Tag Archives: humanity

two stem cell and bone marrow registration drive possibilities: please share

Please share these dates:  6/28 and 7/12 when folks 18-44 can register to register to be stem cell or bone marrow donors if a match is found.  The registry needs you!

Those 45-60 can register on line. Please check out information on bethematch.org regarding what this means!  The registry needs you. A cheek swab and a willingness…

Here is the thing: 97% of whites find a partial match.  65% of African Americans do. Other ethnic groups are lower than Whites and barely higher than those of African descent.  For a full match: 75% whites and only 25-35% of those of African descent.  Others are in between. Diversity in the registry is key. The sites for the drive are because they are diverse, inclusive, and social justice minded.  Please come by.

Feel free to share the fliers

Thanks! Sharon

Matt Dobie Immaculate

Matt Dobie St T

skinny crazy small

I have a young friend who is using theater for raising public awareness.

SCSrevisionDecPost

Actress and playwright Sylvie Mae Baldwin announces the world premier of her original one-woman play skinny crazy small.  And I am delighted to promote it.

The play chronicles the 8 year battle of a young girl with anorexia, seeking to give new voice to the discussion of this illness and to advocate for breaking down stereotypes.

She has an Indiegogo campaign for skinny crazy small that is live for just a few more weeks. Funds will allow Baldwin to pay her director and technical director a fair wage, as well as to rent rehearsal and performance venues. The Indiegogo page has a full breakdown of how funds will be allotted. Please contribute to this project at:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/skinny-crazy-small
Your donation is tax deductible, thanks to Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts organization in New York City. And if your employer matches donations, skinny crazy small can accept those as well!

Great resources to learn more about the show include their website and Facebook page: http://sylviemaebaldwin.wix.com/skinnycrazysmall

http://www.facebook.com/skinnycrazysmall

You can also purchase your skinny crazy small tickets today!: http://skinnycrazysmall.brownpapertickets.com

About Sylvie:

Sylvie Mae Baldwin is an actress, modern dancer, and musician. In May 2015 her original one-woman show, skinny crazy small, will premiere in Seattle, Washington. The play tells the story of a quirky and strong-willed girl’s struggle with anorexia and seeks to promote honest discussion about eating disorders (www.facebook.com/skinnycrazysmall). Regionally, Sylvie Mae has appeared on stage with Antaeus Company (CA), Book It Repertory Theatre (WA), Key City Public Theatre (WA), Lexington Children’s Theatre (KY), Seattle Public Theater (WA), Seattle Theatre Group (WA), and South Coast Repertory (CA). Sylvie Mae also was part of a group of young actors at the Northwest School who spent three years working in collaboration with UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital tp craft short plays from the poems and journal entries of terminally ill children in the hospital’s ICU. These plays were performed at the UCSF medical facilities and the DeYoung Art Museum. Sylvie Mae trained with Anne Bogart and the SITI Company in New York. She is a proud member of the Actors’ Equity Association. http://www.sylviemaebaldwin.com

The Reverand Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day Key Note at Mt. Zion Baptist Church, Seattle

I am pleased to post this guest blog by Barbara Thomas, who I am lucky to know because about 22 years ago we started to work together as doctor and patient. Barbara is a brilliant and creative artist, writer, and so much more.  A view of what she creates and shares is on her web site here. This year, on January 16, 2015, she was the keynote speaker at the Reverand Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration at Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Seattle. It is important to note that Mt. Zion has played an important role in the Seattle civil rights movement since at least 1940 (more about that in another post).  For today, here is Barbara’s speech.

          Dream and the Dream Catcher–MLK Day—Barbara Earl Thomas –

January 16, 2015

I am humbled and amazed to be here today to speak in honor of the day and on the occasion when we all pause for a moment to consider what this day means to us and our nation. I thank first Jill Wakefield, Chancellor of the Seattle Colleges for the invitation, Earnest Phillips, Seattle Colleges Executive Director of Marketing and Communications for the great support and Senior Pastor Aaron Williams for continuing the grand tradition of having this address at the Mount Zion Baptist Church.

I am additionally honored to stand at the podium in Mount Zion Baptist Church, led so long by our very own Samuel B. McKinney, who in 1961 arranged and hosted the one and only visit to Seattle that Dr. King would ever make. They stood together two human beings—with all the other human beings stated their case, shaped the vision that has sustained us all of these years. Just imagine: the humanness of their being—mere mortals (like you and me) facing that Mount Olympus-sized dream.

In 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. expressed a dream so eloquently that we are often left speechless in its wake.   When he told us that, “This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality—1963 is not an end but a beginning,” that is where I have to start every day. We stand, each one of us, as a link in the line from that place Dr. King called the beginning. On that day we were given a vision, hope and a star to reach, not knowing in that moment, in1963, all that would befall us as a people or nation. Even as we mourned the assassination of Medgar Evers we could not foresee the assassinations of John F. Kennedy nor take in the possibility that Dr. King would himself be mowed down, his death, killing hope in its wake.   We could not imagine the depths of Vietnam and all the wars that would bring us to September 11, 2001 when the world as we knew it stopped, stunned into the realization that it had come to this. If we didn’t know before, we know now we are in this spaceship together.

At the moment Dr. King delivered those now immortal words—“I may not get there with you,” he faced thousands of hopeful people who helped to make that particular moment possible. I do not diminish Dr. King when I say he (we) would not have gotten here without all of those who took up the seemingly small but crucial tasks. Today we must remember the John Lewises and Fredrick Reeses, the Ralph Abernathys, Ella Bakers and Bayard Ruskins who worked tirelessly off the podium, to the side, out of the spotlight. Dr. King was carrying their torch and he spoke for them. I pay homage to all of those who got on buses, on trains or in their cars to mark that moment. But I also remember the mothers and fathers who were unable to attend but kept the home fires burning, attended their children, kept the school doors open, worked their jobs, and guarded the voting booth or gave a hand to the less strong along the way.

When I think of the small steps, I start with my very own existence by way of my grandparents, Doc and Ethel Lee, and people like them, who came here in the early 1940s would eventually send for the daughters – in my case, Lula Mae who would become my mother and, her sister, Annie. They, like the grandparents and parents of so many, migrated here from Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas and all parts south to start anew.  They came looking to work hard and find that American Dream. My father would arrive by way of the military, having completed the 9th grade and my mother the 11th. One might say why did she quit? She was so close, only a year away from graduation. Ah, that was a subtle custom, a brutal dream killer. If you were Black, in that place, the 11th grade was as high as you were allowed to go. She was stopped, sure enough, but she did not quit. She simply lifted her dream and moved it forward to her children. Little did I know that I was her/their dream-catcher. I held their dream, never knowing how full I was of their hope. I, and most of my classmates, could not in our young lives appreciate or imagine the gravity of what we represented to those people who sent us out of the house everyday. We could not decipher the pride on their faces, the lilt in their voices as they spoke among themselves about us.

