This one's made for you

I usually don't tell stories here that show me in my best light.  Running a blog for the purposes of inflating one's reputation seems pretty sad.  But I have to tell you this story because, while it does make me look good, it makes someone else look even better and I hope that it might lift your spirits a bit.

In short, last week was a shitter.  I'd been struck down by a persistent case of gastro, I'd been really tired most of the time, and I'd had to give a presentation during the week that was not only pointless but also extremely badly done by me so I'd been uncharacteristically stressed by it.  Yes - by comparison with people who are having a genuine Bad Time (tm), my week was fine, but we all have our our troubles, right?  Anyway, by Friday I'd had enough, so when I got to the clinic and found an envelope on my desk with my name written on it, I assumed it had in it something I didn't want to see in my (then) present state of mind.  Perhaps a bill.  Perhaps a bunch of biochem test results for me to interpret.  Perhaps an invitation to dine with Barnaby Joyce.  Who knows?  I didn't want to risk opening it until it was time to go home and I could fling it to the floor in disgust and storm out in a huff.

So I sat alone in my office, hunched over my desk, feeling cold and sorry for myself as I pondered what fresh insult from the universe might be lurking in that envelope.  Eventually I heard the theme song from M*A*S*H playing on the television in the waiting room and I realized it was time to go.  I tore open the envelope and found in it a print-out of the notes that I'd written up in the record of a patient who'd come in on Monday.  I'd taken a fair bit of time with him since he'd presented with a cluster of vaguely uncertain problems that somehow made me worry that something really bad was going on.  On the bottom of the notes was written, by one of the doctors, "This was a difficult patient.  You did a good job with him."

I was stunned!  Doctors seldom give positive feedback to patients, let alone to students.  Or perhaps I should say seldom to me.  This is the first time I have received unqualified encouragement this year.  Not that I need to have my praises sung by the temple priestesses each morning as they release the doves - it's just that sometimes if you don't get to see the sun for a while the winter starts to seem a bit bleak.  I drove home that day, not exactly on a high, but at least with a certain dignity and sense of progress.  Maybe I can make it.