Once we had managed to get in he told us to sit down- what a joke! – I didn’t know whether to laugh or not…there was a girl sitting in the room, I assumed she must be a medical student, she smiled at me but the doctor didn’t introduce us.

Once he had finished looking at his notes the doctor looked up and asked Mark what was wrong with me. Mark started telling him about how I had recently become incontinent. I was so embarrassed I didn’t know where to look so I just sat there staring at my hands. The doctor had another quick look at my notes and told Mark that it was probably a side-effect of some pills I had just started taking for my pain. He said I should stop taking them and that he would put me on something else. Mark started nodding but at this point I wanted to butt in. I had already been on so many different types of pills that I had lost count long ago. Finally I had found something that was really working for me and they were saying that it was no good! I couldn’t believe my ears. I told the doctor that I had been feeling much better since I had started taking the pills, was he sure they were the reason for my problem? Wasn’t there another way around it? Another drug he could give me as well instead of taking away the one that worked? – He looked at me a bit blankly then, almost as if he had forgotten I was there, I think he preferred to talk to Mark, they were both men, they understood each other, they didn’t understand me…

He told me that it would be for the best if I came off the medication – it was the easiest way to solve the problem, he said. I didn’t really care whether it was easier or not, I wanted my pills – they helped me but I felt I had already kicked up such a fuss. So I just sat still and kept my mouth shut. I actually felt a bit bad, I was being childish, he was the doctor, he knew what was best for me and he was only tring to help, I didn’t know anything about these things, why was I arguing?

The doctor wrote out my new prescription and handed it to Mark to look after. He turned back to my computer then, so Mark got up and we struggled out again.