Painting with words

She looked into my eyes, begging, imploring me. The tension had been palpable since she had walked in frightened and desperate. There was nothing either of us could do to stop it. We both knew the only question she was dying for me to answer: it had all been building up to this, we both knew it, unspoken and yet explicit. "No." I said, confidently and clearly. She looked into my eyes, into my soul even, begging me. "No? No?" A single tear rolled down her face and she hugged herself. "Thank you."

A few months later, another face and another emotion, this time anger. "What do you mean?" he spluttered. "All this time, this desperation, this fear, for nothing? Are you serious? How can you just say that?" I shrugged sadly, "I know, I understand. Really I do. I'm sorry. It isn't. I wish I could have told you earlier to save you from this." He simply stood up and walked out.

And so they come and so they go. Full of fear and emotion, sometimes more than I can cope with. Every one seeking the same answer to the same dread question. Certainly more than there should be but it is beyond me to stop this. I'm just here for them when the truth is told. And what is that truth? The truth is our audit of 47 cases on the two week wait referral pathway for suspected cancer found not one single patient had cancer. All cancers diagnosed in the same time period were referred by other routes.

It really DOES matter how you tell a story in a presentation.