Confessions: My Prejudices and my pride and chest compressions…

I spend a lot of time talking about my average classmates prejudices and bias against my kind (disabled folk). Perhaps I spend a little bit too much time dwelling on educating others and not enough in educating myself. There are a lot of wonderful things about having a disability and being a health professional. I have been a patient and I understand what its like to be vulnerable, lose control, be poked and prodded, be incubated, casted, broken, what hospital food tastes like and how dumb med students really are. I understand the limitations of medicine. I know there are no magic pills, no perfect cures and no sure answers. However, there are also some disadvantages (and I am not talking about the physical ones). See when you grow up with not quite average health and/or body, you grow up not quite understanding the decisions that people with average health and/or bodies make. The truth is I am just as a prejudiced against average people as they are prejudiced against me. There is a cultural gap and I need to learn to bridge it.

For example I am prejudiced against people who make in my mind senseless, stupid decisions to drink alcohol in excess, smoke, chew, take various substances that will give you a myriad of PREVENTABLE (within in your INDIVIDUAL control) possibly life threatening health problems. How could anyone destroy their healthy beautiful body for the sake of a couple of hours/days of chemically induced euphoria? I have no natural compassion for them or the complications that stem from their choices. I am ashamed of it. But it’s true.

Furthermore I am not just prejudiced, I am proud of not being like THEM. I am proud of my prudence. I don’t drink except on rare, rare occasions (like weddings) and I have never smoked and cigarette smoke makes my prudish, little proud self sneeze and itch. Since I was old enough to have any sort of say I have refused all oral narcotics except codeine (and I will only take it for 48 hrs post surgery due to bleeding risks with NSAIDS, as soon as I can I take NSAIDS). I will only take the IV stuff during surgery and the first night. I NEVER take them for chronic pain or injury. My medicine cabinet at home is full of morphine, codeine, vican bottles, most of which have never been opened. Although I was offered a myriad of substances coming up through high school and college, I never had a problem saying no thanks. SO when I hear of people (even other disabled people) who are struggling with addictions, the horrible pride wells up and say well that’s their fault now isn’t it? Despite all my criticism for the Baptist church saying EtOH is evil and biblically forbidden (there are numerous references to the pleasures of wine in the Bible), I am like some sort of disabled version of the Women Christian Temperance Movement. All I need is a big drum to bang on….

And despite my presumed innocence, it’s not like I have not been exposed to addiction and what it does pre-med school. I have an Aunt who is recovering from prescription drug addiction, she tried to steal drugs from endless stash of post-operative narcotics, my Mom caught her in my bathroom. I know what it did to my Aunt, my grandmother and my Mom. My sisters and I all thought our Aunt was a little crazy and unbalanced and well…weird. I resented her for causing such distress to my Mother and Grandmother. My Great Aunt has run an AA program in East St. Louis for the past 40 years. Her husband was an alcoholic and her only daughter has mild FAS. I have grown up blaming my deceased Great Uncle for what he did to his family.

But as I interview patients with addictions I realize the extent of my prejudices and almost cultural basis toward people who struggle with addictions. I fail to see in my upper middle class, Christian disabled worldview how bad situations in life can be. I fail to understand what it would be like growing up in a family who has worked for RJR or farmed tobacco for years. I fail to understand the influence of having a parent or friend with an addiction. And despite how much I have struggled to be accepted by my peers and community, I have failed to see how hard it could be to fit in to a social or work environment and refuse certain substances. I also have lived a charmed life in comparison to so many situations. I have no corner on pain or stress and thus I have no right to judge how one deals with it.

I repent and beg for forgiveness.

Yes I still believe people need to be encouraged to make good choices but I also realize now that I cannot condemn them for the choices they make. And although I have known this in theory, I am slowly learning it in practice. I must learn to foster empathy for people whose bad health decisions have made them sick. I must listen to their stories of how they got here and I must learn from them and help them learn from themselves. I have to walk in their shoes if I expect them to learn how to limp in mine.