When we graduated it was not an individual accomplishment but a family triumph. Only years later would I understand and feel the magnitude of what now seems like such a small thing to hope for a child. I did not suffer the hardscrabble, sharecropping, cotton-picking life of my parents and grandparents. This was, by no means, luck on my part, but a well-laid plan, seeded by a grandfather’s courage when he struck out into the unknown. I did not experience the segregated south or Jim Crow trains but I understood, as many of you here do, that my small accomplishments were part of a larger hope passed onto me, not always in words, but through a look, a sigh, and the embodiment of their hard work.   It was my/our job to get the goods, grasp the knowledge, the word, and the secret of the system and bring it home and share it with whoever needed to know.

Today with the ubiquity of the Internet, Facebook, Instagrams and Tweets the big moments now come to us in an instant, cause a momentary explosion of comment, only to be replaced by another startling world event. The good news is it is ever more clear that we are bound together and responsible to each other. As we share the human spectacle no transgression is hidden for long. The bad news is that the repetition of the images can cheapen even the most fantastic human event. We stand stunned in the face of impending environmental disaster; global and local terrorism; the images and sounds of the suffering confront us. As they happen, we are dwarfed in the shadow of their enormity.

What can we in our smallness do? We who glean the fields today gather those shafts of wheat left behind. In grief from so much loss, this work may be our salvation.   Our job, in these days of “endless blogs” and “lives gone viral”, may be again to find the sacred in the mundane act of everyday living.   As ordinary as it sounds when we send our children off to school each day—we re-enact a sacred ritual for which people have risked beatings and death to achieve. It is an impulse rooted deep in our human make up to embark on this eighteen year commitment –where one day builds the week, month and years that culminates in the moment when all the small steps add up to one well-prepared life. As each educator stands in front of the classroom he or she will struggle with the inadequacies of the resources, but daunted as that teacher is he/she finds a way to connect with the student who is somebody’s child and the future of us all.   When we resonate, as we must, during brief flashes of clarity, we grasp that each and every one of us matters, because without the work, hope, love and dedication of the many, that moment in 1963 would never have happened.   Who knows, if we will in our life times, have that kind of moment again? But I say, maybe this is the time not of the one, but of the many.

I am grateful to those of you who have raised your families when you might rather have been doing something else; those of you who helped a young person who was not your own child; given money and time for the betterment of your community even when you got little or no notice—you may not be thanked but you will do it regardless. I want to thank those of you who have gone into teaching when it was clear that it was no place to make a fortune, but it remains one of the most important professions for any community who knows what is truly at stake.   Our next big challenge as a community and nation will be to reclaim higher education as an affordable right for the many, not a luxury for the few. We have to take it back from those lending institutions that would bankrupt our families and children, mortgage their futures.

My first venture into college was at what was then called Seattle Community College—as an evening student, where I took my very first English class. My mother and her best friend Viola who was also my hairdresser, dropped me off on Summit Avenue Annex at 6pm and picked me up at 9pm. I don’t know what those two young ladies did when they left. I know they didn’t sit outside and wait for me for 3 hours–but I never asked. It never occurred to me that they wouldn’t be there.

Today I ask you to remember the aspiration, the small steps needed to arrive. It’s not okay to say that because we can’t do the monumental that our individual contributions don’t matter. Who are we to say that our “one” vote means nothing? Who are we to overlook the life of even one child lost in violence or despair? In these days when we are overwhelmed by the wave of the Michael Browns, Trayvon Martins or the child who kills himself or another, none of it is okay and I say that every small thing matters.

In this light, Dr. King’s speech is a love letter sent to a future that he would not see. And, it is a message, for all of humanity. In 2015 when the gravity of poverty yet exists— and societal injustice brings no relief from the violence we heap upon each other—we wonder if we have moved the needle of progress at all. When in doubt, take the harvest from your fruit trees to the food bank—volunteer at your local school whether you have children or not.

When my grandfather decided in the 1940s to move his family from rural Shreveport, Louisiana to Seattle, it was no small move. These former sharecroppers and cotton pickers were the sons and daughter of those who passed on a direct memory of slavery. They were the many un-graduated from any high school with no diplomas offering up hands in labor and arms in defense of the only country they knew.

Today let us remember the individual stories, the small kindnesses of he who opens the door, holds the train, shares the food, the knowledge, the kind word— In 2015, I am charged with remembering the gifts of all those who came before me. These individuals were part of the raw stuff of the dream to which Martin Luther King, Jr. would refer. As I stand in Mount Zion Baptist Church, I must speak of Reverend Samuel B. McKinney, who in 1961, met with Martin Luther King Jr. right here in Seattle. He, himself a 1949 graduate of Morehouse College, was exemplary to all in his parish of the value of education, the power of voice matched with reason. As the church was one of the pivotal symbols of unity in Seattle’s Central District, the core of the African American community and continues to be that for many. We were neighbors who held a tightly knit community together and the businesses that served them and us. In 2015 we lament many of the changes but we also take heart and are charged with naming the successes of those who have caught the dream and moved it forward. We still stand for uplifting the race, community and the country. My grandfather used to say “If you live long enough you gonna see some of everything.”

Many of us have lived long enough to remember Sam Smith, the first Black City Councilman; the election of Norman B. Rice as our the first Black Mayor of Seattle; Ron Sims first King County executive; Larry Gossett, County Council; Dr. Charles Mitchell a Seattle Colleges Chancellor; Judge Charles Z Smith and Charles Johnson and Richard Jones all exemplary leaders; and Dr. Ben Danielson at Odessa Brown; Charles Johnson, author, National Book award winner and MacArthur Genius; Octavia Butler, award-winning science fiction writer; and August Wilson, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright spring from our culture to live among us to tell their and our stories. And, yes there is Barack Obama, the first Black president of the United States of America.

I pray, let me never be so overwhelmed or habituated to the grand gesture that miracles such as these no longer impress me. I say we are here today to engage in the “mindfulness” that recognizes these are still events for which we should and can be grateful every day. There is a place for, and merit in being the second, even third or fourth–Mayor, City or County Council person, community leader and National Book Award winner, scientist and doctor. These achievements remind us that there was a time, not so long ago, before that first, when we never thought we would live to see the day. Our job now is not just to pass the dream on, but to take it out, brush off the tarnish of any personal disappointments and pass it on as we ourselves receive it, in all its fresh wonderment. Today let’s remember to re-appreciate and re-engage and be amazed. This may not be the moment for the one—but it just might be the time for the many.

