GP Stories - Maltesers

 We had a new resident this week at the care home, a 90 year old man who seemed pleasant enough but with quite advanced dementia. Hadn't met him before but was on the round for an initial meetup to see what his baseline was and to go over a few housekeeping things. Due to covid, we have to gown up, face visor and glove up for every resident, which I normally I find very laborious but in this instance, I was glad got the extra use of PPE.

Upon going into his room, he presented a plate of Maltesers to the nurse and I, saying "Hello Doctor, I got some Maltesers from my family, please help yourself". I said thank you very much, I hadn't eaten breakfast so was quite peckish. I picked one up with my gloved fingers but something was off... it wasn't the same texture as a normal Malteser and it didn't look as shiny as a normal Malteser. I gave it a squeeze and it crumbled in my hands. I then realised in horror what it was, and dropped it back on the plate.

What we later learnt from his family, is that he has a penchant for rolling up his faeces into food shaped objects, sausages, meatballs and in this case Maltesers. We heard that a few unlucky people had fallen for his prank. I was very glad for what I previously thought was excessive PPE practices, it saved me a very disturbing experience that probably would have scarred me for life. It did put me off chocolate for a month though.