some sunny day
New Job is going very well, and I'm continuing to work at CVS at least once a month because 1) the employee discount is useful, 2) so I can keep up my community pharmacy skills, 3) I actually like my coworkers, 4) it makes me appreciate New Job even more, and 5) after being unemployed for so much of my life it feels really good to have two jobs.
I was working there this Saturday (day 13 of my 13 day work week! v(°∇°)v), and I'm very glad for it, because otherwise I may have never had the chance to say my final goodbye to one of my favorite patients.
He's a liver transplant patient who's been coming in since I started working there over two years ago. Back then he was the happiest guy in the world, excited to be alive and excited to be talking to people! And especially me! And I was always excited to be talking to him as well. We bonded over a mutual appreciation of each other's dumb and/or awkward jokes. He was pleasant, courteous, the sort of person who was happy to see other people happy.
He still IS that person, but he's been walking more and more slowly. It's much harder for him to get his words out, and there's always pain on his face. He has the desperate look of someone being drawn more and more inward by their own body as it shuts down.
We talked. He asked me about my new job. "Is this a step in the right direction for you? Are you happy?" Yes! "I'm glad to hear that, I truly am."
It was lucky I saw him that day. His sister usually picks up his medicine for him now.
Just before he left, he told me, "I hope I see you again someday, if not in a drug store... then maybe somewhere else."
And I went in the back and cried. And I went to the speakeasy alone that night. I ordered a champagne cocktail and honey fig gorgonzola toast -- delicious -- and ate it very slowly. I wrote in my notebook and people-watched and swayed to the live music.
As I left, I was staring at the full moon and humming the last song I heard in there, trying to place it, when it hit me: "Did I severely overestimate my alcohol tolerance, or was that a 20s jazz rendition of Killing Me Softly?"
I'll have to tell him about it if I ever see him again.
Posted via Dreamwidth. Comment there. Or here. I'm not picky.
I was working there this Saturday (day 13 of my 13 day work week! v(°∇°)v), and I'm very glad for it, because otherwise I may have never had the chance to say my final goodbye to one of my favorite patients.
He's a liver transplant patient who's been coming in since I started working there over two years ago. Back then he was the happiest guy in the world, excited to be alive and excited to be talking to people! And especially me! And I was always excited to be talking to him as well. We bonded over a mutual appreciation of each other's dumb and/or awkward jokes. He was pleasant, courteous, the sort of person who was happy to see other people happy.
He still IS that person, but he's been walking more and more slowly. It's much harder for him to get his words out, and there's always pain on his face. He has the desperate look of someone being drawn more and more inward by their own body as it shuts down.
We talked. He asked me about my new job. "Is this a step in the right direction for you? Are you happy?" Yes! "I'm glad to hear that, I truly am."
It was lucky I saw him that day. His sister usually picks up his medicine for him now.
Just before he left, he told me, "I hope I see you again someday, if not in a drug store... then maybe somewhere else."
And I went in the back and cried. And I went to the speakeasy alone that night. I ordered a champagne cocktail and honey fig gorgonzola toast -- delicious -- and ate it very slowly. I wrote in my notebook and people-watched and swayed to the live music.
As I left, I was staring at the full moon and humming the last song I heard in there, trying to place it, when it hit me: "Did I severely overestimate my alcohol tolerance, or was that a 20s jazz rendition of Killing Me Softly?"
I'll have to tell him about it if I ever see him again.
Posted via Dreamwidth. Comment there. Or here. I'm not picky.