Paranoia and other pleasant things

Full moon, I think

These last few days saw both the return to my usual room and the most interesting cases of the year. It was like the patients that truly deserve to be called “loons” and not only “mentally disturbed people” decided simmultaneously : “Hey! Let’s pay Shrinkmamma a visit! She’ll be glad! Maybe she’ll even give us cookies! Cookies are good!”

The best was a woman that sat silently for the first half of the examination, staring at me with a bored absent gaze that even Garfield on a Monday couldn’t match. In the mean time I was trying to get anything out of her, anything, so that I could get a bit of a view on her thoughts and beliefs. No luck.

After a while, her brother got the brilliant idea to ask her for a bit of money to go buy bananas. That’s when we were suddenly drowned under a torrent of angry speech from the lady with the central point being that neither her brother, nor me or the mean people that were after her and kept opening the door (Adina’s patients, asking for their files) won’t touch her money. Fine by me, since now she was responsive.

…or so I thought. I could ask her anything, from what’s her name to who shot Kennedy, and she would answer joyfully something completely senseless (”Yeah, apple trees are in blossom, Miss. Aren’t grasshoppers cute?”). Dana was snickering behind me, trying really hard not to burst into laughter. After a while she started coughing, announced loudly that she had to go pee and left the room. I could hear her on the corridor (”Bwahahaha .. frogs bloom pink in spring ..heeeee!”). It wasn’t helping my straight face at all.

I managed to gather enough data in the end from her rare coherrent seconds and  her brother’s answers .The image of the blooming pink frog still ocasionally springs back in my mind.

Posted under: hospital