his intestines brought to the outside of his stomach on the other side. This is called an ileostomy. For lack of a better way to explain it, this is where his intestines will not function entirely so he would have his bowel movements into a bag on the side of his stomach. After recuperating from this, he was moved into a room where we spent the remainder of our four months there at T.C. Thompson. Throughout the entire four months, Zac had multiple blood transfusions, bacterial bloodstream infections, one fungal infection, pneumonia on more than one occasion, and as a result of a central line feeding that he was on for an extensive amount of time he now has cirrhosis of the liver. When finally able to go home, he went with a 24/7 feeding tube, a 24/7 central line that provided extra nutrients, and his ileostomy still in place. It was later put back into place and his intestines functioned properly and his central line was later removed as well. He is now only on night feedings with his tube along with all of his medications. After Zac turned one, his body began to fight sickness a little better and by the grace of God he has only been to the hospital a few times in the last seven years. The nurses that knew what he went through in the beginning have just been amazed at how well he has done. He still has his ups and downs, but overall he has done pretty well. He does still have trouble growing. At the age of 8, he is about the size of a 6 year old. What Zac went through in the beginning is not what everyone with CF goes through. Some cases are less severe and some are more severe. There is not a way to tell how it is going to go. I can tell you that watching a child, especially your own, go through this is horrible! Here is a glimpse of a person with CF and their daily life.

AM Meds and Treatments:

One inhaler of one medicine / One breathing treatment for about 15 minutes / Another inhaler of a different medicine / One liquid medicine by mouth / THREE vitamin pills / 30 minutes of chest percussion treatment by vest machine /

PM Meds and Treatments:

One inhaler of one medicine / Another inhaler of the other medicine / 30 minutes of chest percussion treatment by vest machine / One liquid medicine by mouth / One pill before bed

With Zac and his case he is also hooked up to a feeding tube for 8 hours each night in addition to the list of things above.

With all of this in the morning and evening, multiple pills called Creon must be taken every time the person eats, as well. This is an enzyme supplement because the pancreas does not produce the enzyme to properly digest and distribute food throughout the body. I ask you today to come out and walk with us to support this cause. You will get to meet Zac and I’m sure others with Cystic Fibrosis. It will be a day of fun and meeting new people and will give you a good feeling knowing that you are there supporting something and giving CF patients hope. If you are unable to attend, please do what you can and donate. No amount is too little! Thank you for your time and consideration and contributions. Hope to see you at the Walk.

Also, join our event on Facebook for another way to track updates and see how many people are getting involved. http://www.facebook.com/events/325309880851336/

Team fundraising goal: $3,000.00

Money raised to date: $800.00

http://media.timesfreepress.com/epaper/community/hxn/04-18-2012/index.html

Happy Easter!

March 2012 Employee of the Month

Dales’ Nomination:

Comments Referring to Dale creating support folders for Techs on the Manual Server; I love it! Information at our fingertips….way better for me than a forum where you have to search and search and search. I challenge all printer techs to send Dale at least one valuable “tech tip”" today! – Janet

Dale’s continued dedication to maintaining and improving this valuable resource is AWESOME employee stuff! – Ken

Other Nominees: Janet Upton, Mike Powers, Russell Henson, Tom Thongnopnua, Russ Howard and Brian Hargis

As a past winner of the Small Business Awards, we know what an honor it is to be nominated and win this award.

The MCA booth highlighted the various aspects of our business and won 2nd place in the Tweet-a-Booth (Best Booth) competition.

Thank you to everyone who participated in this event!

MCA participated in the Ronald McDonald House Telethon on Saturday night (3-3-12) and we were able to fill 10 seats to answer phones thanks to the help of some last minute recruits from Notre Dame High School (Dawn King’s son’s friends).

Thank you to Melissa who organized this fundraising event for MCA to participate.  The $1,000 donation from Mike was exciting to present to the Ronald McDonald House.  Listening to the people share their stories of how this wonderful home away from home helped them get through very difficult times made us all honored to be a small part of it.

Turn your TV to NewsChannel 9 for the RMHC Annual Telethon on Saturday, March 3,from  7 pm to 8 pm .

MCA has this time slot to answer phones and collect donations. Please show your support by calling us during this time 778-8000 or 1-800-603-3006.

The four-hour prime time telecast is part of Ronald McDonald House Charities of Greater Chattanooga Annual Share a Night Campaign which asks supporters to donate in $55 increments to help pay for a family’s night stay at the Ronald McDonald House, but any donation is welcome! It costs Ronald McDonald House Charities $55 per night to house one family for one night. Families are asked to make a $10 donation to help offset some of the expenses however, 55% of the families are unable to afford this nominal contribution. No family is ever turned away because of their inability to make the requested donation.  The average stay for families at Ronald McDonald House is 15 days. Your Share-A-Night contributions make it possible for families to stay at Ronald McDonald House regardless of their financial situation.

February 2012 Employee of the Month!

Mike’s Nominations:

Mike always does a great job for us – Customer

Mike always does an excellent job, whether troubleshooting or repairing a printer or other covered device. A good face to have meeting the public for MCA – Customer

Mike is awesome! – Customer

Other Nominees: Jan Wheeler, David Stewart, Marianna Ryan, Adam Ryan, Russ Howard, Kelsey Porter, Kristen Stone, James Bender, Tom Thongnopnua, Kris Nolen

Watch James Bender, Director of Technical Services, and David Stewart, Account Executive, on This N That with Don Welch. This N That is broadcast daily on NewsChannel 9. http://www.newschannel9.com/sections/thisnthat/

Tune in to learn more about MCA and the past 25 years of business, community involvement and changes in the technology field.