It's a nightmare trying to quantify anything in history-taking.

Someone tells me they've had a headache 'for a long time', I want to know actually for how long. If it's sudden onset and bang, very severe, I worry about bleeds in the brain (and thunderclap migraines). If it's slow and insidious over months and worsening, I worry about something growing in the brain. If it's long-term on and off and it's been twenty years, it won't be something sinister, otherwise you'd be dead.

But, no, oftentimes it's like extracting teeth when I'm trying to quantify how long is 'a long time'.

"So how long is 'a long time'?" I'll ask.

"Oh, a long time," they say, as if I'm supposed to magically understand a very subjective measurement.

"How long is that? Days? Weeks?" I say, giving suggestions so they can give me a rough estimate.

"Oh, longer, much longer," they insist, still refusing to give me a quantity. It's become a game of Twenty Questions.

"Months? Twenty years?"

"Oh," they stare at me as if I'm saying something outrageous. "But not that long."