The empathy generator is still going...
One of my last customers today was a woman named Carrie Kahn. I didn't know her name right away when she got up to me, but I figured it out in the process. First on the conveyor belt: a completely full brown paper grocery bag. We are instructed to ask what's in anything we can't see into, so I did. The answer: "My husband's medications." Which seems strange when you know that most prescriptions come through in one or a few small vials; this was a whole freakin' boatload. My expression must have conveyed surprise, and she explained they were to counteract the effects of radiation. A few items later, I asked her, was he burned by the radiation? "Completely disfigured," was her response, "Both by that and the chemo. It was cancer of the salivary gland, which was misdiagnosed." Then the other shoe dropped. "What's especially bad is that he's a personal injury lawyer, the Kahn of Siegel, Kelleher, and Kahn. And he's only 58 years old. So you never know what's gonna happen in life."
Ouch. A lightbulb then sputtered to life inside my brain. "Are you the woman," I asked, "Who's running for the school board?" She lit up like a Christmas tree, and said yes. I explained I didn't live in that school district, but she was obviously glad to be recognized. As we parted she thanked me sincerely, and I wished her good luck with her husband's recovery.
I've had some time to think since then. I am truly glad to be married to a guy who, should he no longer be able to practice law, would find something else to do with his time and move on. I don't imagine Dennis Kahn is such a guy. I don't know the extent of his disfigurement, but if what his wife said was true, I imagine it would make him hesitant to try to continue to practice. It is, after all, a field in which, due to the use of the jury system, there's a fair amount of theatrics and posturing in front of strangers who make snap decisions based on appearance, let's be honest. Ray's field is less so, far less so, because the decisions are usually in the hands of a judge, not a jury, and the relevant law is fairly arcane, not something that gets dramatized on t.v.
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Another customer near the end of my shift certainly got my attention. A tall slender woman in her I'd-guess late sixties, I took one look at the contraption buckled across her chest and said to myself, "Rotator cuff surgery." I told her I was going to get a bigger cart for her (the one she was pushing was tiny), and I insisted she accept a drive-up, where our employees push the cart to the outside of the store, then when the customer drives up we push the cart out and load the groceries in their vehicle. I tootled off to get another, bigger cart to do the job. My manager asked me what the hell (nicely) I was doing and I explained, that this woman needed this service and I was pretty sure she'd had RCS. Zipping back to my station, I cashed her out, during which time she confirmed that's exactly what she'd had. And she said it sucked (her words, not mine).
Later, I told Jill I'd been right about the nature of the injury. "How do you know that?" she asked. I don't know except to say that when someone's got their arm in a sling yet there's no cast on that arm and there's this special do-jigger strap which goes from the hand around to the back of the sling, it's a rotator cuff surgery set-up. I've seen it five or six times, plus there's a way people move who have this kind of situation to deal with, and this woman today had all the signs.
Sometimes when I watch Nurse Jackie with Ray, I understand her better than most people might. There are all kinds of verbal and non-verbal clues people give us, and those of us who read these clues well feel like we know stuff even though we don't know why we know it.
Ouch. A lightbulb then sputtered to life inside my brain. "Are you the woman," I asked, "Who's running for the school board?" She lit up like a Christmas tree, and said yes. I explained I didn't live in that school district, but she was obviously glad to be recognized. As we parted she thanked me sincerely, and I wished her good luck with her husband's recovery.
I've had some time to think since then. I am truly glad to be married to a guy who, should he no longer be able to practice law, would find something else to do with his time and move on. I don't imagine Dennis Kahn is such a guy. I don't know the extent of his disfigurement, but if what his wife said was true, I imagine it would make him hesitant to try to continue to practice. It is, after all, a field in which, due to the use of the jury system, there's a fair amount of theatrics and posturing in front of strangers who make snap decisions based on appearance, let's be honest. Ray's field is less so, far less so, because the decisions are usually in the hands of a judge, not a jury, and the relevant law is fairly arcane, not something that gets dramatized on t.v.
____________________________
Another customer near the end of my shift certainly got my attention. A tall slender woman in her I'd-guess late sixties, I took one look at the contraption buckled across her chest and said to myself, "Rotator cuff surgery." I told her I was going to get a bigger cart for her (the one she was pushing was tiny), and I insisted she accept a drive-up, where our employees push the cart to the outside of the store, then when the customer drives up we push the cart out and load the groceries in their vehicle. I tootled off to get another, bigger cart to do the job. My manager asked me what the hell (nicely) I was doing and I explained, that this woman needed this service and I was pretty sure she'd had RCS. Zipping back to my station, I cashed her out, during which time she confirmed that's exactly what she'd had. And she said it sucked (her words, not mine).
Later, I told Jill I'd been right about the nature of the injury. "How do you know that?" she asked. I don't know except to say that when someone's got their arm in a sling yet there's no cast on that arm and there's this special do-jigger strap which goes from the hand around to the back of the sling, it's a rotator cuff surgery set-up. I've seen it five or six times, plus there's a way people move who have this kind of situation to deal with, and this woman today had all the signs.
Sometimes when I watch Nurse Jackie with Ray, I understand her better than most people might. There are all kinds of verbal and non-verbal clues people give us, and those of us who read these clues well feel like we know stuff even though we don't know why we know it.