Words matter

 

A few lifetimes ago I was a school administrator at a private for-profit job training program. I was the dean of students at a 600-hour training program that taught people how to record music.  I was also the first and only employee there that didn't have a background in the industry or in business. I had an MSW. One of the problems that I observed was that teachers were often scheduled to be in two classes at once. The teacher would announce to the class that they won't be teaching the next class a substitute would teach the class. So of course a lot of students just cut the class. But in reality it was a plan.Teachers double booked on a certain day when a different teacher was available who was actually better at teaching that subject than the original teacher. I suggested we stop using the word substitute teacher and replace it with specialist.

Attendance dramatically improved on these days. My boss was happy and she actually looked at me and told me that that's why she hired me. She needed someone that thought differently from the musicians and recording engineers and business people that worked there. I told her it was a no-brainer and she again reminded me that I was the only person with a sociology background in the building. Through my training and education I understood that what you call things matters. Words matter...

So now I have a Google search setup. A news alert to tell me if Guillain Barre Syndrome and New York City ever come up in the same news article. I really did it so that i might receive news of someone else getting this rare disease that is in my town. Once it said me a link to a obituary and I really wish I knew this person before he died. It is often irrelevant content. GBS could be mentioned in an article and there could be an ad for another article that contains the word New York. Like this article I looked at this morning. The article is only remotely about New York City contains the words Guillain Barre Syndrome in the signature box about the author. I remember hearing about Carl Goldman back at the beginning of Covid. He got Covid on a cruise and was one of the first Americans to have recover. He met with President Trump and was an example of how Covid wasn't a big deal. Much earlier in his life he had also had GBS.

ABOUT CARL GOLDMAN

Carl Goldman, along with his wife, Jeri repurchased KHTS AM-1220, Santa Clarita’s hometown station on October 24, 2003. They owned it from 1990-1998, and then sold it to Clear Channel Communication in 1998, buying it back from Clear Channel in 2003. Since then, they have rebuilt KHTS as a critical voice of the Valley. In 2015 the radio station moved to its new headquarters on Main Street in Old Town Newhall, in the original Newhall Hardware building. In 2018 an FM was added, 98.1, with its signal being simulcast with AM-1220. In January 2020, Carl and Jeri cruised on the Diamond Princess. Carl was one of the first Americans to come down with Covid-19. Months earlier he was impacted by Guillain Barre Syndrome as a result of a Shingles vaccine in September 2019. He is still in recovery from the vaccine.

Okay, according to the FDA up to six people per million might come down with GBS within 6 weeks of having the shingles vaccine. Six people per million above the background number of 10 to 20 per million people who are getting it anyway . In other words 10 to 20 people per million are getting GBS every year and 16 to 26 people per million are getting it within 6 weeks of the Shingles shot. Would have gotten GBS the same way I did or from some random reason rather than the recent triangle shot he had but we'll never know.  (And by the way I just got my first shingle shot last month. Both my neurologist and my GP told me that shingles could also trigger GBS and shingles really sucks)

But in his lights It says,"Months earlier he was impacted by Guillain Barre Syndrome as a result of a Shingles vaccine in September 2019. He is still in recovery from the vaccine."....  

"He is still in recovery from the vaccine"

I wonder why he chose those words? I would never say that I'm still recovering from food poisoning which is the most likely trigger of my GBS. I wonder how many people got shingles because He and others liked him said that this vaccine gave him GBS and he still recovering from the vaccine. Vaccine hesitancy is on the rise all over the world and people are starting to die from polio again . Words matter

10 years ago I couldn't walk without assistance. People said that I was wheelchair-bound. I thought that was weird. I wasn't tied to the wheelchair. In fact like many wheelchair users I was able to get up and walk a few steps almost the entire time I had a wheelchair.One of my friends said to me that she was never bound to her wheelchair except in the privacy of her bedroom with her spouse. That was funny. And when I said that it made people uncomfortable and then I looked at them and I said it's a tool not a prison. There are people out there who are hesitant about using a wheelchair because they'd be embarrassed because of phrases like wheelchair bound. I'm not eyeglassbound I just put them on as soon as I wake up in the morning.

.... so I was thinking. Instead of saying doing the dishes or doing the laundry, maybe we should say recycling the dishes or recycling the clothes. Think about it.