Service user Minnie -- Minnie Pearl, whatta girl, that's what she tells Donna the boys used to whistle after her, seventy years back -- doesn't have clue where her meds are. And there's nothing on the med sheet either. No medication safe, nothing in her client file, the supervisor on call has no clue. (The supervisor on call is the one who foisted the unscheduled call on her, but seems airily unconcerned.)
So Donna boshes and bashes about the kitchen, the living room, the bathroom cabinet, the bedside drawer, and she has no luck. She tries Minnie again, but as expected what she gets is, "I take the white pills, love, and the blue ones, but I want me hot milk. I'm not bothered about the pills. Don't like 'em: I rattle when I walk, these days, far as I can walk at all. Did I tell you about my daughter in law, she's dating a man off the telly? Rilly handsome fella: knows it, though, don't 'e?"
Donna isn't too happy: but she doesn't blame it on Minnie. Nor even on the supervisor, really, who is doing a difficult job with a minimum of assistance, on very near minimum wage. She blames the regular carers just a little: because, after all, hell, where are the meds?
But love is very important. And love is not about what you feel: it's about what you do. Love is all in the practice of it, daily, every hour and every minute. That's what her Mum had told her when she'd signed on for this. (Mum, the right old cow: and what does she even know about love, anyhow?) But she hadn't needed to tell Donna: it was the reason she'd signed up, after all. To deepen her love through monastic practice, to suffer and learn and love and die, like any other human.
Well, and to help pay off her credit cards, after getting the boot as a City PA.
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A Doctor Calls
FanfictionDonna is an in-home carer, paying the bills by looking after the sick and infirm. it's nothing unusual, to have a sick service-user, to have to call the Doctor in. It's this Doctor: he's the strange one. All rights reserved.
