Interaction with professionals -David

 

David felt a nurse’s off-the-cuff comment was totally uncalled for.

Written testimony

We were at a hospital and I was assisting—I was sitting-in in a meeting with a nurse—and I had a cup of coffee for myself and my wife in one hand and I had something else in another hand and I got up to help my wife get up from the chair and told my wife, “I can’t grab your hand because my hands are full.” And the helping person who was there and the medical person said to me, “Ah you men, you cannot multitask as we do.” And I didn’t really appreciate that. Considering that the night before I had been up maybe a couple of times because my wife had fallen. And I just thought it was totally uncalled for. Now, this is one small detail and, of course, as you get more and more tired one becomes more vulnerable. So, I don’t want to blow this out of proportion. This is just like one incident out of dozens of more positive experiences. But just, the feeling I have is that caregivers are just not, we’re just not that important; we’re an invisible minority. And so, if I can help give a voice to this invisible minority, then so be it.

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