“I’m deciding who will get what”
My patient was a single woman in her early fifties, and she was making copious notes on a Basildon Bond writing pad.
Her answer was a reply to my finger pointing
I sat down and waited for the rest of the story.
My patient was due to be discharged from hospital later that week.
She had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer for a while now and this was to be her last admission for any medical treatment .
When she deteriorated further she had asked to be sent to St Lukes, which was Sheffield’s hospice at the time.
I knew she lived in a large family house in Broomhill, which was the trendy and expensive suburb of the city,
Her house, she told me , was filled with trendy objet d’art .
She was a popular woman too…who went to the Crucible more than I did
It was her collections and belongings she was worried about .
She wanted the right thing to be given to the right person and was worried that her will , although completed was woefully inadequate for the job
So she was making a list.
I had an idea.
I rooted through the ward clerk’s cupboard and found several sheets of multicoloured coloured stickers
“ Put a sticker under something you want to leave someone and leave your executor the key “;
She thought it was a fabulous idea so much so that she promised to leave me “ an item” for having the idea when she got home.
By the end of my shift she had such a long list of bequeathed gifts , she had to enter various symbols and letters inside the sticker so that things could be allocated .
I never saw the patient again . I never heard from her executor either
The pink sticker must have fallen off ……….
Post script
In the top right hand drawer of my lovely new office desk, in the west wing of Bwthyn y Llan is a sheaf of multicoloured stickers . I bought them in 2009 from Woolworth’s in Prestatyn before they closed and
Someday in the future , I will take the day off ordinary chores and activities and I will amble around my cottage putting stickers on every last bloody thing
There is some strange satisfaction at this simple thought
