Episode 058 of the Influence Every Day podcast (hosted by Dr. Ed Tori) centers on the importance of providing context when communicating about a loved one’s medical crisis. A guest recounts his mother’s sudden hospitalization contrasted with her recent independent functioning (e.g., driving to his house and writing her fifth book seven days earlier) to show how sharing narrative/timeline changes clinicians’ understanding, goals, and care approach. The episode closes with calls to share the message and engage with the podcast.
This is Dr. Torrey. Welcome to the Influence Every Day show, where we make every day better and we influence for good.
There's something I've been reflecting on over the past week or so, and I record this episode with a very heavy heart as I tell you about it. You see, my mother's been hospitalized with a serious condition. And although she is improving, there's a huge lesson in communication when it comes to having a loved one hospitalized. And this lesson can extrapolate across any challenge, any problem, anything where there are multiple people involved. It involves telling context. It involves revealing the story, revealing the narrative, revealing the timeline. It's not enough to convey the facts, because if you were to look at the facts, you would see that my mother is approaching 80, and she is confused at nighttime and sitting in a hospital bed, not moving much, and lots of derangements on her medical labs. Now, at first blush, you might think, wow, there's a lot here. And you're right. There is someone in their 80s. What are we doing? Like, how far will this go? But what if I were to tell you that seven days prior, she drove to my house and was sitting on my deck writing her fifth book? If you had that context and then you saw her confused at night, lying in a bed, not moving much, it would paint a very different picture. Because now, all of a sudden, you have context, you have a deeper understanding where we were and where we are now. That changes completely the picture of what could have happened in between. It also changes completely the picture of where our goals might be set, what recovery looks like for her. She was independent, living on her own, very close to my home, driving, going to and from any place that she wanted to, at any time she wanted to. She took care of her house, she did her shopping. Now, if you didn't know that and you just see her at this one glimpse in time, then you would be devoid of the context and the story and all of the information around it, and therefore devoid of possible problems that led to it. You would miss it. You would miss the possible acute change that occurred. What are the things that can cause such an abrupt change? And then you might miss an opportunity on what to strive for, what kind of goal? To have every single person that walked in, every single one that was new, every time there was a nurse, shift change, every time a new physician walked in the room. Physical therapy, speech, language pathology, whoever came into the room, I said, just for context, seven days ago, she drove to my house, was sitting on my deck, writing her fifth book, and everyone had the Same reaction, eyebrows up, shoulders back, like, whoa. Really? Oh, well, then we like. It was almost as if, like, roll the sleeves up, we have work to do. And so if you don't have that context, you can't even see the optimum solution to the problem that's right in front of you. It's not enough to just look at the problem and walk in and think, oh, here's the answer. No, we need the context, we need the narrative, we need the story around it. It's gotten to the point where at first I started to feel like, man, I'm really repeating myself. And even at one point my mom looked over at me like, now she called me Eddie. So she would look over me, she'd be like, Eddie. She was looking at me like, eddie, enough. Because every single person that walked in, I would say that. But you know what happened? I heard nurse giving report to another nurse and they told the same story. So now it's spreading. When they call, consults, when they tell other people, the story spreads, the story spreads. And this today, when my daughter came to visit and relieve me of my, my shift of staying at my mom's bedside, she brought one of my mom's books to put at her bedside. A, so that my mom could read it, see something familiar, talk to us about it, and B, so that others come in and they have context. This was a highly functioning, deep thinking, community, loving person that's sitting before you. And although it she may look empty right now, she is a caring, loving soul and she deserves you to roll up your sleeves and solve that problem. I'll see you in the next episode.
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