I still wince when I reflect on the day that a snicker slipped from my lips, then sounded off louder in the classroom than I’d expected. In retrospect, it epitomized a perfect demonstration of lack of knowledge and lack of respect. The lecturer’s oration of “Stroke Language” sent my naïve mind into a state of absolute rebuff of this absurdity. I’d never heard of it ergo it must be a joke. Only it wasn’t. No one laughed except the dunce, me. The professor punished me with a cautionary glare complete with revulsion then continued with the lecture. The medical term was Aphasia, and on our next clinical rotation each student would be assigned an aphasic patient to care for the day. We were to learn how to communicate with patients that were without …show more content…
She couldn’t conceal the sense of relief she felt by, not having to care for this man. She smiled a rueful smile and led me to his room. Mr. Archie was in a room close to the front of the facility due to him being what the staff called a very needy patient, and what my instructor referred to as severely impaired. The hallway to his room proudly exhibits sickly looking sea foam green, and the border embodies an unpleasant tan brown. I contemplated why anyone would want to paint a sick ward such a sickening color, but I needed to stay focused. I was here to heal the sick not redecorate. I arrived at his door, anxiously read his name on the door. He possessed a room to himself. I knocked on the door, waited a moment, I didn’t expect him to say come in due to the effects of the stroke that rendered him aphasic, surprisingly I do recall hearing a sound that signaled me to come in. Upon entering the room, the smell is the first thing I noticed. It smelled like an old antiseptic broom closet with a possible old urine soaked diaper hidden somewhere and long forgotten. But the urine has taken on another layer it now seemed to smell like day old crawfish boil water that had been left out in the sun to putrefy. It equates gross; however I continue to smile through it all because we were trained to uphold the dignity of our patients. There was only one bed in the room, and