Some events in health just stick in your mind. Obvious ones, like your first Rescus or a particularly abrasive patient, and other, rarer, stranger happenings. Today I was reminded of one such event by a regular patient.

I remember the first methadone patient who was younger than my little sister, half a decade younger than myself. He was a big bloke, in all directions. His knuckles wrote "SINK OR SWIM" and looked as if they'd been trying as much in dirty fuel. He had wisps of blond facial hair around his podgy babyface and better teeth than most opioid-dependant folk. Blond hair straggled from under his baseball cap and the glimmers of gang ink snaked towards his throat.

Despite his size and intimidating looks, He was timid, shuffling nervously like a naughty-schoolboy. I think that's what drove me to look at his age. He was old enough to be in Grade Eleven.

He didn't have a successful run on the program; only two monts later he disappeared, and I never saw him again. I hope he went back on the program; he has such a long time in which to change things for the better. For those few weeks, he was on a better track. That was five years ago.