Thursday, February 25, 2010

Ignorance

I just heard a nurse speaking loudly after I asked her for pain medication saying in an annoyed and ignorant voice: these Sicklers are supposed to be in and out but they're asking for medication Q1 (every hour). I don't know which nurse it was but I felt it necessary to bring it up with my nurse so she could take it back to whomever it was. So upon approaching my bedside to administer my pain medication I tell her what I heard a nurse say and shared with her my feelings toward that nurse's statement~>I am the one in pain and on the stretcher while the nurse is pain free and  able to stand. So who is truly the inconvenienced one? I say inconvienienced because that is how she made getting pain medication seem like but if I'm not mistaken it is her job as a healhtcare professional. My nurse' response wasn't one of surprise but of defense saying: oh, I don't think she was talking about you I think it was about another Sickler (Sickler is the term they use to call those of us who suffer from this disease), as though whom the nurse was directing her statement to changed the view itself. I shared with my nurse how insignficant it was whom that nurse was talking about and instead I highlghted the ignorance that accompanied that statement.

This whole experience was truly another verifcation as to how ignorant and insensitive people are towards those of us who suffer from this disease. If a nurse (whom has been educated on Sickle Cell Anemia) can display such a level of candor then what am I or other sufferers to expect from the day-to-day leyman individual?

To give another perspective:
It's like being a nurse to a person who is sick with cancer and the patient hears that nurse in the midst of her impatience and frustration about having to care for them. When a patient who is going through so much and dealing with such a hard disease like cancer hears a nurse ranting and saying: these cancs were supposed to come in and out and not ask for pain relief Q1 (every hour). Now, I ask you~does that sound right? No. It doesn't. So why would that same nurse who I highly doubt would have made such a statement about a cancer sufferer feel entiltled and careless enough to make the exact same statement about a sickle cell sufferer? 

Here is something to think of:
Peoples perceptions and what is tolerable. You see sickle cell sufferers are always having to fight not only the disease but the intolerable (such as presented here) on a constant basis. 

Some ppl just don't get it.

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1 comment:

  1. Carol Riley-WilkersonMarch 11, 2010 at 5:16 PM

    I know exactly how you feel and what you're going thru. Do I have Sickle Cell? No. Then you're probably thinking how can I in any way know what you're going thru. My daughter, who just turned 30 has the disease. And as awful as that sounds, yes...it is a disease. As a Sickler, we have gone thru that senario more times than I want to count. Just last week she was at the E.R. She overheard the nurse say "Wasn't she just here recently?" and the doctor replied, "When is she not here" "You know THEY come in for THEIR drug fix". Now THESE people are SUPPOSED to be professionals. If they were indeed, they would know the pain that comes from a Sickle Cell Crisis is nothing nice. It is so sad that the Sicklers have to live with the stigma that they are using the excuse to get "drugs". You're right...I'm sure the doctors and nurses don't give it a second thought when a cancer patient has to have that morphine. It's not only ignorance it is also racism. You're right, Sicklers not only have to fight the disease, but the ignorance, and racist stigma attached to it!

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