Available now! Click on the link below. (I cannot seem to import the image to show as an image). I hope you will get it, enjoy it, learn from it, celebrate with all of us authors whose stories are in this work, and share the information with your friends, family, and colleagues.  Order it from http://www.UCMedicalHumanitiesPress.com and get a 30% discount. All proceeds go to the University of California Medical Humanities Press, which allows them to publish more work in this genre.  It will be available at bn.com and amazon.com in about 6-8 weeks.

Heart Murmurs flyer

Teams, gratitude, and goodbyes

We had a lot of fun in our hours together in the Labor and Delivery Suite at Virginia Mason Hospital, Seattle, from 1983 until 1989, when I left to take my practice to the University. “We” would be the nurses, midwives, support staff, and doctors from the hospital and two community health center practice groups. There’s a lot of talk these days about teams, as if it is a new concept. It’s a great concept; it’s not new, and algorithms,mnemonics, and organizational protocols telling us to communicate or how to communicate do not make the concept come alive. Relationships are the bricks and the mortar comes from commitment to our patients and to the relationships within the team.

This spring a new patient appeared on my schedule. I recognized the name and I recognized her: big eyes, easy laugh, and organized notebook with items for us to discuss as catch up­—items she felt I would need to know if I was to become her primary care doc (PCP) and we were again to be a team. It had been 25 years since we had worked together as nurse and doctor in Labor and Delivery (L&D is what we call it), yet it could have been yesterday.

…Only this time we would not be working together with a laboring and birthing woman and her family. It was to hopefully keep her healthy, now in remission after chemotherapy for lymphoma. Her cancer care was in our institution and she and they felt a PCP in our system would add to her team that included her husband, daughter, oncologists and nurses; they hoped my joining the team might make her care coordination easier.

After she had completed chemotherapy, her first scan was negative and she and her husband and daughter were optimistic and ready to celebrate. I felt like an old friend had walked back into my life. I shared her optimism and thought, “how lucky am I? Piece of cake: reconnect with an old friend, work on her health goals now that chemo is over…”

That is what teams do if they work: they breed strong ties and create a choreography that could translate to different settings even though we don’t make those translations often. In this case, we settled in, started to work on some of her non-cancer concerns, caught up on her life and hoped for the best. I found out she had left L&D nursing and was a respected nursing educator in a local program. She and her husband had one daughter and she shared how proud they were of her. She told me how, as their daughter grew, they took frequent outings to various parts of the state and usually could be found in the summer crabbing in Puget Sound from their boat. I remember their wedding and could picture the next installments as she relayed the details. Did I go to the wedding? Or were her descriptions so vivid I feel in my memories like I was there? That is the thing about teams. We all own part of the other’s story with a connection that weaves in and out and in an out.

During these conversations I could easily transport myself back to L&D, day or night, someone in labor, sitting around with whoever was there– nurses, the midwives from the hospital midwifery group, maybe one of the family med docs from the other community health center group, maybe the obstetrician on call. If one of us needed help, there were always hands to help. If a woman came in and her on call person was not there, we would help. If my patient came in and I was not there yet, others would help.

What I remember about Linda, the name of my colleague now patient, is her voice. She could tell one of us exactly what she thought and what she thought we should do about it, always with this cadenced softness that did not hide the direct and clear opinion. She could (and would) manage a complex patient in the midst of chaos with the calm of a neurosurgeon and she could coach a reluctant woman when to breathe and how to push when I needed to take a take a deep breath break myself. And laugh…oh I can hear her laughter. She could laugh at herself and funny things she would share. Laugh a lot and laugh loudly, easily tickled by life and our work, easily finding what was important, never disrespectful, just keenly insightful to the meaning, the amusement and the delight—all of it.

Teams…they do create memories. I don’t remember a mnemonic. I do remember the people who touch me and allow me into their lives. Though I am not sure, as I remember the flurry of the nursery filled with the L&D and pediatric nurses and my absolute excitement and disbelief at the show of support, to say nothing of the import of the moment, I believe Linda was right there when my son was legally handed to me at our hospital and again at the shower the nurses had for my son and me a couple of weeks later. I know she celebrated my becoming a parent, and we all shared her meeting her Larry and her wedding a short while later. And then we lost touch.

This spring of remission was short. Her lymphoma was found again, not even hiding very far from her oncologist’s detection. Her remission had not been real. She had more chemo and prepared for stem cell transplant. During that time our biggest conversations were about how to get ready, would she have to live closer to the hospital during this treatment. And she began to accept these realities and in her usual very organized way, she set about making all the arrangements.

Just a couple of weeks ago, with her port in place for the transplant, she was admitted with a fever. We hoped it was an infection, maybe the line that had been placed. Her doctors tried to hope and did cultures and started antibiotics. Within a couple of days, it was clear. No infection. Her cancer was running wild. Her oncologist gave her the news and we expedited her return home with her daughter and husband and Hospice, her new team member.

Her bucket list got much shorter. She had a couple of good days and her family was at her side pretty much the whole time. Before her discharge she told me she worried about the strain on her husband and daughter and I told her they were strong and would be fine. She said, “but I have things to do.” I asked her where she would tell me to put my energy if I knew I was going to die the next day. She laughed. Oh how I loved her musical laugh. She said, “You give me perspective. And also, I really want my daughter to go on her trip.” I said, “That is not your choice.” She laughed. We both knew she would have said the same to me.

I thought she would live a week or three. And I hoped to visit her and maybe have the courage to say a proper good bye and to thank her for the days and nights we passed together in L&D and for trusting me with her care at this momentous time. She died quietly, 5 days after going home, with her family at her side. When there is a good team, maybe there is no good way and no need to say goodbye.

