When your doctor hangs up their stethoscope
Sooner or later it will happen to every senior. In fact, as with most things senior, the only way to avoid it is not to become a senior, which is not really an option most of us would choose, as in “growing old is better than the alternative.”
But sooner or later, once you hit those piss-da-bed (Did I say that? I meant “golden”) years, you will realize that the rolereversal thing is here for good.
Your children will not be children in any sense except that they are still your children, but the “who looks after who” role will reverse, maybe not for years yet, but you look around you and realize that it will come. No matter how independent you are, they will feel, before you do, that you should not be making some decisions by yourself.
I’m not there yet with my children. When the time comes I hope it will be graceful and relatively painless for us all, but there are no guarantees. (Thank goodness for that; imagine if they could just return you when you start wearing out earlier than they expected).
Nah; that’s not the role reversal that’s got me ruminating today. I am blessed with my daughters and they always look up to me as a woman of wisdom. Ha! I quite like and respect the word “elder,” but unfortunately the culture I was born into doesn’t have enough sense to see that as a good thing.
What I’m talking about today is having to get a new doctor. There you are, with the same doctor for eons, and then that doctor has the nerve to retire and what is a senior with a file four inches thick supposed to do?
There is no choice. You have to get a new doctor, and this time the doctor will be younger than you are. Maybe younger than your children. Maybe it will be the kid you drove out of your yard for stealing apples or the one who knew you thought she wasn’t good enough for your son.
In St. John’s we have some choices, but imagine being in a one-doctor town! “Now Aunt Sally,” says the fellow who used to come round hoping for one of your raisin buns, “just roll down your drawers and we’ll have a look.”
On the plus side however, newer — i.e. younger — doctors, know newer things, and could pick up on something the older doctor missed or never even thought about, and give you the most up to date health care.
It’s really all about familiarity, which can be a very comforting thing, or it can breed contempt. Whichever it is, there’s probably not a senior around today who will go to the grave with the same doctor they started with.
My doctor of some 19 years was younger than I am so I figured I had a while yet. I say “was” not because she is deceased, but because she retired and is no longer my doctor.
I had to get a new doctor. Who is to say that I will like/ be comfortable with the doctor my doctor sold her practice to? What are the alternatives? Find someone out of the phone book who is accepting new patients, and worry about that? Ask a friend who has already gone through it? Or try out the doctor who inherited me from my doctor?
Balance is a good thing. The doctor who inherited me is not young enough to make me blush (figuratively) and not old enough to retire before I’m permanently retired, if you know what I mean.
Anyway, between the jigs and reels, or head to feet, I’ve enjoyed my relationship with “Dr. Heather” (if “enjoyed” can be used in such an instance) and am optimistic about the new doctor who is also (so convenient for a senior’s memory) a “Dr. Heather.”
Writing this has made me think about how young doctors must feel, faced with dubious dowagers. To them I say: “Most of us really aren’t dubious at all, just adjusting to someone new.”
It’s all part of the cycle.
“There is no choice. You have to get a new doctor, and this time the doctor will be younger than you are. Maybe younger than your children. Maybe it will be the kid you drove out of your yard for stealing apples or the one who knew you thought she wasn’t good enough for your son.”