Last week, Kate had a regular appointment with her primary care physician. She sees her doctor every four months though covid-19 delayed this one by ten weeks. The only thing that wasn’t routine was Kate’s behavior. She was unusually talkative.
As always, the doctor began by speaking directly to Kate. First, she asked a general question about how things were going. Kate said, “Fine.” Then she asked more specific questions, none of which Kate was able to answer. After the last question, the doctor asked if she could get my thoughts. I had sent her an update in advance of the visit, but I mentioned a few minor changes.
Something I said prompted Kate to jump in and say something complimentary about relationship. The medical intern who had accompanied the doctor asked how long we had been married. Kate turned to me, and I mentioned that our 57th anniversary was coming up on Sunday.
Then Kate took the lead. She began what was a lengthy (for a doctor’s appointment) description of my care for her and the closeness of our relationship. It must have surprised the doctor who had never her heard her talk so much.
It was noteworthy to me because it came after several other recent experiences at home when we have had long conversations in which she was the primary speaker. In those cases, everything was fabricated, arising out of an apparent delusion. This time it was because the subject matter is one with which she is very familiar and, thus, about which she is able to speak comfortably, if not accurately.
In a way, it both pleased and tickled me. I say pleased because it’s always nice to hear your spouse say good things about you. I also thought she beautifully conveyed the nature of our relationship to the doctor. It tickled me because she has always expressed her liking for things that are not “overdone.” I’m pretty sure that if she had been an outside observer, she would have said this went several steps too far.
At the time, I didn’t make too much of it, but since then she has been much more talkative. As I often do, I wonder why this is occurring and how much more may be in store. I reported that in the last post and plan to report more on that topic in a post about yesterday.
