expert witness

my inexperience in going to court to testify as an expert witness made me shy away from doing it before...but because of my patient's persistence and my conscience that it is my responsibility as a doctor to do whatever it is the patient wants done for his account and probably my being a good citizen of this country that i agreed to go to court. I feel for the patient's lack of closure for this case and as what she told me, the only way the case can be decided upon is after i say my piece. The first time i went was 6 months prior to writing this. Since court hearings are always held in the morning, i had to wake up earlier than my usual and hitched a ride on the lawyer's car, after all the court we had to be in is some 50km from the city which takes a good 2 hours of travel by car.im usually overjoyed when i travel and im just a passenger and not the one driving because i love the experience of enjoying the provincial scenery, and i forget my lack of sleep. I was jittery though since it will be a first for me but i was ready to answer questions and i admit i was a little bit excited too only to know upon arriving there, that the lawyer from the other party is a no-show thus we were given another date to which the hearing is rescheduled. On our way there though, my patient's lawyer assured me that even if i wont get cross-examined by the other party i can still testify and the cross examination, if theyask for it, can be done at a later date...after all, i had to give up a day's work for me to be present in court for which i have traveled far and so he will just request the judge for it to be done so that it will be over and done with and i dont have to come back. But contrary to what we expected, the judge just shrugged off the request and turned him down while he had his break smoking his cigarette outside the court. So, all we can do is leave the premise and take our lunch at a nearby carenderia and head back to the city. Because of the lack of sleep i skipped going to clinic and went straight home instead to sleep off my sleepiness. The change in schedule was still 3 months after. Sometime that week, i got a text from both my patient and the lawyer, that instead of the date given to me, it has been changed again to a later date,the reason of which is,a midyear inventory of the said court. So finally, the day came...today...again i woke up earlier than usual and did the same, hitched a ride with the lawyer, but this time we stopped by a McDonald's drive thru so that i can get coffee since , i still havent had anything ...and so it came that we arrived late albeit not really late that there was no one in court already..in fact, there were still plenty of cases lined up. The patient was already there and again she gave me bad news that again the hearing has been rescheduled because we got in late and the case has been already called plus the fact that the lawyer,again, from the other party , is not available. ".... written sometime late 2012 after i was called to court...."