Useless Parents.

"Sir, sir, please help, it's urgent" begged Andy. The waiting room was full, but so far all I'd seen was kids with sniffly noses and scratchy throat. Andy seemed genuinely worried so I motioned for him to come to the front of the queue.

Andy strode into my office and stood hovering over me as I sat at my desk. "You can sit down Andy" I said. "I can't sir, I'm too worked up, I'm friggin scared sir." "It's ok Andy. Sit down and tell me what's wrong." Andy sat down and began to tell his story.

"It's my eyes sir, I keep seeing things" Andy explained. My ears perked up at this. This was a far cry from the usual complaints. "What exactly are you seeing? Describe as accurately as you can" I replied.

Andy's symptoms had began about a month ago. He started seeing jagged lines at the edge of his vision. At the start he only noticed the lines a couple of times a day, but now he was constantly seeing lines on the edge of his vision. There was no pain, and his vision was otherwise unimpaired. I asked the usual questions like: How often, How long, What makes it worse/better etc. But the biggest shock was still to come.

"Have you ever had problems with your eyes before? Problems of any kind?" asked. Andy seemed surprised by my question "Of course I have. I spent five days in an eye hospital in the states getting all sorts of things done. But you know this. Mum's told you before." It was my turn to be surprised "Ah, sorry Andy, but your mother has never said anything about this at all." I then produced his medical records to show him that his mother had never informed us of her son's medical history regarding the eyes.

Andy was taken to the local emergency eye hospital where he spent the next 16 hours getting every examination possible. The doctor eventually sent Andy and I home. He said there was no danger to Andy's vision, but he said he urgently wanted a copy of the records from when Andy had five days of testing at an American hospital.

"Hello, is the Andy's mum?" I asked. "Yes, how can I help" came the reply. "I'm calling about Andy, I'm the nurse who took him to the eye hospital. We urgently need his medical records, or reports, anything you have" I said. I then spent the next ten minutes explaining everything the eye doctor had told me. "All right, I'll see what I can do" said Andy's mum. The line went dead.

Two weeks later and nothing. No medical notes, no emails, no contact at all with Andy's parents. Andy was becoming angrier every day with his family. After receiving no reply to my emails I phoned Andy's mum for the tenth time and finally got through. "I've contacted the doctor and they'll fax the records through" explained Andy's mum after I'd politely berated her for doing nothing. "How long ago did you fax them" I asked. There was a pause, "Ah, an hour ago" again, another pause, "Ah, what's the fax number by the way." I hung up the phone.

Andy's mum was a liar and not dong a thing to help her son.

I eventually tracked down the records a got a copy sent from the American hospital and sent then to the eye hospital here in Europe. As soon as the doctor here got the report he requested to see Andy that same day.

Thankfully Andy's vision is going to be ok, although he will probably always see these lines.

No thanks have to go to Andy's mum.

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What you don't know

"He's such a quiet guy" were the words that people usually used to describe Pete. This was then followed by something like, "Yeah, he's a nice guy. Never bothers anyone." Even though I knew Pete on a 'friends of friends' kind of basis and knew his life style, even I never knew how sick he really was.

Pete got out of bed and wandered to the kitchen, lighting up a joint in the process. Smoking a joint wasn't anything special to Pete, at least in that it wasn't a special occasion. He never sat down with friends and smoked, there was no ceremony about it. Pete smoked marijuana as if he was smoking a regular cigarette.

Pete then went to work where he spent the day killing chickens. His day was broken down into morning tea break, where he smoked some pot, lunch break which meant more marijuana, then it was off home and dinner whereupon he smoked another joint. His evening was then spent in front of the television. He would then have one final toke then off to bed.

Whenever the boys' went out on the town Pete was always such help. "Who wants to be the sober driver tonight" someone would ask. No one would volunteer, then someone would say "Hey Pete, you haven't been drinking tonight. Will you drive for us?" In his typical monosyllabic way Pete always said "Yep"

In fact no matter what we did, where we went, or who we met, Pete was always there, somewhere. He rarely talked, was always helpful, and for someone who spent their life completely stoned to pieces, he seemed rather level headed. In fact we sometimes wondered if he had developed some natural resistance to the stuff as we never knew quite how he still managed to function.

I left that crowd, and I didn't see any of them for ten years. Then I bumped into Pete by accident.

The doorbell rang. "I'll get it" I offered and headed out to the security door. When I got to the door I stopped and stared in surprise at the person on the other side of the reinforced glass. Pete looked the same and behaved the same. He showed no surprise when I opened the door. "Gudday, it's been a while" was all Pete said. "Ah, Pete" I stammered, "It sure has...Ah, what can I do for you?" I asked. "I've come for my injection" he said. I was a bit slow catching on. "Ah injection for what?" I asked. In his usual calm, unhurried way, Pete said "My schizophrenia medication of course" Pete said with a knowing smile as he walked past me and down the corridor.

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