Invalid and validation
I got called off work today because our census is just too low to require the assigned staff. It is a wonderful thing. When I got the phone call this morning at 5am asking if I wanted to be off today, I said "Yes" and laughed. Then I slept for 5 more hours (that's counting the naps I took), read in bed, clipped my toenails, and otherwise acted like an invalid, which I justified because I had had a migraine the night before, and woke up with a sore throat. The sore throat will be temporary. The migraines, not so much.
I went to a chiropractor last week because my roommate gave me a coupon for free services. As I filled out the New Patient information, I let my personality show. I gave my insurance information, but on the line asking who would be paying for this visit, I wrote "You." I truthfully answered how long I had been suffering from the chief complaint that brought me in, and even wrote what precipitated said complaint (genes), but when it got to the line asking to describe how this complaint affected my daily life, I got tired of documentation, especially on a complaint that, if not widely suffered, is widely known, so I penciled in "Use your imagination."
On the second page, I crossed out three questions because, as I wrote [for the benefit of the improvement of their practice], they were duplicate questions which had already been answered on the first page.
When I was led back to see the chiropractor, I was told to sit in his office and wait. Instead, I stood and looked at his degrees, and at his nameplate, and noted that they didn't exactly match, so when he came in, I asked how he got his name (as printed on his desk) from the name that was printed on his certificates. (Answer: apparently he uses the Greek nickname for his full name).
I think he could tell I would be a tough customer.
He asked me to tell him the history of my complaint. I started with my birth, then gave a summary of what precipitated these events, telling that if he would care to know, I had written "a disturbance of homeostasis" on the New Patient information sheet. After digging deeper into this comment, we moved on to what I do to treat my migraines. When discovering that I had had an MRI when I first starting seeing a doctor about migraines, he asked what it showed.
"Nothing"
"Nothing?"
"Okay, my brain."
He said he knew I had some wit.
After filling up the page with information, he asked if I had anything to add.
I told him that I would like him to know that I'm not as invalid as that paper would make it seem.
And it's true. Most of the time, I'm perfectly functional. Not perfect, but perfectly functional. Clearly it has not affected my personality development, nor inhibited my desire to achieve.
In one of my nursing classes in college, our professor was discussing something or other medical (I promise I paid attention at the time), and to supplement her comments, had on the projector the word "INVALID" stamped out. I turned to one of my classmates and asked "Why would these people be in-valid?" (pronounced with a longer "a" than the last "i". in other words, pronounced like "valid"). She laughed, and said "Invalid" (pronounced with the stress on the last "i"). The first means not valid. The second means infirm, or not strong.
I still think the meanings are too easily confused. Strength, or the ability to make profound change, does not necessarily depend on health.
FDR had polio.
Lord Nelson was an amputee and blind in one eye.
Moses had a speech impediment of some kind.
Beethoven was deaf.
Churchill had depression
Last week, as I stood before my stage IV with brain metastasis patient, watching her move her lips in a kiss in the direction of her husband, because it was his birthday, I thought of validation. Her husband opened a fortune cookie that read that Happiness in found in good health and good friends. I thought it was the worst fortune to give a family touched by cancer. I told him that it should read that Happiness is found in gratitude and good friends.
Not one of my patients is invalid. Even the ones that cause me to regret my assignment, the ones that make me cry in frustration, the ones that manipulate, irritate, and confusticate me, EVEN THEY are valid.
There are no invalIds by disease. It's an invAlid way to describe people who still fight, hope, and love.
And even in dying, they are not invalId, nor are they invAlid. For the worth of a soul is great.
I went to a chiropractor last week because my roommate gave me a coupon for free services. As I filled out the New Patient information, I let my personality show. I gave my insurance information, but on the line asking who would be paying for this visit, I wrote "You." I truthfully answered how long I had been suffering from the chief complaint that brought me in, and even wrote what precipitated said complaint (genes), but when it got to the line asking to describe how this complaint affected my daily life, I got tired of documentation, especially on a complaint that, if not widely suffered, is widely known, so I penciled in "Use your imagination."
On the second page, I crossed out three questions because, as I wrote [for the benefit of the improvement of their practice], they were duplicate questions which had already been answered on the first page.
When I was led back to see the chiropractor, I was told to sit in his office and wait. Instead, I stood and looked at his degrees, and at his nameplate, and noted that they didn't exactly match, so when he came in, I asked how he got his name (as printed on his desk) from the name that was printed on his certificates. (Answer: apparently he uses the Greek nickname for his full name).
I think he could tell I would be a tough customer.
He asked me to tell him the history of my complaint. I started with my birth, then gave a summary of what precipitated these events, telling that if he would care to know, I had written "a disturbance of homeostasis" on the New Patient information sheet. After digging deeper into this comment, we moved on to what I do to treat my migraines. When discovering that I had had an MRI when I first starting seeing a doctor about migraines, he asked what it showed.
"Nothing"
"Nothing?"
"Okay, my brain."
He said he knew I had some wit.
After filling up the page with information, he asked if I had anything to add.
I told him that I would like him to know that I'm not as invalid as that paper would make it seem.
And it's true. Most of the time, I'm perfectly functional. Not perfect, but perfectly functional. Clearly it has not affected my personality development, nor inhibited my desire to achieve.
In one of my nursing classes in college, our professor was discussing something or other medical (I promise I paid attention at the time), and to supplement her comments, had on the projector the word "INVALID" stamped out. I turned to one of my classmates and asked "Why would these people be in-valid?" (pronounced with a longer "a" than the last "i". in other words, pronounced like "valid"). She laughed, and said "Invalid" (pronounced with the stress on the last "i"). The first means not valid. The second means infirm, or not strong.
I still think the meanings are too easily confused. Strength, or the ability to make profound change, does not necessarily depend on health.
FDR had polio.
Lord Nelson was an amputee and blind in one eye.
Moses had a speech impediment of some kind.
Beethoven was deaf.
Churchill had depression
Last week, as I stood before my stage IV with brain metastasis patient, watching her move her lips in a kiss in the direction of her husband, because it was his birthday, I thought of validation. Her husband opened a fortune cookie that read that Happiness in found in good health and good friends. I thought it was the worst fortune to give a family touched by cancer. I told him that it should read that Happiness is found in gratitude and good friends.
Not one of my patients is invalid. Even the ones that cause me to regret my assignment, the ones that make me cry in frustration, the ones that manipulate, irritate, and confusticate me, EVEN THEY are valid.
There are no invalIds by disease. It's an invAlid way to describe people who still fight, hope, and love.
And even in dying, they are not invalId, nor are they invAlid. For the worth of a soul is great.
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