Kelly Davio’s previous Waiting Room columns for The Butter can be found here.
In my mid-twenties, I sat for my first and only tattoo. It’s a sizable piece on my left shoulder: a wax-sealed envelope nestled in a bed of primroses. In my mind, it was a reminder that, regardless of the bad news of life—the rejection, the failure, the royal screw-ups—good news would come for me, too. There would be acceptances, success, and plans that came off well. It was a simple little affirmation, and it was a beautiful design.
Having wanted the tattoo for some time and having researched what seemed like every artist in the greater Seattle area, I felt proud of my new ink the way I suppose a project manager feels proud of coordinating a team’s efforts. All I’d done was pick the right person and sit without squirming for the three hours it took him to get the ink into my skin; the artist did all the hard work — from the drawing and stenciling to the placement and execution — but I still loved showing off his efforts. Strangers would stop to comment on the beautiful way he’d used color, or ask who’d done the tattoo. I was always happy to direct people to his shop and evangelize his talents.
As I got older, paler, and more likely to nestle myself away in the traditional Seattle all-season hoodie than to wear a spaghetti-strapped top, those conversations stopped. At times, I even forgot my tattoo was there. Unless I caught sight of it in the mirror as I got dressed, I had little occasion to think about my reminder, my emblem.
Yet when I got sick, I learned about one of the lesser known side-effects of illness: having to get naked (or mostly naked) in front of strange people on a startlingly frequent basis. In fact, it’s a rare treat to go into any medical office and not be told “it ties in the back” as someone chucks a sad old gown my direction.
And so for the second time in my life, my tattoo’s become a topic of conversation. Only now, nobody’s telling me that they like the line work or asking for the name of my artist. Now, people want to hear a good story.
I suppose “What does your tattoo mean?” seems like a good ice-breaker—at least it’s more original than asking how the week’s been just to break the silence. “It means I have a tattoo” seems like a perfectly good response to me, as does “What does your receding hairline mean?” But then, I want to be a good patient. Somebody whom people don’t want to jab too indiscriminately with needles or clobber too hard with metal implements.
I suppose I can’t be too hard on these nurses, assistants, and physical therapists with their passing curiosities. Americans have been trained to assume that every tattoo has a story—a story we’re invited, simply by having seen a glimpse of someone’s body art, to hear. We lived, after all, through the pop cultural growing pain that was Miami Ink, a show that taught us that every tattoo should be accompanied by a harrowing story. Miami Ink‘s producers seemed to prefer narratives that involved unlikely survival—the kind of thing fit for a Reader’s Digest “Drama in Real Life” feature. Tragedy was acceptable, too, especially if the word “family” could be repeated with high frequency. To my eye, the images people chose to have inked on their skin and the narratives they told about those images bore little relationship to one another. At best, they employed an entirely private system of symbolism (“this skull with bloody daggers coming through the mouth represents the special bond I had with my grandmother!”).
I admit to having watched enough episodes of the show to understand what people are after when they ask about my tattoo. I try to give them a good story. I work in “strength,” sometimes “courage,” all while wondering when the forced, clinically necessary intimacy of having to undress for strangers—strangers who will prod upon the body with gloved hands and any number of implements—became so confused with actual intimacy.
A person’s literal nakedness shouldn’t imply emotional openness. It doesn’t give someone the freedom to ask anything, so why do I always offer up a story on demand? Why not tell the phlebotomist to shove it, or tell the nurse practitioner, in manner of Jennifer Aniston in Office Space, that “I don’t really like talking about my flair”?
Because, unfortunately, I need them. In this balance of power, they’re on the heavy end of the scale. They’re still the ones with the white coats. They hold the needles. They write the orders. As long as they make me strip bare before the scalpel, the reflex hammer, and the electrode, I’ll tell them anything they want to know.
Tags: health, kelly davio, tattoos, the butter, the waiting room
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That, is how you write an essay. Fantastic.
“forced, clinically necessary intimacy”
Brilliantly put. I had my first mammogram/ultrasound yesterday, and there’s nothing like having a gaggle of well-meaning strangers get up close and personal.
In this case, I was very grateful that the mammogram tech wanted to talk about my tattoos, because she was very sweet about it and confided that she’d wanted one for years but was afraid of the process. Her willingness to be real made the whole thing a little more reciprocal–I eased her fears about getting inked, she eased my fears about the exciting game of Squish That Lump we were playing.
