Doctors get younger everyday

Ages and ages ago we agreed to be part of the training programme for medical students. Training nicer doctors by letting them get to know patients as people rather than as illnesses.

And so, this afternoon two first year medical students turned up to meet the boy and me - the wife having to go to a meeting at our local hospital about the operation aftercare. The students were alarmingly young, very earnest and rather sweet. He was tall and already looked the part. Just the right amount of dishevellment to his shirt and tie to imply he'd come straight from doing a long operation. She was more self-contained, watching and listening rather than asking many questions.

I took them through the sequence of events starting at the beginning of 2005, through admission, the shock, horror and disbelief of the first MRI scan, the neurosurgery, the gastrostomy operation, the trachaeostomy operation, the time in intensive care, the months in hospital, the failed chemotherapy, the radiotherapy, more chemotherapy and so to where we are now in our phoney war period, waiting for the operation next week. Goodness, it's a long list. He's been through so much. And it was surprising how upset I got in the telling, given how many times I've had to go through the sorry tale for doctor after doctor.

They were very nice about it and the boy was very good playing with his cars and diligently transferring smarties from one bowl to another. They asked some pretty direct questions including "How has it affected your social life?" which was quite funny. I told them we don't have one because we never know when we are going to be in hospital or out and if anyone has
the slightest illness we don't see them. But they also asked "How has it affected your marriage?" A question I guess you have to be very young to ask in such a direct and unabashed manner. I answered as honestly as I could in that I really don't know since we've spent so much time apart caring for the boy and so little time as a family let alone a couple.

They said they plan to ring us in a couple of weeks for a follow-up visit. I said fine but we didn't know where we'd be by then or if we'd be up to it. The boy walked them to the door, made sure they put their shoes on and waved them off down the road until they were out of sight.