Women Authoring Change

my 2012 abode

my 2012 abode

In the past I wrote about Hedgebrook. (radical hospitality) And I shared about the women who were there when I was. women writers  And their cook book (here) is amazing, reminding me of the weight I gained during my residency in 2012. Well now it is time for YOU to apply for a residency.  Check it out here!  If granted, it is like nothing you will have ever had given to you.  One constellation of six who were there when I was are pictured below, representing several nations, multiple genres, and huge heart. Also, throughout the year, they have master’s classes as well.  For a weekend or longer, you will have your own little cottage, 5 other writers, solitude, amazing surroundings, and a master teacher. https://sharondobiedotcom1.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/post-debate.jpg An 2011 article in the Guardian   showed that in Britain and the US, male authors are reviewed 3 times more often than women. And guess what?  Who do you think the reviewers are?  Yes, similar proportions for reviewers: men: women 3:1. VIDA does an annual evaluation.  In 2013 the NY Times and The Paris Review made big progress, but check out the tables.  We still have a long way to go to have women’s voices heard in print. (VIDA) Hedgebrook supports women writers.  In particular it wants to support women authoring change.  My three weeks there in 2012 were life altering thanks to the vision of the place, the belief in the work I was/am doing, the amazing nurturing of the staff and the place, the women who were there with me, and the space to be there. Please do check it out:  Go there for a master’s class.  Apply for a residency.  Support them.  Go to their events.

Josephine Ensign wrote about Elizabeth Austen, her poetry and the event where she read. (see blogs I follow)  Elizabeth is the Washington State Poet in Residence, truly gifted and a Hedgebrook Alum. Check out her blog and her work here. Go to one of her events.

Support women authors! Our voices matter. In the farmhouse at Hedgebrook, where we gather for dinner with our amazing chefs, there is a living room with floor to ceiling and wall to wall (except for the fireplace) bookshelves, all full.  Every book in the shelves is by or includes a Hedgebrook alum.  Let us work together to publish so much that we must support Hedgebrook building a new building or modifying some of their other buildings to house all the works of the women who pass through there.

writing about patients

Sitting in a coffee shop, I anxiously awaited one of my patients. I invited him to meet with me to read the story I wrote about what I learned within our working together over a period of more than 15 years with me as primary care provider AKA PCP and him as patient. But really, who taught whom and what? As editor and author, I am preparing to submit the manuscript for Heart Murmurs ­–What Patients Teach Their Doctors. All of the stories deserve permission from the patients who are described in the book; fewer than half can be reached to ask for this permission.

Some contacts were emotionally easy. There is a chapter on those whose cheery dispositions brighten our days in clinic. When I met with those patients and family members, they enjoyed that I wrote about them in this way. But what about the more challenging lessons? This was the concern as I waited that day in the coffee shop. His was a difficult story, a past experience for him, and a lasting lesson for me. I wondered if he would veto it being in the book. After arriving and some chatting, he read it. I sat there sweating. He said he loved it, and he added some ideas for changing the details that blinded the story. This is how all these meetings have gone: I am anxious and worried and our patients are gracious and grateful for the project, touched that they have taught us. And there is our respect to change what they need changed in the story telling.

Whose story is it?  Of course, whether published or not, it is the perceptions (with all the bias implicit in perception) of the writer. On another level, when told it is the story of the teller and those about whom we storytellers write.  In patient care, some argue that it is always the patient’s story.  I am hoping to respect that view but to have a broader lens.

Reviewing stories with the individuals represented in them is an activity that adds to the relationships we have. One family member of a person who is deceased agreed with my perceptions and contributed details that were important and enriched the story. Several commented on how the story was accurate but that I left out details that were important to them. Often those had to do with what I did for them (much of which I do not remember and all of which was wonderful to hear, but not the focus of the stories). When reading a difficult narrative, several reached out to reassure me or another author. Each of the reviews went well, validating the project and our perceptions of reciprocity in these patient-doctor relationships. For me, what happened in the sharing of the stories supports my belief that this project is worthy for all, not just doctors.

Our physician authors also reviewed their narratives a year or so before publication; for many this review occurred a number of years after they wrote their stories. Older and more experienced, several commented that the revisit was a reminder of how they thought earlier in their career. They could see how they have changed as well as the characteristics that remain.

The ethics of patient protection has muddy waters.  Strict rules do not quite fit. I do believe that when we meet with patients and have conversation about a written narrative, the relationship grows. The co-creation of stories can enhance relationships where patients have the agency and that makes sense to me.  Doctors have written about their patients for centuries. Most of those writings, until very recently however, spoke to a culture where the patient was less of an equal partner in the physician-patient equation than what we currently believe and teach. Certainly, most of those years also preceded current privacy regulations. As recently as fifteen years ago, this subject was not routinely scrutinized. I have no idea where it will be ten years from now.

The emerging ethic about writing about our patients is not well defined. What can we say? What should we not say? Can we even do this writing? On the one hand, memoirs tell only one person’s perceptions. What should determine how a physician addresses this? In prior works, names and circumstances might be changed, but is that enough? Is there a line that is different when we are writing the story about a relationship that is defined by confidentiality?

At the same time that we ask these questions, medical education is clearly recognizing and supporting reflection by physicians. We teach it; we have reflections in our courses. Those of us attentive to this trend have also cautioned our learners, be they students or residents, about blogging and other social media outlets for sharing their reflections.

What are the answers? Others and I hope any answers encourage compassion and reflection in all of our healing professions.  We hope the answers allow the story telling that is so central to our diagnostic and therapeutic work. However these ethics evolve, I hope that we can support stories being told, shared, and valued, while  of course protecting the right of patients to their privacy in this very special relationship.

How do we reconcile these tensions in the best way we can?

In Heart Murmurs, the authors, including me, wrote about what they learned about themselves because of and within a relationship with a patient. We can’t tell that story without the story of the patient. I believe there is tremendous social value in this reflection and in it coming to the public domain. How then do we protect the covenant of confidentiality? Today I sit with a manuscript with over thirty authors and many stories of mine, over 80 total from all of us. Where I am settling, and I hope it is good for the mores of today, is the following:

All stories must meet several criteria:

  1. The value of telling the story is important to our social dialogue. The purpose of this project is one that meets this criteria for all the narratives included in the project.
  2. The story is told in a respectful way for each person represented. All stories, even those that have difficult circumstances, in this book are respectful, though I recognize how subjective perception is.
  3. If a person believes a story is about them, they should not feel embarrassed or shamed, also subjective and hard to predict in many cases.

All stories in Heart Murmurs have names and some circumstances altered, except for two where family explicitly approved using the actual name. I believe all included stories meet the above criteria. Patients of mine have read their piece and agreed to publication, or they are deceased and a family member read it and agreed to publication, or they are deceased and I could not find a family member for review, or it is a composite, or it is many years ago and I could not find the person to review the narrative.

If another physician contributor wanted to attach their name to their story one of the following criteria had to be be met:

  1. The author shared the narrative with their patient and the patient agreed to it being published; or
  2. The patient could not be found for sharing the story and the circumstances are altered for patient protection; or
  3. The patient is deceased and the author shared it with a family member who agreed that it can be published; or
  4. The patient is deceased and no family member is easily found or reachable and the story is generic enough that the identity seems reasonably protected; or
  5. The story is a composite and thus not attributable to one person; or
  6. The story is from a number of years ago and no one could be contacted and it is blinded enough so that identity seems reasonably protected from any but possibly the patient.