Great piece on intimacy. Thank you!
this was a fascinating piece! my sister has a tattoo on her shoulder but no Miami Ink “story” and gets defensive about it, I’ll pass this along. also, as a Seattle resident researching getting their first tattoo and knowing nothing about it…do you still direct people to your artist? If not I totally understand, but I would love the advice!
I sure do! I saw Derek Noble, whom I believe is at Dark Age Tattoo these days. He is wonderful.
thank you! I’ll try and track him down, I am nervous about the whole process but also determined
Truly, it’s an easy experience as long as you don’t pick a woefully painful spot on your body to get work done. (I took a nap during mine!)
My partner is chronically ill, and I have witnessed many times the imbalance of power dynamic you describe so well.
I’d like to suggest something for you to consider. Next time someone asks, lie. Lie thoroughly, and beautifully. Don’t give them everything they want.
I’m a former healthcare assistant, and I’ve been on the heavy end of so so so many of these strange little interactions. It’s such a strange dance. What’s happening in those rooms is utterly routine for us, so intimate and life-altering for the people on those narrow tables under those thin sheets in those faded gowns. Open heart surgery: once in a lifetime event or something you attend ten times a week? Speaking to patients was always my genuine favourite part of the job. Partly because I am a story vulture, I confess. Partly because I did hunger to feel a human connection to the alienated care I was providing. Partly because I wanted to offer an interaction that would help someone feel less alone, less afraid. I was always very careful about questions, though. I think I was guessing at something like the feeling you’re talking about here. I’d happily ask follow-ups if they offered something, but otherwise it felt like prodding. I tended to offer something about myself, or about the situation… and I was very happy to just let people be quiet if they liked. It’s been about five years since I worked those jobs, but this brought all that strange negotiation back.
(Once we had a young patient with beautiful tattoos. The anaesthetist, who was a bit of a dick, changed his usual line about “You’ll feel like you’ve had a couple of pints” to “You’ll feel like you’ve been hitting the bong.” The surgeon, on the other hand, did a totally unusual cut and sewed it up himself rather than delegating to a junior, so her scar would be beautiful and integrate with her tattoos. Another time the surgeons took extra care with a heart patient who had an eagle tattooed across his whole chest: they wanted to make sure the lines matched up again)
Thank you for this–your comment is a good reminder that on the other side of the interaction there’s a person, too. Something very adversarial gets stirred up in these interactions (for me, at least), and it can be hard to remember that there’s, as you put it, a hunger for human connection. (And I love the story of the surgeon who took the extra care to sew up the scar! It gives me a little of that proverbial faith in humanity.)
Truly, it's an easy experience as long as you don't pick a woefully painful spot on your body to get work done. (I took a nap during mine!)
This is so real. Thank you.
I’m a former cancer patient (for me the word ‘survivor’ has been corrupted by the dehumanizing rah-rah of Komen et al, although obviously everyone’s relation to their experience and the words they use for it are completely theirs) and I became very, very used to living in that power imbalance. It gives acts of kindness and humanity incredible poignancy and power, but when it was wielded carelessly or even ignorantly it cut so deep. My most traumatic memories of that time aren’t from times when my life was in the most danger – they’re from relatively small incidents where a healthcare provider’s coldness or carelessness left me powerless and humiliated. The most dangerous doctors were the ones who saw themselves as Doctors, capital D, dispensers of medical wisdom and authorities on my body who knew so much better than I did how I was feeling.
Between that experience and a subsequent (unrelated) abusive relationship, I’ve become violently allergic to any power imbalances that ask vulnerability of me. Sometimes it makes me feel like I’m being completely irrational, or pointlessly defiant like a raging teen with self-control issues, but your essay reminded me that I have very good reason to defend my boundaries and distrust anyone who views themselves as a Doctor, Teacher, Healer, capital-anything, as fiercely as I do.
Really, thank you.
This is so real. Thank you.
I'm a former cancer patient (for me the word 'survivor' has been corrupted by the dehumanizing rah-rah of Komen et al, although obviously everyone's relation to their experience and the words they use for it are completely theirs) and I became very, very used to living in that power imbalance. It gives acts of kindness and humanity incredible poignancy and power, but when it was wielded carelessly or even ignorantly it cut so deep. My most traumatic memories of that time aren't from times when my life was in the most danger – they're from relatively small incidents where a healthcare provider's coldness or carelessness left me powerless and humiliated. The most dangerous doctors were the ones who saw themselves as Doctors, capital D, dispensers of medical wisdom and authorities on my body who knew so much better than I did how I was feeling.
