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.

Where Have You Been?

It's nice to know that people are missing my posts. It's not that I've forgotten about posting, nor does it have to do with the fact that I'm doing loads of stuff that is not blog appropriate.

Really, I have no clue why the posts have been lacking. It started with being sick at the beginning of the month and continued because of my increased focus on work related items. But I'm happy to say I just passed the pre-test for my conference on pediatric and adolescent weight management, which means I can now actually attend the conference. Woohoo!

On Being Sick

This week I have been battling a cold. It started as a sore throat on Sunday. Turned into a fever on Monday. Tuesday the runny nose and dry cough started. Wednesday my voice fluctuated between raspy, croaky, and non-existant. And finally, today I have what the doctors refer to as a productive cough. Despite the cough, I have to say that today is the day I feel the best, probably because I have gotten ten hours of sleep for the past two nights. I just hope that tomorrow the cough is gone and I am 100% better. A girl can dream, can't she?

Despite my illness I have been a very good girl and have been going to work (I took Monday off) and have been very patient with my neighbors upstairs. The neighbors upstairs have children and despite the constant pounding on my ceiling I have never gone upstairs and asked them to please keep it down. Although I have to admit yesterday I was thisclose to doing it when I realized that the "thump, pound, thump, pound, thump, pound" noises that I was hearing were the sound of the children using a jump rope. What?! Who uses a jump rope on carpet in the house? Oh yeah, that's right, my neighbors.

I'm beginning to reconsider the new one year lease I just signed.