I am a thoracic surgeon, today saw someone in my outpatients. Once he settled down in the chair and I asked him a few questions, it was quite obvious that he had no problems needing my services. He had just paid for my consultation to talk to me. It need not have been me, it could have been anyone. But it was so appropriate to hide his loneliness and his need to talk to someone in the guise of a medical consultation.
He told me about his now failed business, his children having settled abroad and how he visited them for 6 months every year to babysit, just because his wife wanted to do it and how he did not enjoy it at all? How his wife found it more fun to visit her friends or to have them visit her at home? Those were the days he would quietly go upstairs and shut himself up, pretending to read a book or better still. Look at the neighboring wall through the large window that once…