Between that experience and a subsequent (unrelated) abusive relationship, I've become violently allergic to any power imbalances that ask vulnerability of me. Sometimes it makes me feel like I'm being completely irrational, or pointlessly defiant like a raging teen with self-control issues, but your essay reminded me that I have very good reason to defend my boundaries and distrust anyone who views themselves as a Doctor, Teacher, Healer, capital-anything, as fiercely as I do.
Really, thank you.
lovely thinking about ink and about being a patient
lovely thinking about ink and about being a patient
I’ve got a bunch of floral tattoos: a full orchid on each calf, some poppies and a lavender sprig on one shoulder, and a branch of ginkgo leaves on the other. People look so disappointed when they ask why I got them and I say, “I like how they look.”
I make small talk with my patients because people tell me they don’t like feeling like a number. I’m trying to communicate that no one I see is just a number to me, which is true. Small talk also seems to relax most people and make them happier.
I try to read people and act accordingly. Some people like way less small talk and that’s fine. I can’t imagine being offended by a polite, “I really don’t feel like talking now,” no different than what one might say to any stranger making small talk. I’m there to provide.
I ask about tats because it’s easy and in my prior-to-this-article experience people like talking about them. In a way it’s LESS intimate than lots of common questions, like asking about jobs or family. Tattoos feel “safer” as a topic to me. Less likely to offend.
My impulse to small talk has NOTHING TO DO with a sense of entitlement to enforced intimacy or anything like that, and I’m kind of hurt by that assumption. I’m just trying to be a kind human face to healthcare, because that’s what had meant the most to me when I’ve been on the other end.
I still remember the best nurses from both my week in the hospital with my kid (NICU, complications) and also during my grandfather’s death (I spent a lot of time just sitting in his room with him). It was the human connection I felt with the staff, including the small talk, that made me feel cared for.
The power dynamic is more complicated from my perspective than from yours. Complaints about little things like this often end up on job evaluations and can feel really threatening. Especially as a nurse (even an NP, which is what I am), it often feels a lot closer to a waitress-patron dynamic than a doctor-patient dynamic. I’m not actually evaluated on my clinical skills, believe it or not. I am only evaluated on things like this.
I get that everyone has different experiences and needs and I try to be sensitive to that. I used to work in hospice and I did a lot of quiet listening to grieving relations. There was often a lot of hurt over how well-meaning loved ones acted or didn’t act. At various times I heard people upset when friends showed up (too intrusive) or didn’t show up (too distant) or asked when they should show up (demanded too much decision-making from the bereaved. I heard people upset that people brought food (out of fridge space; didn’t like it; didn’t ask first) or didn’t bring food (uncaring) or asked whether they could bring food (again with the demanding decision-making). People were upset when they got cards (sentimental, cheap, uncaring), upset when they got flowers (allergies, wasteful) and upset when they got nothing (callous.)
I got to the place with all of this that it wasn’t at all about whether the person brought or didn’t bring whatever, or showed up or didn’t show up or anything. It was about the grief of the bereaved. Nothing anyone did was going to be OK, because they felt awful.
I guess that’s where I am with this article. It makes me really sad because I try so hard when I’m with my patients to be respectful and caring, and this just reminds me that I really never will get it right and that’s super depressing.
But true, yanno. And not inherent to me or to any healthcare professional. As much as we care, people are going to hurt, because they come to us hurting, and there’s not much more I can do besides show up with integrity.
Rosemary, thanks so much for writing this! This is what I go through as a nurse, and this is why the job’s so tough.
I hear this. To draw a totally loose comparison, I was in secondary education for many years, and for some parents, a kid’s education wasn’t going to be satisfactory unless I would personally guarantee that the kid would get into Stanford with a full scholarship, no homework would be too hard, and the kid would always get really good marks on every assignment. In short, people demanded the impossible, and it was somehow my fault that it was, in fact, impossible. I imagine that’s a little like what you feel in your job, too.
And when I think about the doctors and nurses who’ve been really great, it’s often been those who’ve been willing to make smalltalk, to joke around, or basically be human with me. I’ve written here before about how much I enjoy, for example, talking about Zombie shows with my neurologist. But I still feel there’s a line between relating and asking probing questions about, you know, my naked body!
Thank you for this–your comment is a good reminder that on the other side of the interaction there's a person, too. Something very adversarial gets stirred up in these interactions (for me, at least), and it can be hard to remember that there's, as you put it, a hunger for human connection. (And I love the story of the surgeon who took the extra care to sew up the scar! It gives me a little of that proverbial faith in humanity.)
