Man From The Moon

I had a patient in the office on Tuesday. I greeted him and tried to explain what it was I needed to do. He was there to pre-op for surgery. He stopped me to tell me that after I got finished with him I would always be able to say I worked with the man from the moon. I asked him if he had ever been to the moon. He told me he had but he wasn't able to get out and walk. I asked him why and he said because he was a mechanic for NASA and they wouldn't let him out. I thought it sounded like a neat story and I explained I never had a patient like him before. Needless to say for the next 20 min he told me the same story about 10 times. His daughter was able to wisper to me that he had infact never been to the moon, but he did work for NASA. I think he had a slight case of Alzheimer's. He finished by telling me he had one question. Something he was wondering about even on the day of his exam with our doctor...................... "Why would NASA let me go all the way to the moon and not let me get out of the space shuttle to walk on the moon?" I ended our conversation with "It must be that the mechanic is more important than the astronauts. They wanted to be sure you were there to get them home. You had a very important job!" He said, "I guess so. Well now, after today, you will be able to say you worked on the man from the moon." I smiled and told him to have a nice day. This really is a funny story and almost all of our patients are like this in some way. They are very old (75-90). This isn't very unusual on a normal day for me, but something stood out about this man. He was happy, content, and he had a wonderful daughter there taking good care of him. She never corrected him or made him feel stupid. Sometimes it wouldn't hurt us to have a little Alzheimer's. We would see life through a different set of eyes.