Potions or platitudes

“You’ll be fine!”

“We’ll take good care of you!”

Words I’ve heard and said so often as a volunteer in the emergency room. Why?

An emergency room, or in the more modern parlance, an emergency department is not a place where you planned to be.

More often than not, the patient finds themselves in a situation that is fraught with anxiety, fear, sometimes abject terror.

A calming presence is a valuable prescription along with all of the clinical/medical activities attendant on treatment protocols.

After all, the cortisol, adrenalin, et al., surging through the frightened patient does nothing to help in diagnosis or treatment but rather exacerbates the malady that brought the patient to the ER.

A racing heart, sweaty palms, dilated pupils and all of the corporal flight/fight responses are not helpful in this setting.

How many times have I sat with a fearful patient, reaching through that fear to some other place where the patient has experienced happier, calmer times.

A conversation about grandkids, a hobby, gardening, sports (which for me is a very big stretch), common friends…you name it…as an extension of “You’ll be fine,” has worked well.

I call it treatment by platitudes.

But, and this is a big one, there are other “treatments by platitudes” that don’t work well. Sentences such as “Everyone heals differently,” or “You are getting older,” make my cortisol levels rise rather than lower and neither of these or any of their ilk contributes to healing any more than eating a cream filled chocolate covered donut.

I often wonder if there is some number, some age at which treatments or at least explanation of treatment or lack thereof morphs into a series of non-answers or platitudes.

My so-called recovery from revision surgery for a fractured femur has been reduced to a portion of platitudes.

My original surgery on my aching right hip was to gain more mobility and less pain. I have exactly the reverse.

After six months of almost imperceptible improvement while contemplating the fact that I am two years older than I was when I had my left hip replaced with no pain and rapid recovery, my new goal is to get back to the pre surgery state…which is, if you look at it, a kind of surrender to “You are getting older,” and “Everyone heals differently.”

Typical of most of us, I thought I was alone in this conundrum of care.

But chatting with a group of women the other day, it was clear that most had experienced this kind of therapy by their health care providers at one time or another.One gal commented, “I wanted to know what I could do for the pain in my hands. It was arthritis.I knew that. I wanted something stronger than acetaminophen. The doctor told me that I was getting older and arthritis was common among older people. What was I supposed to do? Form a club of older people with arthritis?”

Today we have been advised to be our own health care advocates. How do we do that?

Do I have time to go to medical school? The doctors that I know are intimately involved in making their patients better or as better as they can get. I am not bashing the intent or the product of medicine, rather the often use of meaningless phrases as explanation for or treatment of maladies that affect the more mature patient.

I am getting older.

If I am not, the mirrors in my house are connected to a Halloween Haunted House. Getting older doesn’t mean that you have fallen off the precipice of following instructions, of seeking a better way to problem solving.

How do we advocate for that need?  This is a two-edged sword.

On one side is the problem of knowing how to be an effective advocate rather than a whining complainer and on the other side is the need for the health care providers to be knowledgeable about explaining treatment/therapy/ etc. options for  their patients’ health-related complaints: What are the options? Is there information that the patient can read, access over the internet, discussion with another professional. Even the dreaded “life style” change options such as diet changes, more exercise are options to be explored?

Sometimes, it’s something simple such as taking a friend with you to the doctor’s office to listen and support you. Sometimes, it is bringing a notebook to write down your complaints and the doctor’s instructions and reading the latter back to the provider. Sometimes it’s emphasizing what you need, what is confusing, that you need more…more time, more information, more.

And, it may mean pressure on the insurance companies to provide payment for the “more.” Health care providers are often caught between what they want to provide and what they can afford to provide. Did you ever notice the phalanx of support personnel in a doctor’s office?  They work on coding and billing insurance companies.

And then…I never fault a doctor for taking more time with her patients.

If  I have to wait  I applaud that physician for taking the time needed for each patient. I may suggest fewer appointments per hour but I still don’t mind waiting if the doctor gives me the time I need. By the way, my doctors spend whatever time is needed to address my health care needs. One even makes house calls.

Am I blessed? You bet.

And, back to that idea of forming a club.

Having friends, having people with whom to commiserate, people who share your love for the oldies or your memories of doing the Lindy or the twist…ouch…. does reduce those cortisol levels and makes handling all of the many, many aging maladies less awful.

So, whether it is golf, or watching sports with friends or having lunch or a cup of coffee and a cream filled chocolate covered donut with friends…better, much better than platitudes.

And, in the end, having someone to assure you that they care is the best prescription of all.

That is why I volunteer.