For years, I have been driving to the city every six months for treatment and examination by a medical specialist. She is a marvelous doctor and a wonderful person. She always asks about my family and from one visit to the next, she somehow remembers details of what we talked about, no small challenge given the number of patients she sees every day.
I really enjoy our encounters but they are always too brief. Suddenly, in mid-sentence, she disappears from the room. I expect her to come back, but she doesn’t. She never says goodbye. I suppose if she ever does say goodbye, it might be because she expects to never see me again. For some awful reason I don’t want to think about.
Finally, a nurse comes in and shoos me away. This doctor, besides being very interested in my life and the lives of my wife, son and daughter, has a great sense of humour and is also very wise. I always have food for thought on my one-hour journey home after each appointment.
Last week, she was a bit concerned about something she saw and did a biopsy on me. Her nurse would call me with the results she told me just before she bolted from the room.
The nurse called this week with the all clear. I am going to live to be at least 125. While I took in that good news and breathed a sigh of relief, I was crestfallen at the rest of her message to me.
“The doctor would like to see you in a year’s time,” she said, before setting a date for the visit.
In the last 15 years, this will be the first time I will go a full year without seeing the doctor. Normally, I would assume, a person would be over the moon at the news they don’t have to see their specialist for another year. And with most specialists, I guess, I would be too.
But darn it, this is going to be a long 12 months.
©2017 Jim Hagarty
