A Voice in the Silence: Navigating Healthcare with a Stutter

Author: Kiera

I am a mother who stutters.

Stuttering affects 80 million people in the world.

Stuttering is a speech disorder that disrupts the rhythm and flow of how you speak by causing unintended sounds, pauses or other problems. It is a challenging disorder that creates barriers to communication, resulting in embarrassment, anxiety, and miscommunication.

A week after Canadian Thanksgiving I found myself struggling to nurse my second son. He was unusually drowsy, reluctant to nurse, and running a fever. Add to that a toddler bustling around our new home filled with unpacked boxes from our move three weeks prior. I dreaded the idea of returning to the hospital after just being discharged and following nearly a week of phototherapy and daily hospital visits for weight checks.

After a text exchange with our family physician, who expressed concerns about my son’s lethargy and prolonged periods of sleep (a rare occurrence amongst healthcare providers in Ontario), I was directed to go to our local children’s hospital, again.

I was familiar with the triage routine in the children’s hospital. As a person who stutters, I made sure to have two pieces of identification in hand. First, my driver’s license, with my name and address, to help me get through registration. Generally, a stutterer’s most daunting task is speaking our own name. Second, my son’s health card, with the spelling of his name.

At check-in, they inquired about the reason for the visit. My face tensing up, I employed speech therapy techniques to navigate through the sounds. “Lethargy,” I said with difficulty. In triage, I fielded questions about his illness while he remained uncharacteristically asleep—my stress mounting. My mind was solely focused on my ailing child, attempting to recall fragments of his medical history while struggling for fluency. “It is okay, if you do not remember,” the nurse interrupted again, clearly confusing my pause as a struggle to remember. I told her about my stutter and asked her to be more patient. Her comment made me feel like a mother who had overlooked something crucial and who should have sought help earlier.

Moments later, we were escorted to the emergency room, bypassing urgent care. Two more nurses asked me the same questions about his medical history, which was already extensive given his recent lengthy hospital stay. I continued to struggle recounting his illness, continually asking each provider to be patient through my stuttering, but they kept peppering me with questions that I could not answer quickly enough. I felt like a burden taking up their time. Subsequently, I use shorter, less accurate descriptions and easier words. After the nurses, the resident and the attending physician followed suit, each repeating the same inquiries. Despite my inability to accurately give detailed histories due to my stutter, I knew his medical needs were being appropriately cared for.

Every day, rounds brought a procession of residents and one attending physician into our room, each asking for my son’s medical history and progress updates. His symptoms fluctuated without explanation, leading to consultations with specialists from internal medicine, general surgery, and various other fields, all of whom sought the same medical history. To make matters worse, the physicians’ demanding schedules added to the pressure, leaving me certain that I had failed to provide the necessary details.

Each repetition of his medical history made my stuttering worse, making it harder to remain fluent. I felt rushed and constantly interrupted, exacerbating the challenges of conveying a complete history, and my frustration mounted. I felt like a broken record, repeating the same information every day in the hopes of a breakthrough.

Reflecting on those tumultuous weeks, I recognize how his care could have been streamlined with the implementation of FirstHx. Beyond enhancing processes and documentation, such a system would have allowed me, a mother with a speech impairment, to accurately convey his story from the moment we entered the emergency room without the fluency struggles.

FirstHx facilitates the capture of a comprehensive record of past medical encounters, treatments, and outcomes. For individuals who stutter, having this information readily accessible ensures smoother communication with healthcare providers, reducing the frustration and anxiety often associated with recounting medical histories verbally. Recalling detailed medical histories during appointments can be challenging and for me, a mother with a very ill child, it led to increased stress and anxiety.

FirstHx alleviates this burden, allowing patients to review and update their information at their own pace ensuring accurate communication with healthcare professionals without the added pressure of time constraints. Access to comprehensive AI-guided patient histories enables healthcare providers to make more informed decisions regarding treatment plans and interventions. For stutterers, receiving tailored care that considers their unique medical needs and communication preferences ultimately leads to better outcomes and increased patient satisfaction.

FirstHx facilitates seamless continuity of care across different healthcare settings and providers. For stutterers, this ensures a consistent past medical history, reducing the risk of misunderstandings or gaps in treatment that can arise due to communication barriers. Instead of fretting over the wait in triage, I could have completed an AI-powered history assessment on my own device if FirstHx’s solution had been implemented at this hospital. I would have been empowered to actively participate in my son’s healthcare journey, accurately advocate for him, promoting more effective communication, reducing stress, and ultimately improving the quality of care he received.