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Wednesday, April 23, 2008

When Patients Test Your Patience

Lately I seem to be getting the difficult patients. Usually I like my patients. They are friendly, they don't ask too many questions and they listen well. On the other hand it can be tricky because I counsel everyone from birth to death. Usually it works out just fine . . . usually.

At the end of last week I was presented with a lady who was interested in weight loss. Little did I know she was one of our frequent fliers (read: frequent visitor to the clinic) who comes to the clinic to fulfill her need for human interaction. Not only did she extend her counseling session from a half hour to an hour, but she also asked for every single handout I possibly had. Later I found out she also has compulsive hoarding tendencies. She seemed to just continually be asking questions and even threw in some personal ones such as "where do you live?" "where do you shop?" "what gym do you belong to?" Thankfully I dodged the answers to those, last thing I need is a stalker.

Then there was the devil child today. All seemed okay, he arrived with his mother and sister (who was actually the patient I was seeing) and sat quietly on his chair in my office. For about two minutes. He then proceeded to run around and pull all my sample food items out of my drawers. Usually I'm okay with this because usually the child will then sit there happily and play with the empty cereal containers and measuring cups. Usually. But no, not this child. Instead he stood up and hit me. In shock, I looked to his mother who . . . did . . . absolutely . . . . nothing. Nothing! Not even a "that wasn't nice". Absolutely nothing, as though I had just imagined the whole situation. So I looked at the child and told him to go sit in the chair. From where he proceeded to bang on the walls and chant over and over again "are we done yet, are we done yet, are we done yet?" It took every single fiber in my body not to scream yes. I have to admit though, the session was pretty effective birth control because there's no way I ever want children after that 30 minute interaction. However I doubt my little angels, if I do decide to have them, would ever act like that.

2 comments:

nicole said...

that second client sounds like every tuesday and thursay at our clinic.... (luckily not my client though)

Travis said...

All the more respect to you for handling the devil child so well. As for the other lady you should have told her the one stalker you have is enough.