The Doctor Is Forgiven

I went back to the Doctor today for some follow up stuff, mostly blood pressure and while I was in his office I had a really good look at him. He has aged along with me and it shocked me. I guess somewhere in my brain I thought he would always be young and would always be there for me.

Today I realized that this may not be true and it saddened me. I remember when his sons were born, and he still has those baby pictures on his desk but he also has pictures of grown young men graduating from University hanging on his wall. There was a time when he was not so rushed and we had time to chat a little.

Things have changed. With the acute doctor shortage here in Toronto, he has a heavier workload and that has changed him. Maybe our system is to blame, maybe if they paid him a little more money he wouldn't have to take on such a heavy workload. Maybe if there wasn't a quota on how many people can go to medical school we would have more doctors, and maybe if pigs could fly life would be good. I don't have a solution, I'm just one person without much power. All I can do is keep writing letters to our good Premier McGuinty and file the form letters full of platitudes he sends back to me. I've got a pretty good stack of them already.

Not only has my Doctor he aged, he has had some bouts of illness himself over the years. Because we have a long history I know he has successfully (I hope) battled prostate cancer. Just before my trip to Greece when I was meant to see him, he got sick again almost derailing his long awaited vacation to his homeland in East Africa. Today he was limping a little and definitely didn't look well.

The people we expect to take care of us are human beings, who also need someone to take care of them. I hope he has someone.