Multiple Choice

A 29 year old woman walks into your office with her two children.  She states that she is exhausted from studying for her recent board exam.  Her brain feels like it has been put in a blender on the "puree" setting.  She states that she took the exam yesterday and it was very challenging.  She is not sure how she performed, but she is relieved it is over.  Her children are precious and adorable and you find it difficult to pay attention to their mother because her story is very boring.  She does not smoke, takes no medications, has no major medical problems and lives with her husband and two children.  Her family history is non-contributory.   

Which of the following is the next appropriate step in your management of this patient?

A.  Offer to babysit her children so that she can take a nap for an hour.  When she thanks you and says that won't be necessary because she will try to go to sleep at 9pm tonight, breathe a sigh of relief.   

B.  Tell her that even if she didn't pass her exam that God still loves her and has a reason why she would need to commit time to study for it again.

C.  Remind her to get a lot of sleep tonight because tomorrow she is taking her children on a flight to visit her beloved sister in Boston (and thank goodness that her mother is flying with her this time).

D.  Hold up a mirror so that your patient can she her greasy hair, wrinkled t-shirt & jeans, the circles under her eyes and say, "well, look at it this way, at least you are smiling."

E.  A, B, and C, but not D, because even though D is true it wouldn't be a nice thing to do.

Hooray!  We are coming back to life around here with a lazy morning (no early morning studying!), loads of laundry, kitchen clean up, and nice long afternoon naps.  Our treat of the day was getting E-Bear a haircut and going to G-Bear's preschool pictures.  The photographer even took some pictures of E-Bear for us, which made me eve more thankful that we had just gotten his haircut (goodbye, fraternity boy hair)!   What a nice change from the past few weeks.  

Thanks to all of you who have been praying for me and to those of you who kept us going with your love and friendship during the past few weeks.  I am so grateful!

p.s. The correct answer is E.  I know D is tempting.  Resist the urge.