If one of these six criteria was not met, a story will say “anonymous” and the author can have a biographical note if they wish. For stories with an anonymous author, with circumstances changed, and with the authors being from all over the country, I believe patients’ identities are reasonably protected. Even if a person or a family member reads the book and identifies with the circumstances in a story and wonders, their identity should be protected from others. No persons should be certain it is really about them. What I also know: the lessons in every narrative in this book have been experienced in one way or another by individuals and their physicians all over our country.

Fragments

Sometimes those fragments of time that occur in the cracks between the “regular” stuff of scheduled life are so full that there is no time to even contemplate a blog entry. There are simply no moments left.

We hope we can appreciate the meaning of what is happening in those cracks.  And then there is “now, back to our regularly scheduled show.”  This site just fell off the shelf for a bit.

Here is the big news: we have a publisher for our manuscript of narratives by physicians (and me as editor/author) sharing how we have been affected and changed in our relationships with patients. This is work I have been doing for years and compiling/editing for over 4 years. That’s one reason for no blog: trying to bring us and it together to get the manuscript in. That means: I need from each contributor three things: their bio, is their story blinded adequately, and do they want their name attached or to be anonymous?  Simple no? Not! Of the 30+, I still need to track down 5. Then I need a permission slip signed by each. I may need to appear in person on doorsteps all over the country to get it done.

I need to complete the editing and proofreading,  find some sample cover images, get a head shot (of me), a short statement for the back cover, proofread the bios, maybe write an epilogue.

And anyone have friends who are famous who will look at the manuscript and write an endorsement for the back cover? I wrote to Gawande, Verghese, and Remen and they did not respond…next? One of my sons says, “Ask em again.”

My time to edit and herd contributors is cut short by other moments that I can’t just ignore, as excited as I am that this work may actually see print.

Life happens. The book is all about relationships. I simply cannot shelve them while trying to make the book happen.

I am meeting with the patients about whom I have written and if they are deceased, I am sharing the stories with their family members -if I can find them. This is a process that is full of meaning for me, for the few other authors who are also contacting the subjects of their pieces, and hopefully for the people we are contacting.

Before each meeting, I feel anxious about sharing what I wrote. How accurate are my perceptions and descriptions? What will my writing bring up for the person (or family member) about whom I wrote. The narrative is really about what I learned about me in the context of that relationship, however that means telling the patient’s story. Funny, but revealing my lesson does not leave me feeling vulnerable. Instead, I am most concerned how they feel I represented them or their family member, because our connection in reality is just a small bit of who they are or their life story.  So far, and I only have three more people to meet, no one has had big concerns; all have had things to share that either enrich the story or give back to me. I will try to write this piece in an epilogue, but doubt I can do it justice. There is a ripple effect when we are authentic about this reciprocity piece in relationships. Moments…they can build on themselves like waves.

Hearing Loss—Take Two

In my last blog on hearing and hearing loss, I mentioned how a lot of what most of us actually “hear” is with our eyes.  We unconsciously add to our sound hearing with context and even lip reading and intonation.  I would quote proportions and give a reference if I could find it again.  Oh well, I csan’t.  Tonight I went to see The Lego Movie at the advice of my son, Nicholas.  Lego characters do not really move their lips, right?  During the first few minutes, until the story line was established, I thought it might turn out to be a worthless venture with my comprehension being about 70%.  Once we were about 5 minutes into the movie, I could much more clearly “hear” the characters’ lines–because I had characters and story line. It was a very interesting verification of what I had read, tonight experienced first hand.

That brings me to the –drum roll and trumpet blasts–hearing aids. I opted for the ones recommended, that sit in the ear and supposedly do a great job of not magnifying surrounding sounds and would work for work, which for me means 1) hearing soft spoken people in meetings, 2) being in group sessions and hearing various people, and 3) using the tools of my trade: the stethoscope.  Of course I also hoped that the car radio could be at a lower volume and that dining in loud noisy restaurants would be easier.

They get a grade of D+ -maybe- except in one crucial area they get an F and therefore will not work.  I feel like the princess and the pea.

1.     In the car:  Wow, I can hear all the other cars and my car’s quirky noises.  Cool.  But I cannot turn down the radio volume.  If anything I need it louder to hear over all the “new” noises I can hear.

2.     Small groups at work:  not yet tested.

3.     Restaurants:  I used to love eavesdropping on tables near me.  I am happy to report that capacity might be back with the aids!  Hearing my dinner companions however is not improved at all.  Like the car radio, the indiscriminate pick up of the microphones does not make the near and dear clearer.  Do I want to eavesdrop or do I want to be part of the dinner conversation at my table?

4.     And the final:  I can hear NOTHING of the heart with my stethoscope and lung sounds are 90% blunted.  So this aid will not work and will be returned.

I know there are some that apparently filter better and they had downsides that left them not recommended (I cannot remember why).

We would think that the technology that is out there would have this figured out. I am back to the drawing board, trying to do my part to do my share of the conversations in my life. It is not so simple as just go get a hearing aid.

What?

During the last years of my dad’s life, we all knew his hearing was not great.  I’m not sure why he did not get hearing aids.  We knew that large noisy groups made it hard for him to socialize and that he shied away from those.  He could hear us in small groups or one on one conversation, mostly.  I don’t remember feeling annoyed with him or him getting short with us when he could not hear. He was career navy and served in WWII, Korea, and Viet Nam so I know he had noise exposure as one culprit in his hearing loss.  And there was age.

I do remember feeling I wish we did not have to plan events so that he could be comfortable.

This brings up the question of who is responsible for what when there is a change in physical ability?  How much of the burden is on the person whose health and ability status changes? What about those in that person’s life?

Next week I will have molds made for hearing aids.  Some of my hearing loss is just family and age, I am sure.  I also sing in a group and in a concert two years ago, the tenors to my left were magnificently loud in several pieces and I heard immediately the tell tale ringing that did not stop when I left the concert and for days later.  Actually I still have the tinnitus, more in my left than right ear.  Luckily for me it does not drive me batty, either because I am already batty or because I just have enough going on that it is not on the radar of my life.  But I knew after that event my left ear in particular was in deep trouble for hearing.