Speaking of bad health related decisions…. Learning how to do BCLS (basic clinical life support thus a lot of chest compressions) with a rotator cuff injury and recent wrist surgery…..well not one of my brighter moments. I passed the test….I suppose that’s something.

“The higher your IQ Doc, is the less you will understand.”

Anonymous individual struggling with Addiction

Va Tech Shooting….

Tired of e-mails. My family is fine. We live about 45 miles from Va Tech. I am of course at school 2 hours south.  Yes, my Dad is on call at the tramua center. We don’t know about our many friends at Tech but we do already know at least one kid from my high school was wounded. Here is the e-mail I have been sending out…

Please keep this situation and our communities in your prayers. Thanks.

yeah my hometown is reaching hysterics. At least one kid from my high school was wounded. My Dad is on call in the ER in the only area trauma center. On average something like a fourth of our county and city high schoolers graduate and go to Va Tech. I would not be surprised to learn within the next couple of days that more victims were from our area :( I have several friends there and haven’t heard anything, nor has my sister who has even more. But we are hopeful that since its such a big school they are ok. My Dad called my Mom and said that the hospitals were already pretty crazy and that they were sending kids elsewhere. SWVA is a pretty rural area, we are not used to the attention and are pretty easily shocked so you can imagine that local folks are pretty traumatized. Please keep all the victims and their families and our communities in your prayers. Amy

Lovely….

from the BBC most excellent Disability Blog

First one is Top Ten responses to “How did you get like this?”

	“I angered a magician.”
	“I could be able-bodied, but I’m just way too lazy.”
	“My father is also my brother.”
	“I was born and raised in a laboratory by an evil genetic scientist.”
	“This is what happens if you spend too much time on your Playstation.”
	“I was trying to get a kitten down from a tree.”
	“Sir, you insult me - but thank you for paying attention to me, it means so much.”
	“Actually there is nothing wrong with me, I’m one of a new emerging species.”
	“I was a contestant on Cheggers Plays Pop and bounced too high on the inflatable.”
	“I was Glenn Hoddle in a former life.” (Yes, it is still funny - Ed)

My favorite Top Ten….

Ouch Top Ten
Ten things not to say to The Able

Here at Ouch we know there are plenty of questions you’re just dying to ask non-disabled people in order to understand their lives and their limited perspective. But we suggest you hold back in order that you don’t just mess with their minds or make them avoid disabled people forever more. And sometimes, you know, you’ve just got to be kind, think about their feelings. Here’s our helpful top ten list of things you should avoid saying to the able:

	“Would you say you’re ’shoe dependent’?”
	“The temptation to just keep on running must be almost too hard to resist sometimes?
	“When you get ill, how do you know whether to call the doctor or not?”
	“So, your pain goes away?”
	“Come again? You’re depressed about what????”
	“When you stare, what conections are you trying to make in your head?”
	“Does not having to pre-book transport make you feel free or nervous?”
	“I guess you aren’t filled with jealous rage when you see the artistry and magnificence of Wayne Rooney on a football pitch because deep down you know you could be him if you wanted?
	“When you illegally park in a disabled parking bay, is it because you think disabled people don’t exist or that you don’t exist?”
	“If you mention walking, seeing, hearing, socialising, sports or anything to do with the 21st century near a disabled person, do you think they’re more likely to cry or sue?”

1, 6 and 4 are just awesome…I mean seriously I am curious…

There are lots MORE!!!! And you can submit one…perhaps I will write one about osteoarthritis….

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ouch/play/topten/

Enjoy!

quick update of happiness

this is the last weekend I have to study till August…..

KAREN AND I FOUND A THIRD ROOMIE who is awesome. She is a nurse from Boston. Her sister is a friends of our s from church. We are so happy we don’t have to move. We love our flat.

ROMANIA so soon…

all I have to do is pass pscyh, derm and Clinical Reasoning

back to learning pysch drugs…jealous? of course you are…

A Free Russia

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6556739.stm

I have never trusted Putin.

I pray that some level of freedom will be maintained.