“We Have a Problem”
Less than a minute after Vicky Lyle’s first son Trey came into the world, her doctor uttered four words with the power to instantly strike fear into the heart of any parent: “We have a problem.” Just what that problem was, initially no one could say. It was so rare that neither Vicky’s obstetrician nor the nurses even knew what to call it. But their faces told her more than any words ever could: it was serious.
Once the pediatric urologist arrived on the scene, they quickly put a name to Trey’s condition: bladder exstrophy and epispadias. Typically seen together, these rare congenital abnormalities only occur in an estimated one out of every 30,000 to 50,000 live births, and if not treated properly can damage the bladder and kidneys, vital parts of the complex system that filters cellular waste out of the bloodstream.[1],[2] In layman’s terms, Trey’s bladder was turned inside out and protruding outside of his body, like a tiny red wound on his soft newborn belly.
“Owens & Minor has this wonderful culture of care, and it really comes from the teammates — teammates care for one another,” says Vicky. “No matter what happens, if you’ve got an Owens & Minor teammate on your side, you’re never truly alone.”
Vicky Lyle
Vice President, Industry Relations
Owens & Minor
Hear Vicky reflect on how Life Takes Care™ has shown up during her tenure as an Owens & Minor teammate.
While Trey’s father, Fred, began painstakingly researching his son’s condition, determined to find answers, Vicky considered his future care. Although information about bladder exstrophy wasn’t easy to come by in 1997, even in the most optimistic of scenarios Trey would spend a significant amount of his early life in a hospital room. Already several years into a career in the healthcare supply chain at Owens & Minor, Vicky was acutely aware that getting the best medical care was the most critical issue, and that her young family would need all the help it could muster in the years ahead. If it takes a village to raise a child, then Vicky was determined that Trey would be surrounded by a community of people who cared for him.
“He was lucky to have had [Vicky] because I don’t know of anyone else that could have done what she did. She never complained, she never gave up,” says Linda Ford, Trey’s aunt.
Nearly 30 years later, it’s clear that the trio of traits that fuel Vicky — determination, drive, and empathy — have been passed down to Trey and his younger brother, Josh. For Trey specifically, they’re what has helped him to remain resolute and optimistic through eight major surgeries, countless medical procedures, and the constant daily attention his condition has required. Now a proud alum of Virginia Tech as well as a radio producer, podcast host, and diehard sports fan, Trey credits his mother’s support with starting him along the path he’s charted for himself. “Her support has been vital,” says Trey. “She was the one that was always with me in the hospital, night in, night out. Really, it was not my journey, it was kind of our journey.”
A Constant in a Sea of Change
Even as she raised a family and navigated the changes and challenges of parenting a child with bladder exstrophy, Vicky continued to chart a path through the healthcare supply chain as an Owens & Minor teammate. Over the course of more than 30 years, she’s become an expert in the intricately interlinked areas of business that are collectively referred to as a single entity — “the healthcare supply chain” — a simple term that hides the fact that just a tiny sliver of the supply chain can be more operationally dense and precisely orchestrated than the operations of an entire company.
Vicky’s journey with Owens & Minor has taken her from supply chain technology to medical distribution, and everywhere in between. She’s seen both the company and the industry undergo enormous changes over the past 30 years; when she started, it was standard for many processes to be carried out manually, whereas today Owens & Minor combines technology and the human touch to service customers. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, many Americans had never heard of the healthcare supply chain. Now, almost every American has at least a passing familiarity with the complex infrastructure that underpins the country’s healthcare system.
But no matter the change impacting the industry that she loves, Vicky says that her fellow Owens & Minor teammates have never failed to deliver for her and her family. She recalls once walking out of an operating room in Baltimore, MD where Trey was having surgery to find not one, but two Owens & Minor teammates who had shown up in person, unannounced, and were on standby in the waiting room to help out however they could. Watching Vicky sift through the hundreds of get-well cards, handwritten letters, and mementos that fellow teammates sent whenever Trey was in the hospital for another surgery, it’s easy to imagine the community of care that Vicky envisioned for Trey—and to feel just how deeply her personal experience informs her work with Owens & Minor to this day.
“My experience going through what I’ve gone through with Trey, is that everything we do matters, and how important it is that we service our customers so they can service the patient. Because when you’ve been on the other side, you know when things aren’t going right, and if you don’t have the supplies that you need, it impacts the care that you can provide,” says Vicky.
Full Circle
Although Owens & Minor was traditionally known as a medical distribution company, it, too, has changed dramatically over the past 30 years and now counts home-based care as one of its primary offerings. Interestingly, Owens & Minor’s evolution as a company can be traced through the lives of Vicky and her son: while Vicky began her career in medical distribution more than three decades ago, Trey is a lifelong customer of Byram Healthcare, an affiliate brand of Owens & Minor. He receives supplies from Byram every month.
Now the Vice President of Industry Relations for Owens & Minor, Vicky thinks back to the day Trey was born, and the fact that the community of care she wanted for her family has come to pass — grown from her extended family, friends, the dedicated healthcare providers that have cared for Trey over the years, other families whose lives are impacted by bladder exstrophy, and, not least of all, the many Owens & Minor teammates over the years that were there when she needed them most.
[1] Bladder Exstrophy: An Epidemiologic Study From the International Clearinghouse for Birth Defects Surveillance and Research, and an Overview of the Literature. Siffel, C., Correa, A., Amar, E., Bakker, M. K., et al. American journal of medical genetics. Part C, Seminars in medical genetics, 157C(4), 321–332. Available at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4512232/. Last accessed August 20, 2024.
[2] Kidney function outcomes in patients after complete primary repair of bladder exstrophy and penopubic epispadias: Results from the international bladder exstrophy consortium. Joshi, Rakesh S. et al. Journal of Pediatric Urology, Volume 19, Issue 1, 34.e1 – 34.e9. Available at https://www.jpurol.com/article/S1477-5131(22)00165-6/abstract. Last accessed October 14, 2024.
To learn more about Owens & Minor’s Purpose and what drives teammates like Vicky to help make each day better for the patients, providers, and communities we serve, visit owens-minor.com/about.