I say “what?” a lot.  I struggle in my groups with students if the quiet students do not speak up.  My kids are frustrated at having to repeat themselves.  Maybe my students are too.  My friends tease me.  I say “wait til you have these shoes on…see how it is.” I laugh with them because I am good at laughing at myself.  Some people seem irritated when I ask for them to repeat themselves.  I feel “less than” even though I did not make this happen other than to sing next to loud people.

Soon after that concert a very close friend and I were at her family’s cabin.  I was saying “what?” a lot.  And she would then yell her next response, well not yell loudly, but much louder than it needed to be.  I got irritated and suggested that if she did not mumble I could hear her, that it was articulation not loudness that was the issue.  She retorted that I was going deaf and she did not mumble.  I told her I had an audiology appointment already made and that I still believed she mumbled.  Within the week I found out the degree of my hearing loss and mutual friends acknowledged that she does “mumble” a bit.

Loud places are hard.  It turns out that with sensorineural hearing loss, part of what happens is not only can a person hear less well, they also have a shift in the noise comfort level.  A normal hearing person will say “it is bothering me” when the noise level is at a certain decibel level.  A sensorineural hearing loss person will say it is bothering them at a much lower decibel level.  And that is independent of what they can hear in language at a given level.  I have had three hearing tests.  The first two my results demonstrated this.  In the third I “cheated,” because I knew of this concept.  I weathered the noise far beyond what was really tolerable…and I passed.  Yay me!  Not.

It turns out that a lot of our communication is not from hearing.  It can be body language, lip reading that we don’t know we are doing, etc.  The context helps.  Some people are better at accommodating, figuring out context and filling in the blanks.

And in some settings it is hard to ask people to speak up, or say it again.  I can understand why my dad and others with hearing loss tend to withdraw.  I have wondered if I should stop my working in the work I do.  Is that wondering because I question my skill or because I am embarrassed or because I am just tired advocating for myself?  I honestly don’t know. I just feel like it is hard, my problem, and well…I guess I just don’t know what should/could be a reasonable expectation in differnt relationships.  Many have trouble hearing our department chairman.  Is that my problem and should I just pretend I hear and be quiet?

Last week I felt like a sitcom.  My younger son yelled down to me from upstairs. “Mom, can you get me some paper?”  I yelled back, “what do you need paper for?”
“Mom can you just get me some paper, now?” I answered, “Nick, just get it from the printer, which is right up there with you. Won’t that work?”  He then came down stairs looking crosseyed.  “What is wrong with you?”  “What do you mean,” I retorted.  “You want paper. There is tons upstairs.” “Mom, I said, will you do me a favor!?” We both collapsed in laughter to his words, “get that hearing aid.”

I found a website that talks honestly about what others can do.  I know what I need to do.  Of course I hope the aids help.  The ones I tried before did nothing.

Here are tips if you are a normally hearing person with someone in your life who is hearing impaired from the Hearing Loss Association of America:

Tips for Hearing Person to Communicate with Person who has a Hearing Loss

Set Your Stage

  • Face person directly.
  • Spotlight your face (no backlighting).
  • Avoid noisy backgrounds.
  • Get attention first.
  • Ask how you can facilitate communication.
  • When audio and acoustics are poor, emphasize the visual.

Get the Point Across

  • Don’t shout.
  • Speak clearly, at moderate pace, not over-emphasizing words.
  • Don’t hide your mouth, chew food, gum, or smoke while talking.
  • Re-phrase if you are not understood.
  • Use facial expressions, gestures.
  • Give clues when changing subjects or say “new subject.”

Establish Empathy with Your Audience

  • Be patient if response seems slow.
  • Talk to a hard of hearing person, not about him or her to another person.
  • Show respect to help build confidence and have a constructive conversation.
  • Maintain a sense of humor, stay positive and relax
Tips for the Person with Hearing Loss to Communicate with Hearing People

Set Your Stage

  • Tell others how best to talk to you.
  • Pick your best spot (light, quiet area, close to speaker).
  • Anticipate difficult situations, plan how to minimize them.Do Your Part
  • Pay attention.
  • Concentrate on speaker.
  • Look for visual clues.
  • Ask for written cues if needed.
  • Don’t interrupt. Let conversation flow to fill in the blanks and gain more meaning.
  • Maintain a sense of humor, stay positive and relaxed.

Establish Empathy with Audience

  • React. Let the speaker know how well he or she is conveying the information.
  • Don’t bluff. Admit it when you don’t understand.
  • If too tired to concentrate, ask for discussion later.
  • Thank the speaker for trying

I return to the question.  Who has responsibility for what? What is your role?

Loose (but not) ends

This is the end of November’s NaBloPoMo. First I want to thank Seiji Pulmano, a graphic and web designer, son of a good friend, and my son’s high school classmate (go Garfield). Seiji held my hand and helped me set up this site and learn the rudimentary parts of navigating it and then was available for questions along the way. Thank you Seiji!

I say if you are looking for a web or design consultant, Seiji is your man.  He can be reached at hello@spulmano.com. Thanks too, Rae and Bruce, Seiji’s  parents, who gave me the gift of his support.

Thank you all who have come and read these pages, for sticking with me as I muse about things that are important to me.  The blog will continue but not like November’s daily post. As I said when I opened the doors here, I welcome questions and topics you would like to discuss.

We talk about the moments in our lives throughout our days— in stories that are written, spoken, and sung in prose, poetry and song.  There are several wonderful events in December worth publicizing for those in the area or wanting a trip to the area.

The Moth (Moth Radio Hour, True Stories Told LIve) is coming to Seattle in just a few days, Tuesday, December 3, 2013, at the Neptune Theater, 1303 NE 45th, Seattle, Wa.  You can buy tickets here.

On December 15, Sunday, come hear some great jazz/gospel Christmas music by one of Seattle’s best gospel groups, Shades of Praise and Jubilation Choirs.  The Map of St. Therese (3416 E Marion, Seattle, Washington) shows it really is on 34th Avenue. (They let me sing with them.)image002

Then two nights later, on December 17th, The Blind Boys of Alabama are performing at Benaroya Symphony Hall. Tickets are still available. See them here too.

http://ronepraiseindy.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/blindboys071.jpg

from http://ronepraiseindy.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/blindboys071.jpg

Remember to send those letters to the senators and representatives conferencing regarding the farm bill, live on a food stamp budget, and buy the Hedgebrook cookbook and you will have a great gift that supports women’s voices “authoring change.”

