Patients dear, Patients.

Clinic this morning was delightful. Many patients I haven't seen for a couple of months, all full of questions. How is the dog, the family, have we had floods, did my trip to Aberdeen go well? For a bunch of pensioners, the memories they have are startling and sharp. They are kind. Before I did this work, I would never have imagined that I would feel so fond of elderly people. Having been on the admin side of so many grumps on the telephone for more than a year, these people it seems are transformed by the sight of a uniform, a smile and a conversation which stretches out for months at five minutes a go. My regulars are all smiles, and me too. How cheering they are. "Ooh, you have lost weight!" "You have done your hair differently, I like it!" "Come dancing with me sweetheart".

Maybe it's the human face rather than someone on the end of a 'phone, I don't know. But they are kind, and for this I am grateful and happy.
Mind you, had B____ in. Deaf and utterly without social skills, he wears enormous glasses. B____ is almost exactly like the dad from the Royle Family will be in twenty years time. "How are you B____?" I asked.

"TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE!", he bellowed. "I'VE NOT BEEN WELL AT ALL! BEEN SLEEPING IN TEN HOUR STRETCHES, I ONLY WAKE UP TO SHIT!"

My head snapped up like a puppets. Sniggers from the corridor and a muffled good Christ from the phleb next door. I must've had the broadest grin. Look on the bright side B____ I said. At least you DO wake up to do it".
I like B_____ as well. He doesn't much give a fig, and that's terribly freeing I think.

I used to work with deafblind students, mostly with learning problems. There are many similarities between the elderly and those students. Mostly in that no one has time for them, and no one, if they can help it, touches them. Imagine that... to be so isolated and have people avoid you. I walk the patients back up the corridor arm in arm, I usually put an arm around their shoulders when i fetch them into clinic. It stretches me past the requisite five minutes often, but meh.

In other news - a colleague told me that when her dog was on heat, a rottweiler that she'd never seen before climbed up her trellis and in through the kitchen window to ravish her dog. I can't bear it.

And the meeting was ok. Air clearing, and ok.