At this past weekend’s Scar Tissue Release, class we were fortunate to have a Registered Nurse volunteer as the demonstration client. She was incredibly generous with her feedback on what she was experiencing during the treatment and answered questions for the students. Two of her scars were from 18 & 20 year old C-sections, respectively. As she told us the stories of the surgeries, the conversation turned to the trauma, both physical and emotional that the events caused.
Apparently, as the surgeons were preparing to cut her open, they were busy discussing their golf game. The surgerical nurse stopped the banter and gave them a what for. Just think how you would feel at that moment, laying on a cold operating table, about to have your abdomen sliced open in order to bring your child into the world, being denied the experience of natural birth. As she told her story, you could see that even after 18 years, she was still very emotional about it.
Since she is a cardiac recovery nurse, I took the opportunity to emphasize a few points I had made during the class lecture. Specifically how “donor” sites, areas where skin or veins are removed in order to repair another injured area of the body, are ignored once they have healed. When I asked her opinion on this matter, she agreed whole heartedly that no further thought is given to these areas; however, she referred to these areas as the “harvest” site.
Everyone in the room took a breath. I knew what they were all thinking as I looked at each of them. The Nurse looked around puzzled, and I explained to her that I refer to the area as a “donor” site. She thought about it for a minute and shook her head. “I never even thought of that, but you are totally right…how horrible.”
How we–doctors, therapists, trainers, family and friends–refer to someone, something, or situation sets the intent. This, in turn, dictates how we regard, and therefore treat or not treat. Most often when we think of harvesting an organ, we think of cadavers. So of course an area that was used for “harvest” does not need further care or concern.
The next day, one of my current clients was among the volunteers for the student practice session. He had burns over 2/3rds of his body from a car fire. He is one of the most balanced and centered people I know. He shared two very important points with the group. First, that he never even considered that there was any kind of restriction, much less a need for therapy, on the areas where they took skin for grafts and that he was blown away by the resulting treatment’s effects all of the areas, grafted and donor. Second, while still recovering in the hospital, a representative of a burn group came by to help him understand and deal with how his life was about to change. “How everyone was going to stare at him and treat him differently…” You can imagine the rest of the conversation. He could not believe this person was there to help him and fortunately he choose not to listen to her doom-and-gloom speech.
I had another client, a massage therapist, who, while filling out her intake form, said to me in regard to the question asking her to list all surgeries, “Well, I did have a C-Section, but I do not really consider that a surgery.” Unbelievably, she was not the first woman to make this statement to me either.
As health care providers we must take care of how we phrase our words, and just as or more importantly, we need pay attention to and assist in altering how our clients refer to themselves. The first step on the road to healing is understanding and awareness.