A Glance in the Mirror

I swear you can’t make this stuff up. Occasionally I still take private duty nursing clients: children who are dependent on ventilators that assist them with breathing. They attend school on portable vents and need to wear what we call an HME or Humidivent that moisturizes and warms the air before it enters their trachs (tracheostomy.) The non-medical name for an HME is an “artificial nose.” The kids don’t like them much and often take them off; getting them to wear their noses becomes a game between kids and their nurses. It’s how they keep us in line.

Yesterday at school, one of the teachers started talking about how another nurse on the case had “changed the nose and put a new one on just yesterday.” One Teacher’s Aid commented how at first she thought that “artificial nose” referred to some kind of cosmetic surgery.

So one teacher looks at the other and says about my client: “Maybe we should start calling him Michael Jackson because they keep changing his nose and putting on a new one. It keeps coming off; he keeps losing it... (laughter).

The Occupational Therapist chimes in: “Oh well maybe his nose fell off because of that disease that he had… (wink, wink) the one that changed his color too... (more laughter.)

You can only imagine where the conversation went from there. And you can imagine where my mind went from there. And my temperature. Where… I… went from there. I could feel my Inner Michael…

I was surprised at the level of anger I heard in my voice when I had heard enough: “You know, Vitiligo is a real disease and it does make skin pasty white. .. please, the man is dead!” and that is as far as I got. I must have turned white myself with anger. One look at me and the room went silent.

It took me a long time to breathe myself back down the adrenalin slope but it didn’t take long to realize how I had mishandled that situation. I had a perfectly good opportunity to be calm, to state the facts about Vitiligo and Michael Jackson but instead I let my shadow off-leash to run loose. To growl. My shadow, under her breath, called them “ignorant” and thought them “moronic.”

I immediately regretted not having rehearsed a little speech for just such an occasion. If It comes up again, I promise you I will have one ready. Why? Because the moment that was teachable (pun intentional) called for response, not a reaction. And now it is forever lost. Instead of making them feel uncomfortable and myself seem aloof and superior, I could have educated them in a kind way and turned a shadow situation into enlightenment for everybody.

Yes, I was raw and tender having spent so much time already wandering around in the dark with Michael and I admit it wouldn’t have taken much to push me over the edge, but instead of making the world brighter, I added more shadow.

The one thing you learn as a peace activist is that when you are standing on a corner holding a sign, the last thing you or anyone in your group should ever do is engage in a verbal war with a person from the opposing side. The training preparation involves learning how to not be pulled into an argument and to listen, really listen to your opposition. (“No one wants to be defeated.”) And the other thing that is really savvy is to prepare in advance answers to the questions you are likely to be asked. Then if a reporter comes up and sticks a mic under your mouth, you have something coherent and intelligent to say.Yesterday I was neither. I should have known better.

It was painful because there were children in the room. I was not being a very good role model. I wasn’t prepared. I wasn’t thoughtful or warm or prepared to go toe-to-toe in a civilized way. We all might have learned something important had I taken a breath first and handled it differently. ‘I’m sorry Michael; it won’t happen again. Promise.’