Health literacy and a salute to one of the great educators I'm privileged to know

I’ve spent the past five weeks hanging out in northwest hospitals as a result of my son rupturing his appendix followed by an infection and complications. I’ve felt vulnerable. I’ve had to make quick decisions based on information thrown at me because time was ticking against him. I have chosen to trust health professionals whom I have no relationship with. I don’t understand medical terminology very well. Only two factors that led to feelings of greater vulnerability. All the time, my body is tight because I have forgotten to breathe in the emotional upheaval swelling within me.

As I was navigating through the structural challenges of the medical system and calming my emotional stress, I couldn’t help notice the number of people who were walking a similar path without anyone by their side. Health-literacy quickly raised itself in my consciousness. And, then Dee popped in to my head. I have a difficult time thinking about health-literacy without thinking of Dee. Dee introduced me to this concept and gave me a language to an issue I’ve witnessed almost daily in my life as an educator in community. And so, as I thought of Dee and health-literacy and of my fortune to be able to navigate a system that is unfamiliar ground to me, I also thought of Dee retiring from the formal world of paid work and how much she will be missed. I sat in a hospital waiting room and typed a farewell to Dee that a colleague later read out at her retirement party. I’ve posted some of my farewell as this week’s blog.

Dee,

I'm sending this farewell courtesy of Northern Health's free wifi, which boots you out every 10 seconds so you have to continually log in and I fear may be the reason behind people's high blood pressure way more than the illness that brought them here in the first place. And then I think of you and my mind jumps to health and technology literacy. I remember that many people won't even be able to turn on the wifi and then I think of you more and shake my head, geez, many of the people I've wandered hospital wards with in the past 3 weeks most likely don't have access to a computer, let alone figuring out wifi.

This is how it is for me Dee. When I think of you it's a rich, dazzling tapestry of images and words and experiences and visions and dreams, all woven together over a long history. Yet when I try to write about some of these images they just tumble out as flat words on a computer screen. 

You often said that I make your head swirl, my ideas too quick, too jumbled, too fast in connecting little dots to huge pictures. Yet, that's not at all true. You have always been the nimble one, the quiet radical, holding those absolute characteristics of a great adult educator. You are the mid-wife that Friere so eloquently talked about. Helping learners give birth to the knowledge they hold within, helping them figure out what they needed to articulate, what they already knew and helping them to enlargen their experience and knowledge so they can understand the world around them and fill their lives with dreams and goals.

How to say goodbye to you! 

When I try to say goodbye I have this waterfall of images cascading in front of me. Sandi is always first and foremost in these images. We were the three amigos giving birth to radical ideas together - you always accusing Sandi and I of greatness as if you were apart from that greatness. We were great together, the three of us. We believe in each other, we care for each other and we share a passion together. 

Images tumble in my mind: bell beavers, a-Doug and d-Doug, flat Matthew being touted around research workshops, wine and sleep-overs, bed + breakfast on Haida Gwai'i, Rural Roots and rooting around in research, the weird and wonderful ACME, meeting around picnic tables, the Man-In-the-Middle and so on and so on.

The man-in-the-middle, I see him in the hospital this morning, I've seen him a lot these past three weeks in Prince Rupert hospital, Terrace hospital and again today in Wrinch. He is, as you reminded us, not so sexy and sometimes unpleasant and difficult to be around. He is sometimes absent from the moment, or too silent or too loud, he's too angry or too passive, he is alone with no advocate and he is somebody's brother, uncle, father, maybe husband, one thing is for sure he is somebody's son. Who is there for him today as I am with my son? Who is asking him about his needs? Who is nurturing his worries and fears? Who is telling him he is important and needed? Who is helping him birth his ideas? Who is reminding the professionals that he has intelligence and holds knowledge, he just simply doesn't understand the words they use? Change the words and he'll share what he knows. Where is his champion? And that question brings me back to you Dee. You have been the champion for all the people in the middle. You've fought for them, you've taught for them. You've supported the people in the middle that you've met to be their own champions because you never have confused a lack of ability to articulate one's knowledge as a lack of lived experience and intelligence.

I salute you my friend and my teacher. You've been my champion too. You've believed in me and you've seen in me what I sometimes haven't seen in myself. You've drawn out ideas and confidence and action from me. And you've allowed me to surprise myself. When I'm with you I feel alive and smart and creative. It's what you give to all of us Dee, You, the adult educator extraordinaire. You look in our eyes and you see what we can be and you stand by us and help us find a way to bring that out.  For that I thank you. 

Now that I've shared my goodbye to Dee, I’m hoping you might post or email me  (adocherty@upperskeena.ca) your goodbye to Dee. It can result in a great big thank you e-card for Dee and a worthy set of reflections of literacy as it is today in British Columbia. 

Please take a few minutes and share what is going on in literacy today and salute a great adult educator, Dee McRae.