Image from: www.whidbeylifemagazine.org

Carrying stories

A few years ago I was given a mini sabbatical. I applied for it because I had collected about 30 stories written by other physicians in workshops a colleague and I offer. At the end of each session, I invited participants to give me what they had written with the expectation that maybe I would put them together with my stories into a manuscript for publication.  Fewer than a third gave me their stories and I had them transcribed and then started to work with the authors to edit and expand them. By the time I was granted the sabbatical, I was ready to explore the meaning within all of the writing, mine and that of the contributors.  I wanted to organize a coherent work. In my view, sabbaticals should also provide breathing room for rest  and for space where new creativity can surface.

The workshop we offer opens with a discussion of relationship centered care and some tools (mindfulness, narrative, self-awareness) and has a writing reflection where participants write about how they have been affected and changed as people (in their personal lives, not their doctor lives) within a relationship with a patient.  The sessions then have sharing of the writings with a focus on reflective listening. We offer these to resident physicians, medical students, and seasoned clinicians locally and nationally.

I knew the project had worth.  Physicians who have taken the workshop tell me their lives are fuller after going home and finding opportunities to spend some time sharing what they have learned from patients with those same individuals.  My patients have always been excited about the project and ask me weekly where they can buy the book. I shared the concept and writings with many people, most of whom were not physicians, in two writing workshops, Write on the Sound two years before my sabbatical and the Healing Art of Writing as the kickoff to it. That was 2010.

The summer of 2010 freedom was cut short by some family needs, but I was able to identify the main themes and see a form to the work. During the next year and a half I continued to pull it together, writing new material, editing, working with contributors, and putting out feelers for an agent, all of this in those little cracks in the weeks and months that were already overloaded with family and work.  A few vacation weeks found me with my laptop in a local coffee shop writing and editing.

By the winter of 2012 I had a rough draft of the entire manuscript and knowing I would be heading to Hedgebrook that fall, I was able to take a deep breath.  Three weeks would be mine to bring this project closer to completion.  I wrote about Hedgebrook in an earlier post; what it added to the quality of the work is immeasurable. I finished editing over the next months with a goal to find a home for it through the Pacific Northwest Writers Association and their annual conference.  My hopes grew when a story from the manuscript, “The Caregiver,” was a finalist in the short non-fiction category.  The conference has Pitch Sessions, where writers get 4 minutes per pitch with up to 6-9 agents and editors (from publishing houses). I was excited to share this work with as many as I could.

Picture the scene:  a big ballroom type space in the hotel.  Along the back wall there are between 25 and 30 agents and editors sitting in one row facing the doors, one long table in front of them.  Each has a chair across the table, facing the editor or agent.  At the gong, about 150 people enter the room and form lines in front of the person they desire to pitch.  A bell rings.  All of the firsts in line go and sit in a chair and pitch their work.  At four minutes, the bell rings and the next person in each line goes to the chair.  If you just pitched someone, you can go to the end of a different line.  At the ninety minute mark, the session is over.

At the end, I had seven people asking for the manuscript and the book proposal, a many paged document that speaks to the work, its audience, its competing works, the publicity and marketing plans and more. Hopeful for a home, I got those materials to them within a few weeks of the end of the conference. I am still waiting to hear from all but one.

Everyone has told me how much harder it is to find a home for a book in this market than for a paper.  They are right.  I have many publications in journals that are research and narrative.  This has been a trial in patience.  Finding time to move this project along is challenging. Keeping in touch with the contributors and hoping they do not lose hope adds another layer. When does patience become inertia?

What surprises me the most is the sense of responsibility I feel.  I am a person entrusted with a very large parcel of human truth that should be shared. Is that a ridiculous and hubris filled notion? I opened each pitch with, “When was the last time your physician shared with you what you mean to him or her?”  The universal answer was “Never.”  Knowing we matter in any relationship, that there is always reciprocity, is important for all to hear.  We recalibrate healing relationships when we teach patients that they are giving and not just receiving and when we teach those who care for patients to remember that they are also beneficiaries.

This is what I carry with this manuscript.

Feeling like a peddler of some elixir, I need engagement by someone  with the capacity to distribute it. I worry that I am somehow not selling it well enough and I fear that no one with that capacity will really understand.  It is hard for me to hold.  Lately, I have a lot of shoulder pain.  I believe it is where the weight sits squarely, the dynamic tension between the need to be patient and defining the alternatives.

Single Story continued

It is the night before Thanksgiving, and here I sit eating potato chips and promising myself a glass of wine when I finish this post (neither of which is good for my blood pressure or my cholesterol, speaking of the choices theme), needing to make stuffing and cranberry sauce tonight, shallots and brussel sprouts tomorrow,  one son downstairs viremic, the other just here from SoCal out on the town, and me, trying to sort out what has been swirling in my mind.

What to post?  Oh yes, and Allie the aged dog is scratching at my study door.  If I let her in, she will whine for attention.  If I don’t she will not go downstairs and bug the 25 year old. I could post about how my sons already see me as a daft old woman.  NO that is for another day.

Keeping it simple, I’ll stay with the theme of the single story.

I have a lot of friends who are anti military. I don’t agree with many of the actions we have taken in the world either.  And I want there to be more than the military as paths towards maturity and upward mobility available to poor, struggling in school, and minority youth. If it were on an equal footing with college, vocational training, being an entrepreneur, and if it did not involve a higher risk of dying, well, I might feel differently.  Point is, as I see it, though  no country is without a military.  So I’m not going to dis its existence; it seems to me it has to be.  I have many thoughts about war and its consequences and about our politics that have led us into war, but that too might be for another day.  I do accept that we will have a military. Do I want my kids choosing it given the recent decades of engagements?  no. Would they have my support if that were their choice?  A reluctant yes, because I do not live their lives.

Second point is:  how do you see people in the military?  Regardless of your political positions, how do you see them?  Do you have a story for the soldiers? the marines? the navy? the enlisted vs the officers?  the policy makers vs those who follow the orders? How does it break down for you?

I suspect many of us have a single story, whether it is pro or con.

Try to put yourself back to the early 1950s.  Picture a navy ship, a destroyer.  Ship and MascotIt’s during the Korean conflict.  Many if not most of the sailors on this destroyer are 18-20 years old, their first time away from home.  Sure, they had their basic training, but this is really away, three months “at sea.”  There is a captain of this ship.  His job is to get them to the part of the Pacific where they can do what the Department of Defense tells them to do.  It is a war in the eyes of the US Government and the military.

Draw a picture in your mind and start with the story of these young sailors and life on the ship in the middle of battle.  Do the same for the guy at the top, the captain.  His job is order, following orders, keeping everyone on task and the ship afloat. Maybe jot down your thoughts.

