The Easy Way
A recent encounter with an intrusive diagnostic tool “filled” me with gratitude for the access we have to such thorough screening and prevention techniques. The process also brought to mind the great number of human afflictions that defy measurement or diagnoses through direct observation—issues such as pain, depression, substance abuse, mental instability, suicidal inclinations, etc.
The last few pain-filled and depressive years of my Dad’s life provided several opportunities for the two of us to “discuss,” decidedly one-sidedly, the subject of supplemental oxygen, an oft-prescribed and recommended therapy for him given a chronically low oxygen saturation measurement. Dad simply refused to participate in that treatment, attributing my oxygen-centric focus to the low partial pressure of the rare Colorado air where I reside.
During his many years as an Ob/Gyn physician, he had always paid strict attention to his patients’ pain levels, a statement I heard not only from him, but also from many of the very patients to which he had tended. I can’t count the number of people who told me, unsolicited, how Dad had saved their or their wife’s life and/or how the aftermath of their child’s birth or hysterectomy or some other horrifying procedure I preferred not to hear about had gone smoothly and painlessly in his hands.
All that while, I thought his sole reason for spending so much time away from home was my care, feeding, upbringing, and education.
Many years later, obviously frustrated by revisions to the practice of pain management and the lack of respect for his expertise on the subject, Dad often lamented to me, angrily, the emphasis on oxygen levels over the much larger concern of his chronic pain.
“I can’t fathom why everyone is so concerned about oxygen when my back hurts so much,” he said to me one day.
Desperate to console him in some manner, I replied, “They can measure your oxygen, but they can’t measure your pain.”
A rare pause in the conversation filled me with a familiar dread of the cutting belittlement forming in Dad’s pain-filled mind. To my surprise, he actually admitted, “I guess I never thought of it that way,” a statement that shocked me on several levels. In my mind, Dad had always thought of everything. To hear him claim otherwise frightened me. On the other hand, I could also almost hear him appropriating my words for his next debate with the respiratory therapist.
The Harder Way
The import of my offhand observation didn’t really hit me until several years after Dad’s painful, lingering death, causing me to wonder if we over-emphasize easy-to-measure issues at the expense of more mysterious conditions. We can easily see and record oxygen saturation levels and compare them to normal, but does low O2 necessarily call for mitigation? After all, hypoxia doesn’t hurt, at least in my experience and that of several others.
Pioneering French high-altitude balloonist Gaston Tissandier wrote of hypoxia: “One does not suffer in any way; on the contrary. One feels an inner joy, as if filled with a radiant flood of light. One becomes indifferent. One thinks neither of the perilous situation nor of any danger.”
Tissandier makes hypoxia sound like a seductive way to die, which is exactly what happened to his two fellow balloonists during their attempt at an altitude record in 1875.
I now suspect that Dad might have been shooting for his own personal and private simulated altitude record, and that his seemingly mad, data-ignorant methods originated in a mind far beyond my comprehension. We saw stubborn, oppositional defiance while completely missing the objectively cold calculation of the benefits of oxygen deprivation.
Data Tyranny
Another slightly less painful example of data tyranny occurred during a recent work-related gathering, part of which focused on an initiative to digitize the endless reams of physical paperwork so crucial to the corporate mission. The heated discussion quickly turned to the subject of dependable internet in the many remote locations we frequent. End users bemoaned the lack of connectivity while the IT rep attributed most of the problem to operator error.
“How many of you have experienced an issue with connectivity?” he asked.
Most of the thirty or so attendees raised a hand, including me. As so often happens in such situations, for reasons I can only attribute to born victimhood, he pointed to me and demanded, “What percentage of the time do you think connectivity is the issue?”
“No idea,” I grumbled, kicking myself for raising my hand while offering self-congratulations for holding back an “I don’t care.”
“Six percent!” crowed IT man. “Our most recent analysis showed 94% signal reliability.”
He put his hands on his hips, stuck out his jaw, and stared me down in what I took as a dare to speak. I shrugged. Having neither the time nor the motivation to collect my own data, I felt ill equipped and disinclined to debate a topic for which he had obviously prepared. His claim sounded great for the 94%. More often than not, though, I identified with the outcast 6%.
As with most statistics, the reliability number fails to tell the entire story. A potential internet user is either connected or unconnected. Members of the 6% are not 94% connected. When the network imps send me to the 6% internet desert, 94% reliability equals 100% disconnected, and the race to controlled airspace goes on hold while I go out in search of wired computer, printer, and paper.
The inconvenience of network unavailability pales in comparison, though, to topics like workplace safety. Discretion and fear of reprisal preclude any public mention of specific examples. However, yet another testy, data-based, work-related discussion confirmed the manner in which cold, hard statistics render a variable percentage of humanity expendable. Sure, statistics confirm that certain workplace practices might kill only one in a million practitioners, but that tiny percentage point represents a 100% dead human being leaving the job site in a hearse.
Measuring Ourselves to Death
I would never suggest that we dispose of all our scales and gauges and other measuring instruments, or the reams of data produced with their help. Numbers surrounded and supported me as a youth and continue to do so every day. I would miss them if they went away. I am only suggesting that we place too much emphasis on percentages, averages, and our ever-increasing ability to generate the appearance of numbers on a meter.
In attempting to reduce people to numbers, like a fourth grader reduces fractions, we strip away their humanity by focusing on the easy-to-measure and the easy-to-treat. We take the easy way out when faced with more mysterious afflictions such as pain, depression, substance abuse, mental instability, and suicidal inclinations.
When we strip away the humanity of another person, we strip away our own. Though I have lived mostly by the numbers so far, I prefer not to die by them.
Though numbers mean less to me than they used to, I still “value” your opinion. Using the form below, let me know what you think. Thanks in advance.