Publications
An excerpt from Reflections: The Category of Us:
Nurse X is young and tall. A mop of untidy brown hair frames her angular face, and I practically need to hyperextend my neck to look her in the eye. Kids like mine, the ones with extensive, expansive, unbelievable medical histories, need lots of orientation. They’re tricky, and the only way to make accurate assessments is to learn as much as possible from the parents. It is Nurse X’s first job. She’s been a nurse for 20 minutes, and she’s just as many years my junior. But here I am, attempting to go over essential parts of Josh’s medical history, the nuances of his behaviors that must inform his nursing assessments, and ways to keep him content. But she doesn’t care about any of that.
“Listen,” she says, with the commanding and familiar air of putting me in my place, “I’m the nurse here, and you’re just the mom.”
There it is again, the divine hierarchy nature intended.
I call the agency to express concern—this sort of attitude among home care nurses almost always ends in an unplanned hospitalization. The agency defends Nurse X’s indiscretion. Interruption in care—and reimbursement dollars—is sometimes a far greater evil than the skewed dynamic of experiencing racism in one’s own home.
“She’s from a small town, and she’s not used to people like you,” the agency says.
“Like us? Suburbanites?”
“No.”