12. THUMPERS UNITE

If you had a mom like mine, you heard Thumper quoted regularly throughout childhood. 

“If you can’t say sumpin’ nice, then don’t say nothin’ at all.”

Thumper is actually reciting what his own mom taught him. It’s a gentile way of thinking.

And it’s disappearing.

The current political and social climate, of late, seems to have authorized people to muzzle that cute little bunny and his altruistic attitude. 

I propose we form a counter attack. Call ourselves Thumpers. The Thumper Squad.

Last week, in one of the online groups I belong to, someone posted a scathing rant about a local dentist who recently set up a practice near us. DON’T USE DOCTOR SO-&-SO, he wrote, in all caps. That was just the beginning. I read it and was surprised to see it was the very dentist who had just pulled my molar and gave me a root canal. Seriously guys, he was the nicest fellow, and very capable, and extremely professional. I jumped in the conversation and commented that I had nothing but good experiences with him. Others chimed in that dentists in general were out to rob folks. By the end of the week that particular post was the top post in that group, so an email went out with the leader: DON’T USE DR. SO-&-SO….

Yesterday, in the comment section of that post, the writer… to his belated credit… said he just found out that he had the wrong name of the dentist. Sorry. It was another guy.

Meanwhile…poor Dr. SO-&-SO! What happened to fact checking?

Man, we live in a cruel world!

Seriously people, we are all just down here trying!

My beautiful, brilliant daughter is a doctor. She was trained at the U of U Med School, and then further trained in her residency in the Midwest. Without going into particulars that are hers to share, I speak of the profession in general. It seems to be a tough balancing act to be a doctor with gentle pacing and compassion in a machine that is determined to get ‘em in then get ‘em out. I remember the oath she took the day she got her White Coat. Particularly this part:

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.

The Hippocratic Oath

This part gets in the way of business, I guess. I often call her at night, after her work hours, and she will still be in the office doing her charts, well into the dark after everyone else is long gone, because her soul interprets her job a little differently than her bosses, and she needs to satisfy both. I am her self-assigned Designated Thumper. I cheer for her because I think she is doing the right thing, listening to words as much as she listens to heart beats.

Yesterday she forwarded this text to me:

Just got this thank you from a mom of one of my teen patients I saw last week whose father has been abusing him and who is suffering from anxiety:

“If you’re ever wondering if what you’re doing matters, or if your staff wonders about that too, I hope you’ll think of today.  You made such a difference for [my son] today. I can’t express how it helped him, just getting all of that off his chest to another adult.  Someone who’s not me.  And being heard, and validated.  He is happier, more confident, more content this evening than I’ve seen him in a long time.  I am in your debt.”

I would like to invite that grateful mother to be an honorary member of the Thumper Squad. 

Now, in defense of other grateful mothers who I know are out there but just don’t send the words, I know that life gets crazy and we think we can’t add even one more thing like a thank you to our lives. But then, in defense of the better part of ourselves that seems to get underused, I call on myself, and the rest of us, to expect a little more than Thumper’s suggestion to keep quiet if you don’t have anything nice to say. I suggest we speak up when good things happen. We have simply got to begin creating a counter culture to the cynics and the grumps.

Most doctors' truth.
Most peoples' truth, sadly.

I’m going to try an experiment. I am going to give one day to absolutely no criticisms or negative comments. Zero, including self-criticism. 

I’ll return and report.