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Heart to Heart

Those Were The Days
San Diego Jewish Times, April 21, 2006                                                       .

By Gert Thaler

SAN DIEGO, Calif.—

All of a sudden an integral part of my life has taken a sharp turn and the curve in the road that I have encountered shakes me up considerably.

With the departure from their practice of medicine, four of my doctors have done gone and left me. High and dry. Deserted. To cope with finding my own way through a maze of office procedures that I have not endured for years, and the added indignity of every time I check in at the new front desks I must spell my first and last name plus give my birth date. Somehow the announcement of those two things leaves me with the feeling of anonymity in a town where I grew up long before there was an Interstate 5, pulse tone phone systems or 31 flavors of ice cream.

Now I am identified by the last four numbers of my social security and while everyone is most polite, I emerge as nothing more than the pressing down of a few keys on a keyboard and an invitation to have a seat and wait my turn.

Lately I have been experiencing some new aches and pains that make my bed look most attractive in the middle of the day, accompanied by a choice of ibuprofen, Tylenol and finally a week’s indulgence with Celebrex. Results? Minimal. Aches remain.

So, I finally decided to share it all with two of my “new” doctors. “New” because since four of my “old” MD’s have closed up shop I had to go shopping for new faces. Not that I didn’t find competent replacements. I have been fortunate and I like each of my new picks. I realize it is unimportant whether or not I like the person; after all, it is competence that rules my choices, but it helps a lot if our personalities click, and so far, so good.

Having lived here all my wonderfully charmed life, in my youthful days when my mother felt I needed doctoring, a phone call would bring Dr. Black, San Diego’s preeminent pediatrician of the 1920s, to our house. He would travel from his Fourth Ave. Hillcrest neighborhood to our North Park house and then phone a day later to check up on his young patient.

When I became a parent, my own children were treated by Dr. Belford, son-in-law of Dr. Black, in the same offices. It was common for this wonderful doctor to phone mothers as a follow-up on the well being of his patients so that the doctor/patient routine continued.

Those were the days. Probably the same kind of methods followed in lots of other towns across our nation experienced by people who now live in San Diego.

Along with having moved from other towns, those same people and I have now bonded together in a common problem. Newcomers have far more decisions to make than I have had in finding new doctors. They are faced with the dilemma of finding a dentist, a beauty parlor, a barber and an auto mechanic they can trust.

Household help is easier to find than medical help. Today in San Diego there are a multitude of doctors, many specializing in the same fields of medicine. Not all doctors are the genius species. One cannot always hit pay dirt.

Because I am quite content seeing my dentist, Dr. Ronald Rosenblatt, as little as possible. When I do drop in at his Clairemont office, he is taken aback and knows I must be in dire need of his services. It is the only medical office I evade as much as possible. Don’t ask me why. He is one of the kindest, professional, expert dentists I know. Give me a hysterectomy, pull out my toenails, but steer me clear of the dental office. I know it is all in my head, but my head is attached to the rest of me and opening my mouth for other than hearing myself talk is more frightening to me than walking across a freeway at peak hour. And, the funny thing is whenever I have to see Ronnie (I’ve never called him that) I keep getting surprised at the lack of any painful treatment. Go figure!

My big problem now is with the new offices I am visiting. No longer am I able to pick up a phone in the morning and ask (demurely) for an immediate appointment to treat the pain I have been putting up with for two weeks. It’ll usually be another two weeks before an opening is found. I moan to the receptionist that living every day with the pain is tough on me. So they find an opening for eight days later. Since the moaning doesn’t produce better results, I sulk and in a submissive tone I bless them for such consideration and hang up and wait for eight days to pass. (Of course, sometimes the pain passes but I keep the appointment anyway just to remind the staff and the doctor what I look like in person).

 At one time my address book held the phone numbers of 10 different medical men. A female doc, an eye specialist, a heart expert, a pulmonary wizard, that dentist, a dermatologist, an allergist and rheumatic practitioner, a holistic guru (also acupuncturist), and an internist. The list has dwindled. For the first time I am in the hands of a female MD, and she and I hit it off instantly. My pulmonary doc moved from La Jolla to Del Mar and there was no change, happily. But none of the new choices have yet to see me totally bare, unclothed, in the raw. At this age it will probably be a cold day in August when I need to face that ordeal.

So far so good.

The aches and pain continue. I have resigned myself to the aging process and the expecting of bodily changes from youthful hikes and bike riding. Now a simple walk around the block will suffice, and then I have to drag myself out to accomplish it. Aging gracefully? Whoever said that must have been under 30.

It’s the phoniest statement I have ever heard.