I used to volunteer with an organization that pairs people with lonely “elders”... kind of like a Big Brother/Big Sister program. The woman I was paired with was in her early 60s and went to the doctor constantly but there really wasn’t anything wrong with her. It took me a long time to realize she would go to all these appointments to give her something to do, some people to talk to, and sometimes as an excuse to get her (out of state) kids to talk to her on the phone a bit.
I’ll never forget when I was visiting her and realized she was looking forward to an entire day of medical testing appointments. At fist I thought maybe she had Munchausen’s (and maybe, in a way she did) but mostly I think she was just lonely.
I’ll never forget when I was visiting her and realized she was looking forward to an entire day of medical testing appointments. At fist I thought maybe she had Munchausen’s (and maybe, in a way she did) but mostly I think she was just lonely.