A Toon: The Cough

Oh this 'toon. I'm not sure if I'm going to make any friends with it (you don't make friends with salad, either).  Hear me out though.  I LOVE being at placement and I am enjoying almost all of it.  However, and you'll see this more in a post later this week, it brings up tough questions.  It forces you to think about right and wrong, ethics, choice, consent....life/death....so many things.  I should also point out that SLPs often deal with swallowing.  People can get swallowing disorders from strokes, brain injury, degenerative diseases and a variety of other causes.  Why do we care?  Because if you can't swallow something the other place it will go is into your lungs and this can cause aspiration pneumonia (ie. a lung infection) which can kill you.  It CAN cause it.  It might not.  Often, when people have difficulty swallowing, they may do better on pureed food and/or thickened liquids (just like what it sounds....thick, goopy water).  Many people dislike this.  Some choose not to listen to us.  I do think our job is very important but I also sometimes feel like we are the party poopers sometimes.

Another important fact:  this scenario of representation of a client is completely fictitious and in no represents and an actual person or place (except me, those really are my horns). 

Fellow SLPers....do you ever feel like this?