Life is serious

Our son, the extremely-junior doctor, has now taken over from the slightly-less-junior doctor he’s been shadowing for the last couple of weeks.

On the third day of this actual doctoring, our son admitted to the hospital an elderly lady who deteriorated rapidly and then died the next day. Our son, aged 23, was the only doctor on duty in the ward during the main part of this second day, and when it was clear that there was nothing to be done to save her, her husband was summoned and our son had to break the news to him. He sat with the couple while she died; checked that she was indeed dead; and then wrote out the death certificate. Then, after a senior doctor had come to explain the situation further to the husband, and then gone, our son stayed a bit longer to answer the husband's questions, since he seemed to need this; and then accompanied him to the hospital door.

Serious stuff and very emotional. Our son is a kind chap and felt deeply for the lady and her husband, neither of whom had realised how ill she was. I think he also worried that the old gentleman might reasonably have thought a 23-year-old not quite what he had in mind for such an occasion.

I wanted to give my boy a cuddle and tuck him into bed, but he’s a long way away.

He’s working 70 hours a week at the moment.

I go back to work tomorrow but it seems a bit pathetic to complain about this, so I won’t.

Here's Cassie cat exploring her territory.

And here she is coming back again. It's probably easier to be a cat than a person.