A recent visit to the emergency room with my son when he broke his arm, really confirmed to me that there are still health care professionals in positions of authority that still make bad decisions when it comes to children in pain. The emergency dr asked my husband, the father of the little boy with a complete break of his radius and a fractured ulna, if he thinks my son was in pain. I think my husband just stared at him and then at the X-ray of the broken bones displayed on the screen. My son, at the age of 7, has a calm demeanour and sense about him that does not always show how he feels. It just indicates to me that still to this day, even the most educated emergency room dr do not perceive children to experience pain or only assumes that there are only one way of experiencing pain.
If we don’t react to pain in what may be seen as the “typical” way of screaming or grimacing or showing outwards sign of obvious distress, it may be assumed that we don’t experience pain at all. As unique beings, with unique perceptions, influenced by culture, beliefs,education, or assumptions we have of others, we all display what we feel differently.
Pain might still be under recognised in children due to how they display their feelings, our own assumptions of what pain might look like and the age old belief that children feel differently.
I really do hope that more people open themselves up to become empaths, stepping into someone else’s complete experience, and recognise the concept of total pain.
