Everyone is tragic today. Real tragedy. A woman I have been treating for a panic disorder, who has been doing really well, came in looking utterly frazzled. It has been 2 months since I've seen her. She laughed in an almost demented sort of way and said she's only had one panic attack since I last saw her. It started three days ago when her son and brother (honest to god) were lost at sea. Then yesterday they were found. It was incredible, people lost at sea are rarely found at all, much less ALIVE. So she had a well-justified panic attack and is still getting over it. I think two months with only one panic attack is great. I think I, who have rarely in my life panicked, would have had a panic attack if my son and brother were lost at sea.

Then there was a woman who came in for a bus driver physical. She was muttering "I know I am going to fail, I know I am going to fail." I asked her what was going on, because I rarely fail anyone on a bus driver physical. (In fact, I have only failed ONE person -- she was blind! Her vision was 20/200 in both eyes -- and boy was she mad at me! "I've NEVER been in an accident!" she wailed. All I could think was that I wouldn't want her driving MY kids around, no WAY could I pass her! The acid test: would I let my kid ride with someone?) Anyway, this poor woman was a wreck because her son had just been diagnosed with bone cancer in his left leg. I think that entitles a person to be a nervous wreck. I did her physical, and she was ok, even had good vision. Then we talked a lot about her son. I hope he's going to be okay too.

My next patient was a wreck too. She had just buried her son two days previously. Her job wanted her back at work, but she just didn't feel ready. Besides, she was bitter because her job hadn't sent flowers, no card, nor had they attended the funeral. Her son had died in prison. She felt sure that they thought somehow that the fact he had been in prison for 15 years somehow negated the effect his death had on her. But of course it didn't.

Anyway, what can you do? I gave her a note for 2 weeks off work, and we talked a long time. My great grandmother once said that losing a child was the worst pain that you can suffer, and I believe her.

I am exhausted. My children love to come to work with me -- they think all we do is have fun. And we do have a lot of fun here. We like each other, we like our patients, and the atmosphere is generally friendly and easy-going. But some days are hard. I can't wait to go home and sleep.

Everybody is funny today. They are killing me. First a patient called and said she had rhinoceroses. She wanted an antibiotic for it. That would be one honking antibiotic for a rhinoceros, I'm thinking. (I actually have heard patients call rhinosinusitis "rhinoceros" before, but it never fails to crack me up.
 
Then there was the 8 year old who really didn't want a shot. He doesn't want one now, or "never in my whole damn life." Oh kaaaay. :)  I have to appreciate this, I don't like shots either, and I approve of people who have firmly held opinions. At least when they agree with mine.
 
And the woman with with her surgical history of having had a hysterectum. Uh huh.
 
I just noticed in the background that Amazing Grace is playing. For a song of joyous words, it sure does sound like a dirge. Excuse me. I have to go kill myself now.

There was a recent letter to the editor in one of my nursing journals from a male nurse. (The thoroughgoing tone of entitlement convinces me that he was also white.) The letter writer was upset because nursing journals generally use the pronoun "she" to refer to nurses as a whole. He felt excluded as a male: after all, about 5% of nurses are male these days, and it is wrong of us as a profession to use a female pronoun which makes him feel like an outsider in his own profession! (poor baby was my immediate and unsympathetic internal response.)
 
As has been asked by others before me, if it is okay to use MAN to refer to all humans, then what is so offensive about WOMAN? Of course, I know the answer to that. Using MAN to refer to all of us is seen as elevating the status of we lowly females. Men refuse to be called SHE because it is an insult. My own dear father, when wishing to be critical of my brother, would tell him "quit acting like a girl!" and the highest praise for any deed I accomplished as a child was to be called "manly" or to have done a thing as well as a boy.
 
Five percent. Five percent. But that five percent is MALE, so must be seen as vastly more important than the other NINETY FIVE PERCENT of us. Give me a break. I just want to weep. And then I think of my brothers and sisters who are at least 30% of our population who face this kind of exclusion daily.... whose cause is much more dear to my heart than this poor white man... Oh Goddess, will we never learn?
 
Words are so powerful. By thinking things, saying things, writing them, shouting them, singing them -- we bring them into being. How we say things and the way we use words reveals so very much. I cringe whenever I hear someone say "It's only words" because words are the stuff of spells and witchery and easily misused to the detriment of us all.
 
I really don't want that male nurse to feel excluded or unimportant in our profession. But I don't want him to feel INcluded at my expense or that of my sisters. I think sometimes that is a very male problem -- they can't WIN unless someone else loses. They don't want to stand arm in arm with you, they have to be in front or life isn't good.
 
I would like there to be a pronoun that really includes all of us. I would like to learn to be a real sister to all other humans. I would like my brothers to not feel insulted, or perhaps to even feel flattered, if called she. I would like to be rid of my own feelings of inferiority over being female.
 
I have just finished reading a book by Derrick Bell called Faces at the Bottom of the Well. It is an extraordinary treatise on the permanence of racism in the United States. I highly recommend it. And I think that is what got me off on the subject of sexism. There are injustices so deeply rooted in our social and political system, that I think it is nearly impossible to even SEE them. But we must look, search, seek and resist. We must use our own experiences as the basis for trying to understand the experiences of others, and hopefully one day to unite, under a common pronoun, that leaves no HUMAN behind.
 
Peace.