March 5

One of the hardest things in life is watching your parents gets old. My dad was a very keen athlete in his younger years, even holding the British schoolboy record for the mile at one time. In his early twenties, he was diagnosed with a condition called ankylosing spondylitis which caused his spine to fuse.  However, despite the doctor's predictions that he would be completely bent over by the time he was forty, my dad has done quite well, although he is stooped over. His sport in many ways saved him.

The last few years have been hard.   He suffers from deep depression and has become very slow and shows little interest in anything.  Towards lunchtime, I get a phone call from Elizabeth to say my dad has fallen over whilst cleaning the pool and has cut his head on the wall.  I go home and find him covered in blood so I take him to an emergency clinic that his doctor recommends.

There, the doctor puts four stitches in his head and two in his arm.  I am not impressed with the way my dad is treated, especially once they have numbed the area.  I find the doctor very rough and quite sloppy during the procedure.

He tells me that if he knew that being a doctor was going to be like this, he would never have become one.  'If I had my life again,' he says, 'I would have done something else.'

'Why is that?' I ask, slightly concerned that this man is stitching up my dad's head whilst telling me he doesn't like his job.

'I thought I was going to get lots of money and drive a nice car.  But I got none of the above.'  He shakes his head. 'None of the above at all.'

'It's the social life,' says the nurse, turning to me with  a resigned expression.  'There's no social life at all.'

'And by the time you get to being a well-respected doctor, you're too old,' continues the doctor.  'Far too old to ski.'

Dad's head is wrapped up in a huge bandage and we leave as soon as possible.  We are told to come back in a week's time to take the stitches out but I am already planning to go somewhere else.