17th January 2000

10.30pm. I've just got home from hospital after clerking a patient with a friend of mine. Needless to say, I'm tired knackered exhausted worn out out of gas etcetcetcetc. Prospective med students : this is the reality. Are you sure you still want to do this? I wonder about my friends who have just become housemen / interns. They do this for Real, us medics are just a pale shadow of them, committment free with no strings attached. You're probably expecting me to write how crap it's been, how I've lost my social life to school... and you're dead wrong. I loved it. I loved clerking that patient and finding out her story (which was VERY extensive. Practically every bone broken and every condition known to man and she's still chirpy and bright) from her, I loved that she trusted us enough to tell us her story, to let her examine her. I enjoyed it, possibly because my Greek friend has a sense of humour, as did our patient. Nevermind that it ate into my after-work hours, after all, I'm not really working anyhow and I'd just have watched Buffy on TV and oh no I've missed Buffy damn :o)

Earlier in the day I was clerking Mrs B whom I wrote about previously. I walked up to her and introduced myself, and sat myself down on the bed beside her and she said Where have I seen you before. Where did you come from. She's eating dinner, or rather she's got dinner laid out in front of her, custard in a box, a tiny gob of mashed potato that looks more like vanilla ice-cream, and something that looks a bit like vegetable lasagne. It might be chutny. It's hard to tell. She spills some soup on the table and looks at me expectantly. I change from my jacket to my white coat and immediately she recognises me. She asks me what the mash is and I tell her why that's your mashed potato. She starts mashing it with her spoon obediently although I tell her she doesn't have to mash it, its already been mashed. She then says this goes in here and puts her mash into the custard. No, Mrs B it might taste better if you just eat it plain. I demonstrate and help her spoon some custard into her mouth. My, this mash is nice! And she scoops some custard into the mash. I attempt to give her the mini-mental test and end up with 2/10. That's not a terribly good score. She can't remember where she lives or where she's at. She doesn't know the date or the time. She spoons some more of her mash into her custard and looks worried. I begin to tell her not to mix them when I mentally take two steps back and look at her. She's happy here, mixing her food, although she doesn't know where here is. I've done my mini mental test of 10 questions on her in thirty minutes, nevermind that it should only take thirty seconds. She's happy here. I tell her let me help you, Mrs B and I spoon all the custard out of the box into her mash. She looks happy. I smile and say I have to go now and she asks do you? She looks slightly nonplussed. I try my best smile on her and say yes, I have to go now, but I'll be back. She mixes her custard and mash a bit more and doesn't look up. I leave.

And so I'm home, wondering what to make of life, and the world. Some stranger's been talking to me on the phone and casting a little bit of doubt in my mind about everything. No offence to you whover you are, but I don't know you, I don't know you well enough to tell when you're taking the mick and when you're serious about something, I can't tell when you're criticizing and when you're not. You're just a voice on the phone to me; we've never met and so that makes sense even though this probably offends you. I don't begin to understand what to make of the things you say sometimes, and apparently it's mutual. My little jokes become big issues to quarrel over. This web page isn't meant to exhibit my eloquence which I've never really thought I had any of. It's not meant to be cathartic. It's not meant to win people over. I don't know what it's for. It just is. I don't know you that well, and I won't judge you or presume you're this-and-this a person until I know you, and even then I might not. Why then do I get this feeling, constantly, when I talk to you as a faceless individual on the line that I'm being weighed and assessed from all angles? I wrote that I don't wear a mask in the earlier pages. Try me.