TWENTIETH CENTURY COURTESY DEVOLVED INTO TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY CRASSNESS

            In 1989, after my father was hospitalized with a stroke, he had his second stroke right in front of me, while I was visiting him. It was to prove by far the more debilitating stroke. His eyes rolled back and his head lolled on the pillow. Of necessity, I ran into the hospital corridor, screaming, "Doctor! Nurse! Help!" repeatedly. They came running from all directions.

            I planted myself quietly in a chair in his room, out of the way, and watched as they worked, making soft, muffled-as-best-I-could crying sounds as the tears ran. The professionals basically ignored me, of course, except for one nurse who looked at me and asked kindly, "Are you all right?" I meekly blubbered, "Please just save him, and I will be fine!" Thus reassured, she went back to work with the others.

            I contrast this with similar events that occurred this century: when my mother was dying on the dining room floor in 2001, and when my husband was dying on the bedroom floor in 2019. In both of those cases, I was staying out of the way of the paramedics, crying quietly, as I had with my father, and pacing a bit in agitation. In both of these two cases, a paramedic came after me, even following me into another room when the patient was my mother, and declared obnoxiously, "You need to calm down!"

            In both of those cases, I rounded on the offender, and declared, "You need to tend to you patient! I am not he (or she)! I am a competent adult who will not be told how to behave in my own house!"

            Which form of address would you prefer to receive if you were the non-patient???