health scare

I could never be a doctor.  I’d be dying of every illness I study.

Recently I have been experiencing some minor pain in a couple of areas — nothing too bothersome.  That is, until I see a television ad for a serious disease.  A somber woman identifies having pain in the same two areas I’ve been having as symptoms of this, often fatal, disease.  I make an appointment to see my doctor.  And then worry — and imagine all sorts of awful scenarios — for the next two weeks.

I have been seeing this doctor for at least twenty years.  She’s an excellent clinician, though I haven’t always loved her bedside manner.  But in the past few years, I have started to warm to her. The last time I saw her was for a routine check-up in January.  Today she walks into my examination room and the first thing she says is, “How’s your dad doing?”  I like the fact that she remembers, and that she asks.  After twenty-odd years she has totally won me over.

She examines me and concludes I am fine.  I will walk out with the same life I walked in with. I feel immediate relief and say, “I could hug you right now.”  I say this metaphorically as I am not a touchy-feely person.  But my doctor immediately leans in and complies.

I leave happy and unburdened, and open again to the many small wonders of everyday living.