My father was the captain, in his thirties. dad3 Fast forward to 1969, and he was in some major position and stationed in Newport RI.  I could not drive my car on base (where my parents lived) with my anti-Viet Nam war stickers on my car. People hearing I was raised in the navy often gave me a single story: how I could come from that family?  They gave my dad a single story:  military brass are authoritarian and militaristic. On the other side, some could not understand the complexity of my beliefs. I was not anti-American  The contradictions and the huge space between two absolutes are sometimes so hard for people to handle, when in reality they are what define and embrace us all.

How could my father, this person who was in Pearl Harbor when it was bombed, on the USS Minneapolis when it was torpedoed, losing many men (and limping into a harbor to rebuild the hull out of bamboo and sailing back to mainland) be anything more than a true military man? How could he then go on to serve in both Korea and Viet Nam and not be locked into one view? Both ends of the spectrum would see it that way.  Do you inhabit the ends of the spectrum? And how many actually do?

I have many stories that round him out to the complex person he was. He was a true military man who loved his profession, not war, his profession—and he was more.  A few years ago, some of those 18 year old sailors, now in their 80s found my sibs and me.  One shared a letter that his parents had saved, sent to them back in those Korean War days.  It is below and I hope it shifts your lens from the picture you had. If you click on the image, it should enlarge so you can read it. As we approach Thanksgiving, my hope is that we all will be thankful we have the capacity to use our lenses to be wide angled.

Untitled 2If you missed it yesterday, I still recommend the talk by Chimamanda Adichie.

Assumptions and single stories

It was about 1030 in the evening and I was at home, settling in and at the same time wondering if I would get through the night without hearing from our resident on call. Well, we were both on call, but he would get the first call and then get in touch with me.  I was hoping for sleep and not excitement. On our in-patient service we care for women in labor and manage their deliveries, and then care for them and their newborns after birth. We also care for adults admitted with adult medical (and sometimes surgical) problems necessitating a stay in the hospital. It was calm at that moment and there are no guarantees in this job.

When the call came, I took a deep breath and listened to my resident’s report.  This patient was in the ER and needed admission. He told me she was pretty sick, probably a pneumonia but maybe a pulmonary embolism, and  she was in a lot of pain. On top of her acute problem, she had major chronic health challenges.  She was only 31, but she had a form of muscular dystrophy that was diagnosed during her teens, leaving her with  spasms of some muscle groups and weakness of others. Recently she had gotten her first electric wheel chair. She could transfer from it to a couch or bed, but not walk much more.  What we both knew was that pneumonia, because of her weakened chest wall muscles, could become a recurring event.  What we did not know was what she knew about her life expectancy.

He had appropriately started her on antibiotics and some breathing treatments, and he reviewed the scan that showed it was not a pulmonary embolism. I picked up my things and headed in to see her.

It’s a short drive from my house to the hospital and the drive is through a beautiful wooded arboretumArboretum that always calms me as I race to a delivery or whatever pulls me in during the late hours.  On the drive that night I wondered, what is her life like?  What does she do with her time?  She was wheelchair bound, too weak to walk now.  She had to know her life expectancy was limited.  Our resident has told me she lived at home with her parents and that her mom was in the ER with her.

Another thing was the pain.  She was in pain and asking for increasing narcotics.  I wondered, hmmmm, how much is the sack around the lungs, the pleura, that can really hurt when inflamed and how much was psychic pain?  What was she doing to manage that?  She must have some, right?

Before I was even aware, I had painted a picture of this young woman:  chronically ill, disabled, little life quality, now sick and needing antibiotics and wanting pain medications.

During that week we had cared for another young woman, a lung transplant recipient, who at 21 spent her days at home doing nothing but playing computer games.  I was never able to figure out whether she was depressed, insecure in a world she could now enter with more health than she had as a child, or what held her back.  But knowing she was healthy enough to be in school or working, I had to work to not judge her choices. I clearly was projecting her story onto a reality I was creating in my mind for this woman I had not yet met.

Entering the exam room in the ER, this is what I saw:  a young woman curled into a ball. With every breath she moaned.  She wasn’t breathing fast and because she was not using a lot of extra muscles to breathe, I could tell she was not in respiratory distress (that’s our medicalese for an outsider being able to tell you are having trouble breathing). OK, true, she had oxygen on through those prongs in her nose, but it was not turned up very high, so it clearly was working.

Her mom was sitting at the bedside reading.  60ish, eyes drooping, almost asleep over the book.

I opened with an introduction of me to them and then asked why they were there, apologizing for the fact that they had answered this question already, several times.

“Mom, you tell her.  I’m hurting to much to talk. And I’ll start coughing,” she said.

Her mom told the story of fever, cough, trying the inhalers and chest thumping they had been taught.  None of it worked.  I knew this from the history the resident had obtained, his exam, her labs and imaging studies.  And I wanted to hear it fresh to confirm it.

As we moved along, I was needing to answer that question that nagged me during the drive in to the ER.  What was her life?  As in living her life?  Maybe it was my innate curiosity.  Maybe it was I really didn’t want her to be like the other woman who seemed to have abandoned life.  (Oh, right, those are my standards…and who am I to dictate what is a valuable life?  Have you ever caught yourself in that bind?).  Maybe I really wanted to connect with her.  Maybe all of the above?  (I hate those questions on tests that have is it 1,2,3? or 2, 4? or 1,3? or none of the above. Just sayin’)

Getting to the social history part of our script includes things like where were you born?  With whom do you live? What is your school history?  Do you work? Where? How do you spend your days?  Who supports you? What are your stresses?  (and more, depending on the person and their story).

I opened up:  “I know you are in a lot of pain.  Is this typical?”

She answered, “No absolutely not!”

I countered, “OK, we will help with that. Can I ask you about you and your life?  I am really interested in what school was like, what you are doing now, how you spend your days when you are not in the ER with a pneumonia.”

“Well,” she said, “I am pretty busy.  I work in a book store part time.  I’m a writer so I also tutor kids in their language arts course.  And then there is this start up that is trying to make documentaries about how people with chronic illness have a hard time getting ahead in their jobs. I am a volunteer with that.”

Boom.  Assumptions shattered. I had both made assumptions and given her a “single story.” What the resident told me, colored by the experience with a different patient, shaded by my own biases, and outlined in the drive in had given her a story in my mind that was completely inaccurate.

Yesterday’s post, Tina Shang’s  comments, and a wonderful poem by Nancy Woo all speak to how we make assumptions prematurely and as humans have a tendency to relegate each person to a SINGLE story that does not give the respect that is due to the complexity of the human spirit.

Take a look at this TED talk by Chimananda Adichie. If you have not already seen it, it is more eloquent than I can be.