Judgement and compassion
I was in the hospital last week with an injured leg after a fall. The medics put me through a whole battery of tests. Two CT scans. Echocardiogram for my heart. Two tests of my heart besides that.
I'm home now with a walker and a cane with hopes that I won't need them for long.
I can't say that I like being in hospital but it's always interesting. You get a fly on the wall perspective into systems that you normally can't see.
I was very impressed with the nurses in the ward. My ward mates were difficult to various degrees. Mostly they didn't want to take their meds and the nurses had to talk them into accepting them willingly.
As I was settling into my new bed the nurse said quietly that the woman in the bed across from me was a bit crazy. I was surprised - not a thing I expected a nurse to say. But she was right.
The woman across was J and she was over 90. Instead of using the call button to call a nurse she'd murmur softly "won't somebody come and help me" over and over getting louder each time. Then she'd start screaming at the top of her lungs.
I literally got no sleep that night but I didn't make a fuss though I was pretty annoyed. Nobody made a fuss other than to try to soothe her back to sleep. I made a judgement call to myself - J was demented.
I found that that judgement enabled me to be compassionate and whatever internal storm J was feeling passed. She was there because she had fallen and hurt her knee, like me but much worse. She seemed to be terrified of everything around her. Nobody wanted to make things even harder for her.
But the judgement was still there - demented old woman who behaves like a 3 year old - tantrums and all.
What do you think?
I present regular philosophy discussions in a virtual reality called Second Life.
I set a topic and people come as avatars and sit around a virtual table to discuss it.
Each week I write a short essay to set the topic.
I show a selection of them here.