114. The “False Hope” of Being Okay

Not everybody believes “it’s going to be okay” is the right advice to give people in tough situations. Listener Rebecca Edwards shares that as a minister, she was discouraged from saying “it’s going to be okay” to people who were sick…until it was the exact advice she needed.

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

Nora:  I’m Nora McInerny and this is it’s going to be okay. This podcast is a group project of sorts. Every day, we bring you an okay thing to just kind of get you through it. And a lot of our okay. Things. Come from you like today’s voicemail from Rebecca Edwards.

Rebecca Edwards: When I was training to become a minister, I was required to put in 400 hours as a hospital chaplain. It was a really intense summer, learning how to sit with people in their pain and how not to put your foot in your mouth all the time. One thing my supervisor impressed on me was that I should avoid telling patients, it’s going to be okay, because I didn’t actually know if that was true, and I shouldn’t give them false hope.

In subsequent years working in a church and then working with foster youth, I carefully avoided trying to comfort others with those words. But then, almost exactly eight years ago, I landed back in the hospital. This time as the patient, not the chaplain. After outpatient surgery to remove a cyst in my ovary, I had been slow to wake up, and then passed out making the required bathroom stop before I could get released from the recovery room.

Everyone chalked it up to a long day without much to eat, so the nurses gave me some crackers and a great popsicle and sent me on my way. The next day, I was extremely sluggish with little appetite, so my husband called the surgery recovery center. Once again, the main concern was whether I could successfully void my bladder, and once again, I passed out in the attempt.

When I came to, I heard the sound of sirens approaching, and my husband said, I called some people to help us. And then there were four extremely strong firefighters at my bedside who carried me down the stairs of our apartment to a waiting ambulance after taking my vitals and discovering that my blood pressure was dangerously low.

When we arrived at the emergency room, a whole team came to meet the ambulance. Everything was suddenly loud and bright and serious. The doctors and nurses who swarmed around me quickly determined that a blood vessel near my surgery site was still open, and overnight I had lost four pints of blood. Most of it had traveled into my right lung, which subsequently filled and collapsed.

As I was being rushed into an emergency procedure to stop the bleeding, I The OB GYN on call, Dr. Terry, leaned over my gurney, put her hand on my arm, and said, It’s going to be okay. It was okay, after a night in the ICU and a few more days in the hospital with a chest tube and several transfusions. A couple weeks later, when I was back home recovering, I wrote notes of thanks to all the doctors and nurses who had helped save my life.

In particular, I told Dr. Terry how much it had meant to me to hear those words I’d been advised never to say to patients. Even though I knew she couldn’t guarantee any outcomes, at that crucial moment, I needed to hear her belief. I needed someone to voice hope, even if it was false. Dr. Terry still works at Kaiser Hospital in San Francisco, and these days she helps supervise the residency program.

I hope she is passing on to the next generation of doctors that it’s okay to say it’s going to be okay.

Nora: Rebecca. Thank you so much for sharing this. Okay. Thing with us as a person who has. Watched a lot of people who I love go through a lot of scary medical things. I can only imagine how difficult that is for the doctors and the nurses and the medical staff who. You know, really have to see you. A lot of us go through the hardest things in life. And sometimes they think like, are you. Okay, are you sure? Are you sure, but we love Dr. Terry. We. Love. Um, Knowing that. 

You found comfort in this experience? And sometimes it’s not about guaranteeing a specific outcome.  I think much of the time. The thing that’s going to be okay. Is so hard to identify and hard to name, but it’s just important. To remember. On behalf of each other. That the worst is not all there is so. Thank you to Dr. Terry, thank you to Rebecca for sharing this and thank you to all of you for helping us make it’s going to be okay. This is an independent podcast and it’s also a group project, and we love making this with, and for you. If you like what we are doing and you want us to keep going. Help us. Help other people find this show, share it with somebody that you think would like it, or you think might need it. We are here every weekday bringing you. Okay. Things people have asked, could you do it on the weekends? And we are like, maybe. Maybe, uh, we would love to make this a seven day 365. Seven days a week, 24 hours at 24 7, 365. That’s a lot of complicated math for me. We would love to. Um, but if you want to share this with someone you love, we would love that. 

It’s going to be okay. Is a production of feelings and co the only. People who can make you feel something. There’s no one else. Sorry. If you thought you could feel something from another company, get out of here and he’s serious. No, no, no, no, no. I don’t. You. Who’s doing it. Who else is making you feel stuff? Tell me who they are. I just want to talk to them. That’s it. Our team is myself. Claire McInerny, Megan Palmer, Jordan Turgeon, Michelle Plantan, and Marcel Malekebu. You can find all of our shows and our very good [email protected].