When Therapists Turn Into Patients
So last week I got a rather unpleasant and unwelcome reminder that no matter how much you know about pain and human bodies, you are never fully prepared for when the shit hits the fan, and your own body decides to throw a spectacular tantrum.
As some of you may know, in the early hours of Monday night last week, I ended up being admitted as an emergency with right-sided kidney failure.
It turns out I have a congenital issue quietly sitting in the background, doing what many congenital issues do: absolutely nothing... until one day it suddenly decides to become a really big fucking problem.
I had no warning shots, no polite little hints, no gentle “keep an eye on this”. Just *bang* sudden severe pain, emergency admission, morphine, tests, scans, procedures, and the strange experience of going from a clinician to patient in the blink of an eye.
And, as you can imagine, being on the other side is a very different experience when it’s your own body on the line.
Even when you know a bit about medicine, uncertainty feels very different when you’re lying in a hospital bed at 3am, tired, uncomfortable, scared, and trying to work out whether the consultant in scrubs who just used the words “impaired function” and “failing” is about to reassure you or ruin your night even further.
What struck me most through all of this wasn’t just the unimaginable pain, discomfort, or disruption. It was how much the quality of communication mattered.
And my urology team were, in all honesty, excellent here.
They didn’t pretend to have magical certainty. They didn’t waffle, avoid difficult conversations, or bury everything in technical nonsense.
Instead, they were clear, calm, honest, and reassuring. They explained what they thought was happening, what they were worried about, what they weren’t worried about, and what needed to happen next.
And that mattered. A lot.
Because when you’re the person in pain, uncertainty can be just as distressing as the symptoms themselves. Often more so.
The mind loves to start filling in the blanks. You start thinking worst-case scenarios. You start wondering if this is serious, permanent, dangerous, missed, or getting worse.
In these circumstances, you don’t need false reassurance or empty optimism. You need honesty, grounded reassurance, and most importantly, a plan.
You need someone to say, “This is what we know, this is what we don’t know yet, and this is what we’re going to do next.”
This kind of communication is incredibly powerful and reassuring.
It also struck me just how relevant this is to what we do as physios.
Because a huge part of physiotherapy is helping people navigate uncertainty.
People come to us in pain, worried, confused, frustrated, and often desperate for an exact diagnosis, exact cause, exact timeline, and exact fix.
And very often, we can’t give them those things with any confidence.
Not because we’re useless, lazy, or not trying hard enough, but because human pain and injury are often messy, multifactorial, and unpredictable.
Sometimes symptoms don’t follow the textbook.
Sometimes scans don’t match the story.
Sometimes recovery takes a route that makes no fucking sense.
Sometimes the body just decides to be awkward because apparently that’s its hobby.
What we can do, and what I was reminded of so clearly during my own recent experience, is that our value is not always in having all the answers immediately.
Often, our value lies in helping people make sense of what’s happening.
It’s reducing fear without dismissing concern.
It’s being honest about uncertainty without making people feel abandoned by it.
It’s offering calm, confidence, clarity, and a sensible plan.
That matters far more than we realise.
Patients often don’t expect magic or miracles. But they do expect that who they are seeing is competent, is listening, is taking them seriously, and helping guide them through the fog.
People in pain need explanations, realistic expectations, and reassurance that uncertainty does not automatically mean danger.
And they need to know what the next step is, even if that next step is simply waiting, monitoring, or referring on.
This whole episode has reminded me that some of the best clinicians I’ve ever encountered are not the ones who perform miracles like Jesus at Easter.
They are the ones who communicate clearly, act thoughtfully, and manage uncertainty with honesty and humanity.
That’s what my urology team did for me, and I’m very, very grateful for it, even though the outcome is that I am very likely to lose a dying kidney very soon.
It’s also something I think all of us in rehab should keep trying to do better.
Instead of rushing to fix, cure, or treat, first consider your words, manner, and ability to provide reassurance and a calm, credible plan.
Because this matters, sometimes far more than any treatment itself.
As always, thanks for reading and take care of yourselves.
Adam
PS: There are still a few spaces for my 1-day Painful Shoulder course in Essex on the 25th April HERE
And some places on my usual 2-day Painful Shoulder course in Zagreb, Croatia, on the 13-14th June HERE
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