living with a mental illness is very hard. I mean, err, it must be hard, or so i've heard. or so it seems like, ahm, yeah. Not only you have to deal with your own limitations and concerns, you also have to deal with people's reaction to you. and then, if you are obsessively concerned with aliens, think you are about to discover the secret of life, or just keep hearing bob dylan talking to you, you can't quite take care of you health issues, right?
so you don't brush your teeth as vigorously as you used to, and shower becomes an option. and then you might skip a meal or two, and sometimes sleep on the street. and then street actually becomes your home, so you shower even less, and you sleep on benches, which can't be good for your back, and some teenage punk kids might decide to torment you a little, just for fun, since it goes well with alcohol, and you might end up in the ED.
Or, it might just get cold outside. and you don't have a home. and we have blankets.

We are not quite sure where Mr F fits in that list, but we suspect it is all of the above. Regardless of cause, and despite the fact that Mr. F has not voiced any particular affinity to Bob Dylan, he walks through our door on winter nights and complaining he can't swallow his own saliva.
Now, this is an important point, because it is not that Mr. F can't swallow anything, like food, beer, insects or feces - he is handling these quite fine, but it's his own saliva that he just can't swallow.

He is a tall and thready gentleman, with extremely bad dentition. he wears the same clothes, usually, and somehow he always seems to end up in hallway bed number 1.
If you ask Mr F, he will tell you that he is perfectly normal, and does not quite understand what people want from him. he just can't swallow his own saliva, no matters what his voices are telling him. He is a very calm and gentle man. he waits in his bed patiently until a doctor sees him, he patiently (and repeatedly) would tell the poor-new-intern-that-doesn't-know-him-yet the story of his life, and of his saliva, and then, lsiten carefully as the doctor tells him that he is alright and that he can go home. he nods, understanding, and comes back the next day.

My colleagues would probably kick me in the head for this, but in a way i hope Mr. F will keep coming back during those winter nights so we can check his swallowing problem. I am not quite sure where he sleeps at night, and at least that way we know he is safe.
It's not easy being a schizophrenic these days