Needy clients

Y'all know the ones I mean. Some are nice, some are rude, some are downright crazy but any of those can be needy. Normal clients come in, we have a short intro nicety chat, get down to the business of the exam, then make recommendations / discuss cost, etc. and proceed with life then they walk out the door. These people also pay their bill and follow up as needed. Don't feel like going into all the categories of genuine crazies we see, especially since they all seem to just LOVE me. (Now is this a sign of my insanity i.e. like attracting like or does it indicate that I'm more sane than I believe i.e. opposites attract???) One day when my sarcasm is really revved up I should post a blog about degrees or types of looney clients sorta like my cartoons about categorizing friendship levels or comparing one of my previous workplaces to Dante's ninth level of hell... But, once again, I digress.

No, today I feel compelled to talk about needy clients. On Wednesday, we were kinda slow, unlike every other day this week. Want to make a bet what time I finally got home on the slowest business day of the week? Give up? Nine, yes, you heard right, NINE p.m. Why? So glad you asked; that would be because pretty much all I did all day long was placate needy clients. There were only two normal folks all day and one of them took some time because we had to do chest radiographs. The others left me blubbering and exhausted at the end of the day.

There was a dog on steroids that was severely PU/PD and the owner couldn't seem to grasp that the blood work was boringly normal ergo there was no big bad disease and it was all side effects and we needed to get her backed off on dosages to help alleviate the symptoms. I spent a lot of time soothing her and reassuring her before they left and short of being completely rude, I couldn't get them out the door. Usually, I'm actually pretty good at the polite don't let the door hit ya routine. Probably because I've practiced a lot given my antisocial but raised politely in the South personality.

I also saw one of our crazy cat ladies who initially wanted to camp out overnight in our lobby in order to see my boss, who she prefers, the next day. Sadly, she decided she likes, no, JUST LOVES me now... And there was a hypoglycemic pup that had just been discharged from Big Bucks Clinic down the road whose owners didn't understand why they couldn't come back to our treatment area complete with children et al since we had no exam rooms open when I sent an employee to get the dying pup so that I could stabilize it. And the lady with the ancient dog that seems to be doing really well other than some coughing related to his collapsing trachea that needed to be reassured that she wasn't torturing her dog by not euthanizing it. Most, if not all, of the needies seemed convinced that their pet was on death's doorstep when, for once in my life, they actually weren't. And I thought telling someone their pet was dying was difficult...