I celebrated Mass at St John's this morning, and the after lunch walked across the parish to make a bereavement visit to prepare for a funeral in two weeks time. While I was sitting with the family my Blackberry rang. The caller was making contact to brief me about arrangements for another funeral I've been asked to take next week. No preliminary visit is possible as the deceased was in a nursing home quite near to us, and remaining family members are widely dispersed.
This is characteristic of our mobile era, yet people still need and want some measure of personal service, so it's important to have at least one careful conversation in advance to understand the life and the dying of the person being remembered. I promised to call back, as soon as I could, and after leaving the house, while I was walking home, we spoke for fifteen minutes. This would have been an unimaginable thing to do so easily before the new millennium started. My first mobile phone was a nearly new Nokia, given to me by a church member when I worked in Monaco, some seventeen years ago, worlds away from here and now.
Having had a few extra uncomfortable days managing my condition which seems to be getting slightly worse, I decided to contact my GP surgery and ask for a telephone consultation. The thought of waiting another month before an appointment with the surgical team is worrying in this situation. I had a call before five and was promptly offered another antibiotic prescription, and an appointment in the morning for a physical examination. I walked straight over the the surgery and was able to collect the medication and start taking it straight away. I hate bothering the doctors, as I know how busy they are all the time. They certainly do make the effort to stay on top of the caseload, but every now and then, you just have to make the demand and add to their burden.
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