Published on 12, July, 2020
I had to complete a pre op triage questionnaire recently. I'm still agonising over the impossible questions.Have I "recently" had such and such? Define "recently" please. I can't know what you mean by "recent". I can only tell you when I had it. Only you can say whether that's recent by your definition. But there was no room for comment.
Am I able to participate in strenuous exercise - e.g. football, swimming? Well, yes, but it all depends on definition of strenuous. How long? How hard? How do you even measure that? How am I supposed to answer something that vague? I said "yes" but I'm clearly no athlete. I get out of breath.Do I have a learning disability? Well that's an easy one. That's a no. BUT ASD was given as one of the examples, which I almost certainly do have. This is rubbish. I had to answer "no", because the question was specifically about learning disability. But now I'm worried that my autism will not be considered, when it really has to be because of sensory processing differences.
This all matters, because it could seriously affect my care in a life threatening situation. FFS! This is horrible.
I know what you mean (I'm sure most people here do to!)
recently - last 12 months
strenuous exercise - 10 mins? - out of breath is normal.
That last one - you could leave it as no and tell the nurse/doctor who goes over it with you again "No learning difficulties, but I am autistic. Please lobby to get the questionnaire in line with modern thinking"
The problem is that we all have our own opinions on how to read these questions. But something like this surely should not be open to interpretation.I suppose there might be a separate question on neurodevelopmental conditions, if relevant in this context. I'm not sure that anyone will go over it with me, so I emailed the nurses.