Traffic was kind to me this morning and I find myself with plenty of time to catch up on emails and all the to-do's of the day. What I have to write about is really more of a story than something that I actually experienced and I'll try to keep it brief.
Where I work there are what I call "famous" patients. Patients who everyone has taken care of, patients who are well known. Some for good reasons, some for less admirable ones. This was a famous, like many, who had an actual disease...but the disease consummed him, warped his mind. The disease for all intents and purposes had been delt with, but as is sometimes the case, the pain can twist your mind if it's gone on long enough and as he was he spent more time in the hospital than at home, for more often than not, no reason at all. He cried wolf, but as is the state of things, you have to believe a patient even if they've "lied" a thousand times. Every time a faked complaint, every time an admission and discharge. One day, it wasn't fake and the mother knowing her son, sat on the complaint for two days. By the time she took the young man into the hospital it was too late and the young man was finally given a rest from the awful life he was so unfortunate to have grown into. Those of us who knew him and how annoying he was, we can't help but coldly smile that his "crying wolf" finally got the best of him, at the same time there is an apprehension that we would smile at death and we immediately rebound with a "this is terrible" thought...some of us wonder if what the mother did was on purpose...none of us blame her...we just wonder.
Newbie Doc
