100 Elephants, Same Blind Spot

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My first-ever post (2012) meets 100 life-sized elephants on Commonwealth Ave. Episode 625. I still haven’t found the whole animal.

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Summary

I revisit my first-ever blog post, a 2012 story about two strangers in wheelchairs, each certain the other had it worse, as I ride my wheelchair through The Great Elephant Migration’s 100 life-sized sculptures on Boston’s Commonwealth Avenue. Fourteen years and 625 episodes later, the argument holds: best health isn’t fixed, and no one, not the patient, not the organization, not me, ever gets the whole animal.

Episode

Proem: Orientation

On July 24, 2012, over 14 years ago, I published my first post, Best Health: Different Lens, Different Point of View. I wrote it while vacationing on Cape Cod with my family. My son-in-law, Eric Pinaud, helped me set up my website. The episode has stood the test of time.

For those of you listening instead of watching (see the video in the show notes), I’m on my trike on Commonwealth Ave, threading through a hundred elephants. They’re not real. They’re not statues either, not exactly — they’re woven. Dried lantana root, an invasive weed, hand-carved by artisans in India’s Nilgiri Hills. Each one modeled after a real elephant those artisans know by name. Calves knee-high, matriarchs taller than my head, tusks close enough to touch. A mile of them, all facing the same direction, as if they’re walking somewhere together.

I’m riding at wheelchair height, which means I see knees, trunks, and the undersides of ears before I see a whole animal. One elephant at a time. Never the herd.

Episode #1 featured two people with recent disabilities approaching each other in wheelchairs in a rehab hallway. An eighteen-year-old with a gunshot wound, learning to steer with his mouth. A fifty-year-old stroke patient, learning to steer with one hand and a foot, with his wife behind him, dressed up and disgusted. The younger one muttered, “Glad I’m not him.” Neither of them was wrong about what they saw. Neither saw the whole thing.

Best health isn’t one thing. Not for you, not for the person next to you, not for the organization billing you for services. Best health moves. It depends on which part of the elephant you’ve got your hand on.

So today: the old post, the new elephants, and a hundred and sixty-nine months of me still not knowing the whole shape.

This is episode #625. Yikes.

2012, Uncorrected: First Lens

This first blog sets the stage. “Best health.” How will we recognize it? For individuals, could it be love, peace of mind, a cure, the ability to perform activities of daily living, or freedom from dis-ease? For organizations, could it be profitability, increased volume, high overall satisfaction, or a high Net Promoter score?

Just like anything in the human condition, best health isn’t static. It’s constantly changing. At one point in my life, while working for a landscaping company, I had to complete the final hand raking of topsoil for a brand-new 2-acre rolling lawn. It took 20 hours. Through the lens of that solitary, monotonous gig, I learned that there is no up without a down. Every depression had a corresponding rise. Zen for the 20-year-old! Best implies less than best, always together.

While in nursing school, I worked as a rehab aide. I was walking down the hall with an 18-year-old quadriplegic from a gunshot wound to the neck, learning to maneuver his wheelchair with his mouth. Coming the other way was a 50-year-old man suffering from a debilitating stroke, learning to propel his wheelchair with his left hand and foot. Behind the drooling, slouching, struggling man was his beautiful 20-something wife, dressed to the hilt, looking completely disgusted. Out of the corner of his mouth, my young patient muttered, “glad I’m not him.” It’s all relative.

Different lens, different point of view. Attaining best health means figuring out the unique goal of the person or organization and working toward that goal collaboratively.

I invite you to tell your story.

Reflection: Still Best Health, Somehow

Fourteen years ago, I used one cane, no forearm crutches, no wheelchair. I was between jobs after being laid off from Boston Children’s Hospital. My oldest grandson was four, and my youngest was one. I was playing bari sax in Herb’s Heard Big Band. I had just begun my relationship with PCORI. Today, I still have best health! Life is good.

Please comment and ask questions:

• at the comment section at the bottom of the show notes
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Production Team

1. Kayla Nelson: Web and Social Media Coach, Dissemination, Help Desk 
2. Steve Heatherington: Help Desk and podcast production counseling
3. Joey van Leeuwen, Drummer, Composer, and Arranger, provided the music for the intro, outro, proem, and reflection
4. Claude, Perplexity, Auphonic, Descript, Grammarly, DaVinci Resolve, DaVinci AI Art Generator, OpenArt AI Creator Studio

Inspired by and Grateful to: Eric Pinaud, Jane Sarasohn-Kahn, and my sisters

Artificial Intelligence in Podcast Production

Health Hats, the Podcast, utilizes AI tools for production tasks such as editing, transcription, and content suggestions. While AI assists with various aspects, including image creation, most AI suggestions are modified. All creative decisions remain my own, with AI sources referenced as usual. Questions are welcome.

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Disclaimer

The views and opinions presented in this podcast and publication are solely my responsibility and do not necessarily represent the views of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute®  (PCORI®), its Board of Governors, or Methodology Committee. Danny van Leeuwen (Health Hats)