She's Not My Mother

It was a new clinic for us but we are practiced enough in the medical arts to simply assume our normal positions.  Marty was in the dental chair looking around the office, surveying the exam room looking at the doctor’s diplomas, checking his credentials.  I was sitting in the chairs at the wall.  I was behind the nurse answering her questions, trying to put a face on Marty.

The nurse, focused on her computer screen, asking questions, looked up for just a moment and asked, “Now is she your mother?”

It was not the first time this question had been asked.  With my reading glasses on the end of my nose I turned, looked at the nurse over the top of my glasses and said, “No, I appreciate the fact that you think I look 30 but I’m her husband, have been for 36 years.”

The nurse looked up, looked at me, looked at Marty, “Oh.”

Yeah.  I get it.  When you look at Marty’s chart, when you look at her meds, when you look at her medical history it reads like someone who is 80, not a 58 year old woman.  I get it, when you look at your computer the patient doesn’t necessarily match the real person.

Trust me on this, I don’t look young enough to be Marty’s son, our son does.  And trust me on this; for a woman who has been beat up by not one but two cerebrovascular accidents, Marty doesn’t look 80, given her history she looks great.  Sometimes people just don’t look. 

It really doesn’t surprise me…..too much.  These people, people in the health care business, men and women dedicated to the healing arts, see hundreds of people a month depending on where they work.  Those people, those good people, get a routine; they get into a work rhythm and sometimes lose sight of the person sitting in the room with them.  It’s hard for them to understand this might be your first time as a patient.  

Personally I’m a rhythm kind of guy, I really get it.  Routine works and the questions asked are important questions.  I want them to know Marty’s history; I want them to know and to notate all of her medicines and everything she is allergic to, that stuff is life sustaining information.  Data is good. 

The good folks get the data and then they start mentally collating that data and how that pertains to why the patient is there.  That collation then gets them to a norm, it gets them to something they deal with multiple times in a given day and they make reasonable assumptions based on that data.  In Marty’s case, they assume she is an older woman with a litany of health issues.

She’s not; she’s too young to have endured what she has endured.  I know it’s hard, when you see a lot of people, when you repeat the same procedures day after day, to see past the data, to look up from the computer screen.  The big bright eye of the computer monitor pulls the focus away from the human in the room.    

It’s not just in health care.  It happens in any environment where you deal with repetition and a lot of people, the human gets shoved aside and only the patient or the customer remains.  It happens everywhere, but, when that it happens at Subway they are just making you a sandwich.  That’s not near as scary as oral surgery.

There are a lot of nurses and doctors and therapists and x-ray techs that somehow avoid that sort of dehumanizing trap.  They are the real practitioners of health care.  

We are really fortunate with all of Marty’s doctors.  They run good ships.  They know Marty; they see Marty as more than a brittle, complicated patient.  They see her as the person, the human she is.  The nurses and the office staff at the office of Great and Wise greet Marty, hug her and talk to her and see her as someone special.  To them she is famous, she is Ms Marty and they care for her and see her as an individual.  

Some of these folks have known Marty for years, some knew her before the strokes, most know her only as she is today.  We have loved and lost several good nurses and office folks at that office.  But the new folks treat Marty as a person too,  they have taken their lead from Great and Wise himself and he insists on having patient care be care for a person, a fellow traveler, not just another patient.

I know it’s hard, I know it requires extra work, extra effort to break out of the routine.  It means you have to look up and truly look at the people sitting in the chairs in your room and that sometimes takes time, it means you have to slow down just a bit.  

I know, I understand it’s hard when to look at so much stuff, so much critical data and not be entranced by that data.  I know gathering and coalescing the data sucks focus from people.  But you know, some day that person, that patient who has never been in the office before, might be you, , some day it will be a loved one in that chair and I guarantee you will want whoever is caring for them to remember that they are not one of many, they are unique, they are people.  

In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t a big deal.  Marty wasn’t paying attention and she is not easily offended.  The nurse doing our intake was pleasant, competent, professional and kind.  She wasn’t the first to ask the question, she won’t be the last.  I just want them to be sure and look at us before they ask any questions.