On one of the walls there was a wire rack that boasted a variety of informative pamphlets concerning common illnesses and homeopathic remedies. These were put out by various natural therapy bodies and held lots of good common-sense advice.
Marcus was just switching on his Sounds of the Rainforest CD as Connie opened his sliding door.
‘Ah, my first customer. Good morning, Mrs Fullbright. These are for you,’ he said, presenting her with a bunch of flowers he had bought from the florist on his way in.
‘Oh, my,’ said Connie, placing her hand against her chest and beaming at Marcus. ‘What on earth for?’
‘My first ever client in my new practice,’ he said, grinning at Connie as she turned a lovely shade of pink. ‘These things should be celebrated.’
‘Oh, I don’t know, Dr Hunt,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you should wait until after the consultation. See, I’m a bit of a conundrum. I’m afraid I can be a bit of a bother.’
He saw the joy the flowers had given her slowly disappear from her face. She looked at him with the air of someone eager to be liked but certain she wouldn’t be.
‘Excellent.’ He rubbed his hands together and smiled at her reassuringly. ‘I love a good puzzle. This way,’ he said, gesturing for her to precede him.
They entered his office and he indicated the chair opposite his for her to sit in. ‘May I call you Connie?’ he asked. She nodded her head and he continued, ‘OK, tell me what’s been bothering you, Connie.’
‘I’m just so tired all the time. Some mornings it’s such an effort to get out of bed. I swear if I didn’t have lunches to make and kids to get off to school, I just wouldn’t bother getting up at all.’
Marcus nodded sympathetically, his mind already ticking over. ‘And how long has this been going on for?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know. Seems like for ever. Dr Harrington seems to think I’m just going through the change...maybe she’s right. I don’t want to waste your time.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Marcus. ‘In all likelihood it’s probably a combination of things. Why don’t we start right back at the beginning? Tell me about yourself.’
Connie looked at him, slightly surprised. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘Everything,’ he smiled.
‘OK...’
Marcus laughed at her hesitation. Most clients, particularly those who’d been on the rush and hurry merry-go-round of general practice, found his consultations hard to get their heads around. He really had to convince them it was OK to hear their life stories. ‘Really, Connie, it’s OK. Start at the beginning.’
‘What? From the time I first started feeling tired?’
He reached across the desk and covered her hand with his. ‘No, from your birth,’ he said.
Tear shone in Connie’s eyes for a second before she blinked them away and started talking but still, Marcus had to really encourage her to start with. She kept stopping. Self-editing. She’d start to say something and then think better of it.
He would make a joke or say, ‘Hey, Connie, don’t hold out on me’ and eventually her monologue flowed and she forgot about leaving anything out and unburdened completely.
A client’s first consultation could take up to two hours and it was a counselling session more than anything. They were so used to having ten minutes tops with their doctors that being able to vent and unburden was a unique experience. But Marcus wasn’t there to just treat symptoms. He treated the whole person.
And to do that he needed a very thorough history.
Except for acute cases, his clients and their illnesses were usually the sum of many factors. Add to that the problem of his services too often being sought as a last resort after myriad Western medicine interventions had been tried, and he usually had a very complex puzzle indeed.
The key to unravelling the puzzle was information. As much as he could gather. And remembering that physical symptoms couldn’t be treated in isolation. That people’s emotional issues were an integral part of the complaint and directly connected to their illnesses.
And that’s what he loved about his job. Looking at the person as a whole. Looking at someone like Connie and knowing that somewhere among all the information he was gathering was the key to her treatment.
He made notes as she talked and he could see a really good picture of her as a person in his head. Connie talked about how awful she felt most of the time — depressed and tired. How her joints ached from time to time and she so often felt that there was no hope for her.
Her relationship with her husband was strained. He sounded very demanding of her and wanted everything to be neat and clean and ordered all the time. She spoke about how stressful this was as she could barely drag herself out of bed most days, but she worried he’d be cranky if she didn’t so she forced herself to do it. Housework that used to take an hour would take all day as she kept having to stop for a rest.
Marcus was thinking that Connie had classic chronic fatigue syndrome but she’d not spoken about a viral history. ‘Have you ever been laid really low by a virus, Connie? Has Dr Harrington ever mentioned glandular or Ross River fever or cytomegaly virus?’
Connie shook her head emphatically. ‘No. Never. I’ve never had a dramatic illness, just lots of little niggling things.’
They talked some more. ‘You know the worse part of all this? I took up a floristry course a couple of years ago, through TAFE, you know? I just wanted to do something for me for a change. And I had to quit a month later. I just couldn’t concentrate. It hurt to think. It was like my brain was exhausted.’
‘Brain exhaustion’, Marcus wrote in his notes and ringed it with his black pen. ‘Had you been ill around that time with anything?’
She thought for a long moment and then
