My biannual rant

Over the years as I've blogged, I've often been far from home, so I've felt freer to talk about things that happen in my life without worrying that my readers will encounter people from my stories. Living in Kelowna, a much smaller city, poses a distinct disadvantage when it comes to confidentiality. I am constrained by the fact that you may indeed bump into one of my characters if you are in town here. I am limited in my writing by the fact that Kelowna has one hospital, one Save-on-Foods, only 3 Starbucks, and one Costco. If I talk about the mean blond who works behind the counter of some restaurant, you'll probably know who I mean.
I had intended to write in my blog today about funny things that happened over the weekend. But life is not all fun and games. I am generally a happy person and I am not often angry, but today I feel a rage burning in my heart that demands to be spoken. I must put words to my frustration and let someone, somewhere, hear them and take notice. Writing in my blog is a way to give voice to my thoughts without attacking anyone personally. You can take it or leave it; you can read it and walk away or you can block my website on your computer. It's your choice. This is nothing personal against you.
But first, as a slight aside from the sad story I am going to tell you, the first story of my day was slightly comical. A patient came into my office to tell me there was an injured bird outside in the garden and could I come and help. Dealing with birds isn't a typical nursing duty, but I obliged. It was a pigeon, and I picked it up and examined it. It had flown into the window and it's wings were fine, but both legs were broken. I contemplated leaving it and seeing if it would summon the strength to fly away, but then another patient told me it had flown into the window the night before and had been lying on the ground ever since. They had been making him a shelter from the rain out of saranwrap and leaves, and feeding him popcorn.
I did the right thing and took him around the corner where we were alone, and I broke his neck. I told him I was sorry and I snapped it quickly and then I looked down at him, warm in my hands, and he winked at me. Things like that summon superhuman strength and I wrenched at that neck and was a little horrified to see his whole head pop off in my hands. I quickly stuffed him into a plastic bag and I raked gravel over all the blood and I discreetly disposed the bag and went to wash my hands.
“Where's the pigeon?” One lady asked me.
“He's gone to bird heaven”. I told her. “He's better off now.”
Later on I had an older man come to me and he was crying. Alcohol withdrawal and some anxiety issues were at the root of it, but I asked him the problem and he said between tears, “My bird is gone!” I told him kindly it was quick and painless and the bird wouldn't have recovered anyway.
So that was that. And then I was busy with more nursing things. One young lady was very sick and projectile vomited all over her bed, her neighbor's bed, the walls, the bathroom, her shoes and clothes, the lamp, her stuffed animals, the floor, and me. I spent a good deal of time with her, and cleaning up puke on my hands and knees. She had it coming out of just about every port on her body. I never knew one person could have so much output from so many places at the same time.
And the sad part of my story comes here. In the interests of confidentiality I can't tell you what actually happened, beyond the fact that this poor young lady and I had an interaction with a community service (Not the detox where I work, to clarify) that treated her in a terrible way, simply because she was a drug addict.
I am coming to dislike the term drug addict. I've only worked in the area of addictions for a little over a year but I feel it is changing me. I am seeing myself in my patients. They are not drug addicts and alcoholics. They are hurting people that are filling the empty hole inside them with something that is ultimately very harmful. And we all do it, in some way or another.
Statistically, 10% of the general population have a substance abuse problem, straight across the board. That includes doctors and nurses, who also have a 10% rate of drug and alcohol abuse. Yet so many people who work in the industry of caring for others see it as just that- an industry. They fail to realize that it is a calling, not a job, and that when it comes to loving and caring for people, the bottom line is not money, it's the dignity and worth of that person. Jesus did not shy away from touching people because they were lepers or beggars or whatever the social equivalent of that day was. He loved them, he ministered to them, and he let them bless him. My young lady today was denied the medical care she needed and was relegated to a second-class, inferior citizen. She was treated rudely and callously. And while I was on the phone fighting for some help for her, I was rebuked for being too 'aggressive'. I am not aggressive when I am advocating for my patients. Aggression, in my mind, is when someone in a position of authority, like a doctor or nurse, uses their authority to make another person feel inferior. It is when they invade a person's dignity by writing them off and not treating them in a way that reflects their inherent worth. It is when they simply don't care, and just bulldoze on ahead to get the job done without taking into account the needs and rights of another person. It is when they violate a person's worth in some way or another.

Excuse me for being passionate about this issue. We all have pain in our lives and we all deal with it in different ways. I know that loving people is not all about being a push-over and letting them have whatever they want. Sometimes it means being tough, and saying no. Sometimes it means putting a little pigeon out of it's misery, so to speak. But always, it means to do it with respect, and to recognize that we could be in the same position.
As my patients in detox I have homeless people, I have wealthy businessmen, I have successful nurses and massage therapists, I have writers, and musicians, and mothers, and fathers, and store and restaurant owners, and teachers, and farmers. I have Christians and atheists and Sikhs and Catholics and Buddhists. I have had patients as young as 19 and as old as 77. All of them have come to a point in their life where their addiction is unmanageable and they need help with their pain. They deserve compassion, respect, and good medical care. If I can't provide that to them, I shouldn't be doing my job.
I know this blog entry sounds like a rant but I feel it is something that needs to be said. We need to have grace for each other. When I grew up I heard the message from society that drug addicts were dirty people who lived on the streets and were dangerous. They're not the type of people you let into your house or befriend. I'm ashamed to say that I unconsciously succumbed to that thinking for so long. And now I have looked in the mirror of my patient's faces and I have seen myself, and more importantly, I have seen Jesus. When we treat someone as if they are undeserving of our respect and love, it is as if we are treating God's son in the same way. But when we treat them with compassion and love and dignity, and when we fight to honor them and care for them, it is as if we are doing it for God.