PICTURES THAT PAINT A THOUSAND WORDS

( OR SO…)

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JUNE AND THE GAS

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My wife and I are yet to be convicted people watchers; the daylight equivalent of Peeping Toms. We observe our fellow human beings in all their florid glory as they struggle to cope with the world and themselves. Before I retired from practice as a clinical psychiatrist I even got paid for this pleasure.

As we have recently moved house, Hazel has been busy organising work to be done to improve what was her parent’s home. The semi is just over 30 years old and will need rewiring and new central heating, amongst other bits. So, it was on a Monday morning that the gas man came to call. Actually, a Thursday evening, but the cadence falls down.

Overhearing the technical conversation about boilers and radiators I was forcibly reminded of a ladypatient for upon whom my first, and last, home visit concluded with a whole street being temporarily evacuated. Along with my bowels, more of which later.

June, which, you will not be surprised to know, was not her name, was already quite well known to the community mental health team in her home town of, let’s call it Bigtown, to preserve some grace for all concerned. June had not needed admission to inpatient care for a few years until shortly after I arrived as the new consultant for the Bigtown area. (The two events were not connected.)

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June took herself along to the local general hospital in the middle of the night and asked to be admitted to psychiatric care as she was feeling desperate. I met her on a ward round four or five days later, when a history had been clarified by the staff.

She had been in a relationship; well perhaps more like giving her body in return for financial rewards, to a particular man for some time. He, it transpired, had spent quite a lot of his adult years between mental care and prisons. This man had moved in with June, who owned the property, and persuaded her to join him in making various structural improvements with a view to selling and making a profit, and a new life elsewhere.

According to June, they had stripped the premises to less than the bare essentials, and then stopped. She, they, the account varied a little, had been living in an unheated shell for some months, which increasingly stressed June and rekindled her previously well controlled paranoid psychotic illness. Fortunately, June retained sufficient self awareness to seek out help before she became floridly ill.

June was fully cooperative whilst on the ward, absolutely no management concern at all. So, when she decided to go back to the house one day, there was no reason to prevent her. Except that she did not return to hospital that evening. A few phone calls confirmed that she was at the house, apparently settled.

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However, by the following morning, June had contacted the ward in an obviously distressed state. As I was in Bigtown doing a whole day outpatient clinic, the ward manager, God bless him, asked me to call in on June and check on her. As I needed a break over the lunch time, I agreed and duly drove myself to the address whilst eating the necessary nose bag to prevent low blood sugar.

June quickly answered my knock on the glass door panels and invited me into the house. The extent of the unfinished renovation was very obvious even to an ignoramus like me; bare brick work, no floor boards over the joists, exposed cables and pipes. June took me on a brief guided tour, explaining where each event had occurred, finishing up in what was supposed to be the lounge.

Which is where the mental penny dropped and literally scared the living shit out of me. I was chatting with June, persuading her to return to the ward, at least for a few more days, when my attention was drawn to the fireplace.

The nice looking gas fire front was hanging off, as was the supply pipe into the back. Although I could not smell gas, other than my own fear, I rapidly realised that the room and house could be filling with explosive vapours.

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Rank cowardice ran riot. I bluntly excused myself, drove back to the clinic at warp speed and made a 999 call, (911 equivalent for any American readers),voided my loose bowels and continued with the day’sappointments.

Over the next two hours I could hear distant sirens from the emergency services, and had to take three urgent telephone calls. My secretary kept me informed of developments between patients, and what a mess I had created!

The police had made nearby residents leave their homes, whilst the approved social workers literally drew short straws to find the one to go into June’s house. They would be accompanied by qualified gas board workmen who had already checked the area and found some leakage. June was a little reluctant to let them in, after my precipitate and so far unexplained departure, but was easily persuaded.

The unlucky social worker stayed with June whilst the gas men went into each room with their magic black boxes, a technological canary in a cage, testing for the noxious fumes. Several leaks were found, fortunately none of them too drastic.

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June agreed to travel back to hospital, particularlywhen she was told about the danger left by her cohabitee's handiwork. The gas supply to the house was isolated and capped of, and the building itself temporarily boarded up.

When I eventually finished with the last outpatient of the day, there was a small group of disgruntled men from the police, fire, ambulance, gas and social services demanding to know why I had let this mad woman behave so dangerously. And I thought I had been quite brave, considering!

Tea, biscuits and sympathy all round, with the minimum disclosure of June’s confidential health history, appeased the mob and exonerated the mental health team, and me, from any blame. It was just one of those crazy things that enliven the working day, once in a career only, please?

ALL PERSONAL DETAILS ARE FICTITIOUS... BUT IT REALLY HAPPENED

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