Therapist, Heal Thyself

From time to time I do some PRN work at a local rehab hospital. It's a nice way to keep my fingers in the medical side of my profession, plus it puts a few extra pennies in my pocket to pay for all those disco downloads on iTunes. The acronym "PRN" stands for pro re nata, a Latin phrase that literally translates as, "for the thing born." Its more common meaning and usage, however, is "as needed" or "as the situation rises" and it is a term that is primarily used in the medical field.

On Monday, the situation arose. Diana, an SLP there and, by the by, a really lovely person, was on vacation and coverage was needed. So I put on my closed toe shoes and my friendly attitude and headed on over. I've been doing PRN work at this facility for several years now. I know most of the staff by sight and I'm pretty sure they recognize me, too. This point will be salient later. I would also like to mention, and this will be important as well, that the patients I see there are brain-injured. I help them with their thinking.

So at some point mid-morning I went to fetch Mrs. Hooty Hoo from her room to take her to speech-language therapy. She was visiting with her daughter when I arrived, and the daughter decided to join us for the session. So off we collectively trit-trotted down to Diana's office to do our thinkin' therapy.

All was going well when, in the middle of our session, I heard a knock on the door. I murmured apologies to my patient and went to answer it, assuming it was probably the director there to present me with an Appreciation Tiara or perhaps the delivery of a one-way ticket to visit George Clooney at his Italian villa. Well, our Italian villa, but that's not relevant to this story so we'll let it pass for now. When I opened the door I saw one of the regular physical therapists standing there. I didn't know her well, nor her me, but I certainly recognized her and I assumed she recognized me. She must have been expecting Diana, though, because she looked quite surprised and blurted out, "Are you Diana?"

That was the strangest question I'd ever heard. It was so strange that I had to quickly check in with myself before responding. No, I thought, I'm not Diana, I'm Wicked. Thus reinforced, I said to her with confidence, "No, I am not Diana."

Her brow furrowed in further confusion. This was not the answer she was expecting. She cocked her head to the side and said, "You're not Diana??"

Well, now, this was just getting weird, so again I assured her--with greater force--"No, I'm not Diana." I was very, very sure that I was not Diana, and for the life of me I couldn't figure out why she thought I was. Thoroughly confused now, we just stood there blinking at one another.

We would have been at an impasse here were it not for my patient's daughter, who intuitively and accurately read the situation. "I think she means," she quietly said to me, nodding with her head toward the PT, "are you working for Diana today?"

Ooooooooohhhhhh.

I knew that.

Red-faced, I assured the therapist that I was indeed working for Diana, yes, yes, thank you very much, yes, yes, I was. She still looked a little shell-shocked from the experience of speaking with me, but she simply broke eye contact, mumbled something about my next patient waiting for me, and disappeared as quickly as possible.

With as much false dignity as I could muster, I shut the door and turned back to the room. Smiling at the patient and her daughter as if this conversation had been perfectly reasonable and not in the least bit reflective of a declining ability to do my job, I took a seat so that we could resume our "therapy." The daughter kindly let it go at that and the mother, my patient--bless her heart--probably had no idea what she had just witnessed because, well...she was brain-damaged.

Lord help me, I'm pretty sure she wasn't the only one.