When I last reported my doings, I was on my way to see my cardiologist. Dr. M has been my cardiologist for about 12 or 13 years. We have traded book reading lists and discussed the books we have read. We discussed our mutual and hopeless problems with stuffy noses. We shared our mutual fear of having our blood pressure checked since we both have hypertension, and she said "We're afraid to get it taken because it may be high." Several years ago, I gave her a framed enlarged photo of white blooming saguaro cactus. We have traded life stories.
I told her this story the other day: "When I went to have my pre-induction physical at Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Denver after being drafted out of school during my senior year at the University of Wyoming in 1953, I was held back by the main examining physician and sent to see a cardiologist. The cardiologist diagnosed me with 'psychoneurosis with psychogenic cardiovascular reaction'. When I returned back to Laramie, I was thankful not be drafted into the army because I was newly married with a baby on the way but, at the same time, felt a tinge of guilt as all of my buddies were on their way to training and then Korea. I went up to the University infirmary to see the kindly lady physician who mothered the UW students to find out what my diagnosis meant. I asked her, 'does this mean I'm nuts?' " At this point in my current exam, Dr. M. burst out into hilarious loud and sustained laughter. She said, "If only I had learned that diagnosis before. I can use that on a half dozen of my patients."
But then the bad news came. I learned Dr. M., who has been threatening to retire for several years, was actually going to do so on July 1. When she semi-retired several years ago, cutting back to a couple of days a week, she got rid of many of her patients. I had told her a couple of times that she was really mean, after which she just told me "shut up and take your pills." I thought I would be a logical person to dump. But she kept me.
What made Dr. M. so exceptional was that she was more than a physician. True, she had a gruff exterior and could be blunt and a tad grouchy if the occasion warranted. But underneath she had a heart of mush, and it took me a while to learn that. When I went in the other day, the first thing she asked me was "How is your wife doing?", since she knew from the time before that my wife was battling critical and serious health issues. When we were finished, she accompanied me out to the waiting room to speak to my wife, something she had done before. My wife was touched by her caring.
Some doctors I had in the past weren't much of a doctor. One physician never listened to my heart in about ten years of occasional visits despite my high blood pressure. He would take my blood pressure and say, "Hm, a bit high, we'll just watch it." Dr. M., on the other hand, when I first went to see her, started me on a rigid and uncompromising regimen of medications and tests to make sure I was all right. There was no fooling around. It took several years to find the right combinations, control excess fluid weight, control A-fib, and straighten out a few things. While I was being put through the ringer, I was seeing her once a week. During this period, she sent me to a GE for a colonoscopy, discovering diverticulitis. She sent me to a heart surgeon to do an angiogram. The surgeon told me he was disappointed I didn't need a stent, he was hoping to put in a couple of them to make a payment on his boat. She sent me for nuclear stress tests, which makes you feel like having a heart attack. I called her Mean Dr. M. She never suggested you go do this or that, she went out of the examining room, made the appointment, and told you to be there at 8:00 o'clock the next morning. You got the idea you had better be there.
The point is, I strongly believe Dr. M. at least prolonged my life, and perhaps even saved it. She is easily one of the most influential and important people I have known in my entire life. And now she is retiring. What am I supposed to do? I know there are other competent cardiologists and, in fact, Dr. M. referred me to one of her colleagues in the same office. But how do I know that will work out? The problem is, there has been, and is, only one Dr. M. And now she is gone.
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