I went to get a cover-up tattoo a few years ago, the original tattoo contained a rather explicit word that i’d gotten at 15 cause I was well smart then.
I was super nervous about getting it covered because I really didn’t want the guy to ask about it, but he took one look and said ‘I’m not going to ask, I don’t care, this isn’t Miami fucking Ink.’ and then told me all about the people who come in to price a tattoo and then immediately start spilling their life story to him. It made me feel better anyway!
I went to get a cover-up tattoo a few years ago, the original tattoo contained a rather explicit word that i'd gotten at 15 cause I was well smart then.
I was super nervous about getting it covered because I really didn't want the guy to ask about it, but he took one look and said 'I'm not going to ask, I don't care, this isn't Miami fucking Ink.' and then told me all about the people who come in to price a tattoo and then immediately start spilling their life story to him. It made me feel better anyway!
This was wonderful writing, and I really liked the acknowledgement of power dynamics that are so acutely felt by the person seeking help and care. I mean, hell, I get nervous whenever my dad complains about something to a waiter because of what said waiter could do to the food (not that they would do anything, but my mind is a playground of paranoia, is what I'm saying).
I used to get more questions about my tattoos when I had fewer of them, honestly; I think now that I have several it conveys the message that hey, I just like getting tattoos. At the same time, whatever a person's tattoo means is their business, and no one has the right to that information, even if the tattoo is in a visible area.
The tattoo meaning questions are the only ones that ever really annoyed me. The ones I don't mind getting are from people who either have tattoos or want tattoos who want to talk about artists or the potential pain or aftercare or designs or what have you. Because there's no implied judgment there, and I feel like that is very much the case with questions of meaning (like whatever you tell them, they will then evaluate and determine what that says about you as a person).
I hear this. To draw a totally loose comparison, I was in secondary education for many years, and for some parents, a kid’s education wasn’t going to be satisfactory unless I would personally guarantee that the kid would get into Stanford with a full scholarship, no homework would be too hard, and the kid would always get really good marks on every assignment. In short, people demanded the impossible, and it was somehow my fault that it was, in fact, impossible. I imagine that’s a little like what you feel in your job, too.
And when I think about the doctors and nurses who’ve been really great, it’s often been those who’ve been willing to make smalltalk, to joke around, or basically be human with me. I’ve written here before about how much I enjoy, for example, talking about Zombie shows with my neurologist. But I still feel there’s a line between relating and asking probing questions about, you know, my naked body!
As a health care provider, I try to connect with patients. If I see a tattoo, I usually compliment it if I like it and I find many folks really like to talk about there tattoos and it breaks the ice and starts a conversation that is often less threatening and intimidating that there medical issue that relaxes them and allows us to transition to more stressful topics with better rappaport. If I asked a meaning (I don’t usually as I think it is a very personal question which many do tell me after I compliment the tattoo but not all), and they replied it’s just a tattoo I would have no problem with it. But realize it may be coming from a perhaps less than ideal oriented attempt to connect and not judgemental or intended to be greatly prying.
As someone who has a tattoo, is a tattoo enthusiast, and whose tattoo is about a sad story of familial neglect/abuse in another generation of my family and what it meant for that person in her adult life, I have very mixed feelings about this. I love hearing about other people’s tattoos – is it a beautiful design, is it a vow you made, is it your hobby or a symbol of someone who died? What is important enough to end up on your skin permanently? However, I am very aware that my tattoo makes people feel uncomfortable, considering its sad background. I don’t mind sharing it, but I think people get more than they asked for when we talk about it. I also understand that I have no entitlement to someone’s else’s tattoo meaning or description. Mine is not visible, and I tend to look pretty clean cut, so I think people assume I am coming from a different place than I am. I usually start with a compliment if I like it, and if they seem open to talking about it, I might mention mine, and discuss how I’m looking for a new one.
I do think there’s a line that sometimes gets crossed, where someone is just trying to be human, to show their interest in a person as more than an entanglement of variously functional body parts, but there’s also some intense vulnerability on the part of the patient. I would love it if my doctor asked me about my tattoo to get me talking and my mind off the blood draw being done or something like that. But I’ve also never dealt with a chronic disease, and I completely agree that is a different experience of the healthcare system.
I guess I don’t have any answers. Just a love of complex people who have all kinds of things that resonate with them. My wife wants a design that she likes, no story, no symbolism, just a beautiful, gridded pattern, and that means more to her than some forced, sentimental thing ever would. Obviously I function a little differently! And they’re both beautiful.