Meanderings of a Monkey Juggler

2 different issues today.  One I saw and one I read about.

First off is this bloke I've just seen.  He was due in at 10 and he got grumpy because I hadn't collected him by 10.01.  This is a man who needs an interpreter and he has an odd language so the interpreter has been hard to find.  "I can bring a friend to interpret if you pay him" he said.  Yeah right.  It's your problem; if your mate wants paying then you pay him.  Oh that's right you're unemployed hence have no money except what we give you.  This man is late 20's and has had pain pretty much all the way through his 20's.  No major injury just pain.

First claim: "It's so bad I need a walking stick to get around."  First observation: you have no walking stick with you and you just walked perfectly well from the reception to here.

Second claim: "I can't move my back."  Second observation: To be more precise you can't move your back when you are aware that someone is looking at it; I've been observing you throughout our talk and you move it fine when you think I'm not paying attention.

Third claim: "I can't lie down on my back."  Third observation: But you can stand up straight which is exactly the same position but more stressful on your back than lying down ever will be.

Fourth claim: On being asked to touch his toes (in standing), "I can't move at all." and shows no effort to move. Fourth observation: But somehow you can move it when you don't think about it eg bending to sit down again after failing to show any effort at this test.

Fifth claim: "Can you send me a letter to remind me to come for my next appointment?"  Fifth observation: Hell no, if we did that that's about 80 letters per physio per week.  Take some responsibility for yourself and buy a sodding diary or calendar.  If you took any responsibility for yourself then you wouldn't be in this mess anyway.

Honestly!

The second case was a description of some patient behaviour that I'd not heard of but is perhaps quite common.  A GP was recording a story of an elderly patient of hers who had a variety of different problems.  These all needed medicating and consequently the old dear had about 20 tablets to take a day.  The difficulty with this is remembering which tablets to take when as some you had to take every 2 hours, some 3 hourly and others twice or once a day.  A skill I've never had to acquire is to sort all this out.  Well it seems our patient hadn't either.

The GP had been trying to get the dosages of warfarin right.  This means doing blood tests regularly to get an idea of the what each dose is doing to the system.  The results of these tests were really varied and never quite adding up.

Well it turns out that the patient couldn't be bothered figuring out which tablets to take when so her system consisted of putting all 20 tablets in a bag and randomly picking some out through the day - figuring that things would even out quite nicely. 

D'oh!

Some patients! (rolls eyes)

Have fun.