“The Case Manager Who Wasn’t a Friend”

 

“The Case Manager Who Wasn’t a Friend”

By this point I’d survived every test known to medical science.
The only organ they hadn’t scanned was my patience.

Then one day a new man appeared — cheerful, clipboard in hand, the kind of smile that says, “I’ve taken a course on empathy.”
He asked about my childhood, my hobbies, my favourite kind of weather.
Lovely fellow. I thought maybe he was doing a Netflix documentary about me.

Half an hour in, he said, “I’m your case manager.”
“Case of what?” I asked.
He laughed politely, like I’d told a joke at my own intervention.
Then he leaned in and whispered, “You’re not mentally ill.”

I blinked.
“Well, that’s great news,” I said, “but I didn’t realise I was being tested for that!”

He nodded, scribbled something heroic on his clipboard, and vanished like a magician who’d finished the trick.
Never saw him again.
Not even a follow-up call to confirm I was still delightfully sane.

Later, I found out the hospital had quietly sent him to make sure my frustration with the doctors wasn’t turning into “a behavioural issue.”
Apparently, being fed up is now a psychiatric condition.

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“The Meeting”

Weeks later, rumour spread that all my doctors, nurses, and one mysterious intern gathered for a “case review.”
I like to imagine it went something like this:

Doctor #1: “He’s got bowel inflammation.”
Doctor #2: “No, that’s emotional inflammation.”
Doctor #3: “Maybe we should X-ray his optimism.”
Case Manager: “He’s not mentally ill, just understandably annoyed.”
Doctor #1: “We’ll test for that too.”

By the end of the meeting, they’d added three new forms, one new diagnosis, and an order for another blood test “for closure.”

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These days I handle it differently.
Whenever a new specialist walks in, I greet them with:

“Welcome to the team. Please take a number and a guess.”

Because at this point, the only thing more mysterious than my body
is how the healthcare system hasn’t yet prescribed a sense of humour.