macrocephalopod

So I’m up there, grimacing like I always do. The doc, like every other doc, apologizes for my pain, and I assume she’s going to leave it at that. These things are uncomfortable and unpleasant. Nobody does them for fun. The experience doesn’t matter, right? It’s necessary.

Well, instead of just letting me suffer, the doc notices I’m in pain and stops. She says she’s going to ask me to do something weird. I’m naked from waist down, except my socks, and she’s got a light in my crotch. I have no choice. I’m captivated. This couldn’t get weirder.

ake a fist, she tells me, and my brain goes a THOUSAND miles a minute. I’m trying to process the word “fist” in context. So I make a fist, and she tells me to put it between your butt and the table. It’ll help with the pain. So I do, and it does.

The rest of the exam is fine. Everything’s fine. Thing is, I’m mindblown. I’ve never had a doctor even think to tell me that. Apparently doing that changed the angle of my guts and associated reproductive organs, and the angle being so severe is what was hurting me.

I’ve been quietly suffering through exams for 15 years, and no one ever thought to take a second to think about how to make the experience better. It’s just like that, after all. Not the greatest, but necessary, right? The suffering is part of the process?

I don’t think that has to be true for a product. We should stop excusing bad experiences just because we never stopped to think that maybe there is a really simple solution to a pain point. A really common pain point.

We all have that feedback that we ignore as “just how it is.” Maybe we’re not looking at the question the right way. Maybe it is that simple. Change the angle. When was the last time you stopped to reconsider? When did you accept that pain is just part of your process? Why?

So maybe it’s over sharing, and it’s late, and the neurons are all misfiring, sure. Maybe you could have gone without reading about the angle of my uterus. Maybe this sticks with somebody, and they ask the right question, change the angle, and change an entire experience.