He’s about 75 years old and comes to his appointment with his son. His clothes are impeccable and he’s carrying one of these bags that try not to look like a handbag by having a handle on the side.

He shakes my hand and makes a little bow. Both he and his son have this adorable accent that makes me smile and tells me they’re from Finland originally.

He walks into the room and stops in front of the two visitor chairs.

“Please, sit down.” I tell them.

He looks from one chair to the other. “Which one?” He looks up nervously, then looks down again, touching first the one chair, then the other. “Which one? Which one should I sit on? Which one?” he murmurs. He seems lost and tortured.

“Take this one, dad,” his son helps, and he sits down on the right one.

This won’t be fixed with just pills, goes through my head.

We talk about how he normally has no problems taking care of himself. He lives in a house by himself, but lately his son has been staying overnight more often or he has been staying with the son’s family.

“A beautiful house, yesyes, I have to springclean, there’s so much to do!”

He’s wringing his hands and the torture is back in his eyes again, this hunted look that always shows up sooner or later when you have to live with a constant nagging anxiety.

He is like this almost all the time now, worrying, thinking in circles, never a calm minute. He gets scared at night and won’t calm down until everyone there is awake so he knows all are accounted for. 

He has had these problems before, they tell me, and he was treated with ECT and had done well for years afterwards.

“Oh, that was a great treatment,” he says. “Please, I just want this to go away. I just want to get better.”

I tell him he will be fine.  I call psychiatry and get him an appointment at two p.m.

When I tell him, the haunted look is back. “Oh, at two. Downstairs? Downstairs. At two? It’s eleven. What are we going to do?”

“It’s okay, Dad, we’ll go have lunch”, the son says.

“Oh, all right,” he says and stops wringing his hands.

“I hope all goes well later,” I say, and hold out my hand. He shakes it and gives another correct little bow. “Thank you very much,” he says. “And good luck with my case!”

 

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