The Assumptions

So at the Bayview Nursing Facility I assumed Maria had to be kidding when she asked me to come clean up her mom's bed sheets, but then I realized she wasn't. It was a Saturday, cold outside, 135 degrees in, and I was standing near the nurses station, just staring at the patient board holding a half full Dr. Pepper and what was left from a cannoli. It was 930 in the morning, and I was taking a break during a visit to see ma when this lady Maria wandered over and mistook me for an orderly. "Excuse me, we still need my mom's sheets changed in room 12," she barked. I laughed the way you do in front of the altar accidentally. "Oh wait, you're serious?" I said. I looked around but saw no one since the staff was already short on the Saturday, so I pulled up my baggy white pants and long sleeve gray jersey, and I just went with it. Nice thing is Maria is a retired art and music teacher and her mom, 94, nearing hospice, a nurse in her day in the Army, on the front lines, where she played doctor, nurse and hand holder just like her daugher was doing today. Assumptions have a way of infuriating most people, but this one made me cry.  Other assumptions just hurt - physically - like I assumed I would see that glass door on the way into the dining hall the other night but, nope, walked right into it, giving Mrs. Alexander a good chuckle, and Mr. Fuller a coronary. I learned about assumptions like many of us when I was a kid, sometime around age 10.  My folks had an exchange student from France stay with us for a weekend. We did what we always did - piled into the blue dodge, no seatbelts, radio dial stuck to 1070, and went to New England Pizza. Dad had his $20, a crisp bill ready to cover us for a large pepperoni pie and a few sodas, only Juliet assumed she could order like she was in Paris.  If you could have seen dad's face when she ordered the Filet. Dad assumed she'd understand, not cry, when he said he didn't have enough to cover the $16 steak. Assumptions also can be infuriating. Like two days ago I showed up at the local coffee spot around 8am without a cent, sweaty from a run, dripping aggressively, wearing my blue stained t-shirt inside out, my stained Springfield College cap, and, you guessed it, stained gray shorts. "Any chance you can spot me for a coffee...I'm good for it," I said. The 20 year old behind the counter looked at me in fear and distaste and simply said "I'm so sorry, I wish I could help you, but if we gave away free coffee to all of you, we wouldn't have coffee."  I'm not sure I followed her logic, but I thought about leaving and coming back later holding a grande caramel latte and a couple cinnamon scones from Starbucks Julia Roberts style and saying "Big mistake. Huge." But I didn't obviously. The thought itself made me laugh and calmed my anger over the barista's assumption that I was a hobo. “Well look at your outfit,” my wife said hours later. “Can’t say I blame her.”

I think in matters of health there's also a big assumption problem. Somewhere along the way, some clinicians we see, some people we meet and some we know, unintentionally began treating the diagnosis we have as if it defines us fully as a person. It doesn’t. It used to happen when I coached kids baseball - there was Conor with epilepsy and autism, Max with Tourette's. These labels told those kids that they couldn't do certain things, but Conor once bunted his way on even as his glasses bobbled on his nose as he ran slo-mo to first. I assumed he'd make it, because 8 year old catchers can't barely find the ball much less throw to first base. His parents knew the label, they worried about it, about their kids' safety, fitting in, having a moment when they could be proud. They assumed it was a long shot because they were told Conor had limitations - when in fact Conor’s 35 second scamper to first is now a moment that stands in time for his family. Sure a diagnosis may explain why life is difficult, why change is hard, but our capacity, desire to learn, grow, participate and change is still there, even if it's diminished.  The addiction or mental health diagnosis is perhaps the most telling - you get labeled with it, then there's this assumption that the illness has somehow removed our capacity to be and be great, when those things still very much exist. Some assumptions are opportunities, even blessings - like my experience as the orderly - some leave us curious, infuriated, but mostly I think assumptions just miss the point and the bigger picture.  I assume we can just stop making them, right?