A VIsit with a Country Doctor

Wow, it's already the ninth of January. One week down and three to go and we'll be butting heads with what passes for real winter around here. Today Mac and I had our appointments with our family Doc, Dr. Moyd. I love him. He listens, and more importantly, he hears what you have to say. He saw Mac first and then came an told me everything. Seems Mac's in pretty good shape. This is good news to one who loves him, news that I was gratified to get. Dr. Moyd is going through my file and letting me ramble on about what I've been doing that's good for me and of course we had a short discussion about the evils of Rum Cake. Ahem. Then we got deep into discussion about how RA (Rheumatoid Arthritis) is affecting both our lives. After telling him that the Rheumatologist made the horrendous suggestion that we do surgery on my ankle and go in for the chemo drip for the condition, he asked me in a whisper, "and what have you decided?"
"I decided to spit in his eye and run like hell, " I whispered back.

He smiled at first, then broke out into a raucous laugh. Holding out the arthritic hands that had been through surgery with no help at all from the pain of it, he said, "wish I had had your courage." I knew that he had had the surgery a couple of years back and had even then questioned the wisdom of it. But we continued this visit the way we always do.
Him..."Want the flu shot?"

Me..."no."
Him. "Don't blame you, how about a colonoscopy, want me to set that up?"
Me. "Has hell frozen over yet? You'll be sure and keep me posted on that event, okay?"
Him. "Okay, that's no to the colonoscopy. Now, we have this new thing we'll be using very soon, a camera pill. You swallow, it takes pretty pictures, it goes byby. When we get that set up, how's about we give it a try?" He smiled at me with encouragement.
Me. "You go first. Then I'll see. I haven't recovered from the last one I had. Granted it was done in the dark ages...(the dark ages, hahahahaha) but that was enough for me. For now. When the MRI does the whole works, I'm in."

Him. "In for the MRI," he noted in my file. Then he sat back and asked me questions and glancing down saw that I had skipped my stress test last year. "You know Grainger is going to want a word with you, " he said, one eyebrow cocked.
"I know, I know...I can't remember what happened last April that I missed it, but it was them, they called to reschedule and I couldn't find my date book and I promised to call them back and you know how that always works out." I had the good grace to look sheepish.
"Well, still and all, lets not do that again, okay? Now, let me have a listen to those lungs." He leaned in and listened front and back and sat back and looked at me with a smile, saying "if you hadn't told me how many years you smoked, I would never believe you'd ever taken a puff. Those are some clear clean lung sounds. Heartbeat is nice and slow. All in all you haven't messed yourself up to much this year."

"I owe it all to you, Doc...you're my guiding inspiration." Then he began to write out my prescriptions. He wrote the first one, dissected the paper into fourths, wrote three more, took another sheet from the pad and wrote yet another one. "Okay, now I'm going to let you change to Byetta for the diabetes, we'll see how this works and back in six weeks. I'm changing your blood pressure meds, because while your heart sounds great I'm not happy with that pressure. We're gonna get it down. So, that's potassium and nexium...oh and I want you to stay on the altace. Now." He sat back, looking at me expectantly.

"If I'm in such great shape, Doc, can you please tell me why I need American Tourister to help me carry my medicine ?"
Dismissing me, my little Country Doc said, " them's the breaks. " Writing out a lot of gibberish on a Lab Request sheet, he gave me a stern look. " Now go give Vampira her blood payment." I haven't rolled my eyes lately. At his final remark, I think I may have sprained my eye muscles.
Now, this is an edit here! I want you all to know that while Dr. Moyd is so very special and listens so intently, he is also pretty darned good with that pen when he's writing out referrals to other doctors. It appears I have a date with a camera man on February 20th. How did I lose control of my free will?