Family medicine
Tuesday December 17th 2013, 11:16 pm
Filed under: Family,Life,Lupus

If you’re local and you need a piano tuned, you need this guy. He’s the best.

And then later this afternoon…

I don’t remember what I saw him for; just the reaction years ago of this family practitioner, the most gentle and caring doctor, asking, Is there anything else going on?

I could only laugh. He’d seen me previously as the on-call when my children had been babies running around his legs in the examining room, so he did know my face, but not that I’d since been diagnosed with lupus. And then asthma. And then nine years after the first, Crohn’s.

His shoulders fell, his pen went quiet on the page, he looked at me steadily as he took that in a moment, knowing I still had children at home to raise at the time.  A bit of wonderment at the relatively-healthy-looking woman of good cheer in front of him, then, “You’ve got a full plate.” As simple and direct a summing-up as I have ever heard.

It was one of those moments where someone says the right thing at the right time in the right way and makes everything okay. I have never forgotten it.

Michelle was having post-accident problems that warranted being seen again to make sure there wasn’t a break, so we took her to the clinic. The nurse took her back to where they did x-rays, they talked about physical therapy; we waited. I knitted. Made good progress on the thing, too, to where you could actually see what the lace was going to be when it grew up.

She came out with one of those clunky black strapped-on one-size-doesn’t-fit-most thingummies on her foot, and while she was filling us in on the visit, turned out he was again the on-call doctor covering for today and he came out to greet us and I wonder whether to see if we her parents were who he thought we would be? But he had one more thing to mention re her knee, so he came and good, we hadn’t left yet.

He’s Richard’s regular doctor, he’d seen me back in February and remembered the days, and there we three were, here still, together, supporting each other…and he was beyond delighted, a moment again of stopping and taking it all in–in joy this time. I could just see the wow, she’s not a baby anymore! twinkling in his eyes.

To life!


4 Comments so far
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To Life!
Loving hearing that your knitting is getting done, and their visit is getting closer, and you’ve got good people around that whole family of yours, including the professionals! To blessed life!

Comment by Pam 12.18.13 @ 7:50 am

This is a wonderful time of year for celebrating life. Two of my local fellow knitters have had grand-daughters within days of one another this month, one on the east coast, one on the west.

Comment by RobinM 12.18.13 @ 2:33 pm

To Life indeed!

Your post provided me with the opportunity to take a deep breath and smile. Thank you!

I pray Michelle makes a full recovery sooner than later.

Comment by Suzanne from Montreal 12.18.13 @ 7:51 pm

Yes, to life! And more smiles than tears. Is Michelle’s foot broken? The small foot bones don’t always show up fractured on xrays. You only know it’s broke when the pain gets worse, and the bones start healing and then show up on xray. I so hope she’s feeling better soon.

Comment by DebbieR 12.18.13 @ 8:30 pm



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