Reading Rita Charon’s Narrative Medicine theories  has been an amazing journey, I have been learning so much and acquiring new vocabulary, which has been helping me communicate with my patients, students and coworkers better.

I have been feeling like I was grasping the information and able to introduce it to my world properly, I made sure I paid full attention to my patients and students, tried to treat them all as singular humans with individual stories and needs. 

Recently though,  I was faced with the harsh reality that I was only good at it because I had not been truly challenged yet, all my patients and students have so far fallen into my comfort zone of thinking and processing information.

This wonderful bubble burst a  few weeks ago, when I received a call from my coordinator at Langara College, she asked me if I would be willing to support a blind student during the introductory to massage course, a 3 day weekend course that introduces prospective students to massage therapy so they can assess their interest in the full program.  This student, let’s call her Ella, had already taken this course a few weeks prior and it had not gone well for her.  The teachers were not properly prepared for her arrival, they had 19 other students and no understanding of Ella’s needs as a blind student.

After Ella complained of her treatment in class, mainly a lack of proper attention and focus, the college decided that she should redo the entire 3 day course, but this time properly supported by a teacher assigned solely to her learning.  I was the one they asked to support her. 

As I came in on the Friday to get ready, I had no real idea of how I would be helping her.  I had thoughts, plans and an overall scheme of what would probably work best for her, but no real concept of how it would all work.  Luckily, I am not one to be too attached to my ideas, because as soon as she walked in, I realized how big this task would be and how uneducated I truly was to the world of the blind.

As I introduced myself to Ella, I decided to let her know that I would have to rely on her to educate me on how she needed to be supported, this is when my education on singularity truly started.  Everything I knew about teaching, all my habits and my go to explanations had to change.  I quickly realized that using visual analogies with Ella would be useless when I asked her:

“you see the scapula?” 

and she promptly replied:

“No”

For the full three days, I had to constantly reevaluate my words and actions.  How to describe a birth mark to someone who has never seen skin color and it’s multiple shades, remembering to let her know when I walk away from her,  realizing that she cannot see the clock on the wall and that I must support her time management with regular reminders.  Learning to teach with my hands guiding her hands, and not counting on my words.  Also accepting that her relationship to her body is very different, she does not see her body, she feels it, so when I tried to teach her proper biomechanics, I had to figure out a way to get her to feel the proper postures and the improper ones, but also let go of my “it must be done this way” habit.  She was fine and comfortable in a very different posture than what I would have chosen for myself.

We finished the weekend with her giving me a card in brail  saying thank you for the support and for making her feel valuable and important.  I was in tears by the time she finished reading me her card.  However uncomfortable in my teaching I was during the weekend, I still managed to make her feel good about her learning experience.  I feel I owe that to my learning through our readings of Rita Charon’s book.  I am not sure I would have been able to pull off such a weekend positively without this learning.

I am thankful for my first ever card in brail.