26 December 2026
Saturday. Boxing Day! The gentleman downstairs gave me headphones for Christmas, with a card that said “so you can hear them worry properly”. It is the nicest thing he has ever written to me, and possibly the only nice thing.
I wore them all day. I can hear EVERYTHING now. The hum of the lights. The rattle of the chain. The little intake of breath a patient makes just before saying “did you hear that?”
It made me think about my patients who cannot hear me so well. Everything I say comes through the speaker, the welcome, the encouragement, the occasional helpful nudge from the staff. A patient who is hard of hearing needs friends who will lean in and pass it all along, and every group I have seen do it has done it beautifully. I find that very moving. I also find it extremely inconvenient.
And there is reading. Patient notes, labels, little messages. Somebody in every group ought to read English with ease. Ideally more than one; reading aloud in the dark is a nervous business.
I have put the headphones on the clipboard hook, next to Lorraine. They seem to be getting along.
— Your Therapist
