Snapshot

         My son was recently hospitalized, so I had a chance to interact with several nurses.  Most were capable and kind, but the nurse he had the night after his surgery was more like one of those in-your-face coaches on the weight loss shows. She decided, based on the snapshot of information she got from his records and appearance, that his health problems must be due to weight, lack of exercise and smoking. What she did not know was that he gained much of that extra weight after he gave up drinking. Trading vodka for milk was a good exchange. Too much milk can make you fat, but too much vodka can kill you.
     She also didn't know that he just got a gym membership and that he formerly did weight lifting and body building. I understand that one of the functions of health professionals is to encourage healthy lifestyles, but too much encouragement is actually discouragement. The doctor who treated me while I had Grave's disease, blamed my blood pressure, among other things, on my weight gain. I had lost 30 pounds through the course of my illness. The 30 pounds I gained brought me back to my normal weight. But that was not in her snapshot--and she is no longer in my view-finder.
     The encounter with the night nurse bothered me because, according to my nurse son, that is how he treats his patients. He considers having unhealthy habits evidence of being uncooperative. That if you really want pain relief, you won't mind not smoking. To use a "Star Wars" reference, he does not know the power of the dark side. A friend recently told me how difficult it was for her to stop smoking, even while watching her husband die of COPD. She worked for the same hospital my son was in, and only stopped smoking when they refused to let employees smoke in their own cars in the parking lot. I'm happy for her smokeless-success, but I think hospital policy is excess when it changes from encouraging to threatening. Flu shots are similarly "encouraged". You don't have to get one--unless you want to work there.
      But the main reason that nurse bothered me was because she reminded me of me. I, too, judge people based on snapshots, even when I know them well. Half a dozen times in the past year, I have decided what Tracy's problem was and what he needed to do about it, only to find I was looking at behavior when the root went much deeper. Thankfully, the Lord shut my mouth before I started blasting away at the tip of the iceberg when the truth was below the surface.
     I have had the same profile picture on Facebook for many years because, despite many attempts, I cannot take a decent selfie. Please don't judge me by my snapshot.