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Chip Brown.

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Dr Strange Glove

One of my favorite Dr Seuss Books is "Sam I Am". For those of you that aren't literate minded, Sam I Am is an epic tale of young Sam and his quest to avoid green eggs and ham.

Just like Sam, I have made it my life's quest to avoid not green eggs and ham but doctors. Oh, doctors themselves aren't so bad it's what they want to do to you. My doctor is a really cool guy who has a sense of humor to rival my own.

I once got it in my head I was passing away. No kidding. I had a terrible pain in the neck, numbness on the left side of my face and several other horrible symptoms. In my effort to avoid my doctor I got my trusty medical encyclopedia and diagnosed myself. I had me down as a candidate for lockjaw, tetanus, cancer and several other things.

When my wife finally dragged me off to the doctor, I explained to him it had to be one of these 12 fatal things I had read about. He asked me how long I had been like this and I answered four months. Without missing a beat he tells me, can't be any of those things. Wow, I felt better already I hadn't been there 10 minutes and he had ruled out several fatal diseases. So I asked him how he came upon this medical diagnosis looking at his diploma on the wall. And he imparted this wisdom to me:

"If you had any of those things this long you'd be dead by now."

Twelve years in medical school and this is what he comes up with? Cost me a bunch of money to find I had a cracked rib that had healed back wrong. A small price to pay to find out I wasn't going to pass on.

But then he asks me, "How about a physical?"

Apparently he wasn't happy at finding a non lethal cause for my pain, he wanted to delve deeper into my anatomy. And I mean deeper! Just below his medical license on the wall, hung a box of rubber gloves. Now, any man facing a physical knows this isn't a good sign.

When he left the room I fled the scene, stopping only long enough to give the lady at the window my insurance card. As I made my way quickly across the parking lot, I could hear footseps behind me, and what sounded like latex gloves being snapped over someone's hand.

I mean to tell you I hadn't moved that fast in months. Not only had he convinced me I wasn't passing away, he took a man who could barely walk into the office and made him run back out. Yes, he is a miracle worker.

Now I know that one day he's going to catch me and tie me up and give me a physical, but it isn't anytime soon, I can tell you that. He keeps promising me that it won't hurt. Yeah right, when a doctor says it isn't going to hurt, you can bet the last patient that had it done, bit through their own lip.

But I guess I like my doctor. Like I said he has a great sense of humor, everytime I show up he remarks how surprised he is that I'm still alive. He is joking, right?

The doctor I had before this one I hated. He had no bedside manner and wouldn't have known a joke if I had put one in a rubber glove and given him a physical with it. He was so transparent I could see through his ploys easily.

When he came in the room he would remark, "Not feeling too well are we?" What kind of question is that? Do people load up and go to the doctor because they wake up one day and feel so good they can't stand it? "Doc, I feel too good, give me a physical." I finally figured out that he couldn't remember who I was and used this line to try to figure it out.

Best he could tell me about my illness was it was in my head. Yeah, I knew that already, it was in my head and up the side of my neck. Then it dawned on me, he meant I was crazy.

And he was always checking my records. I would go in with a stumped toe and he would have to check my records. I always wondered if he wanted to see if I had a history of stumped toes. Later I realized he was just looking to make sure I paid him last time, before he gave me an x-ray.

And the best diagnosis he ever gave me was, "if it doesn't clear up in a week come back in." This of course in the language of doctors means, "I haven't the foggiest what's wrong, let's see if it goes away on it's own.

So, I guess this is the penalty of having good insurance. I have one doctor who charges me for nothing and another who chases me with rubber gloves. I kind of like the one with rubber gloves, he cured me. Ever since he told me what he did with those gloves I haven't felt the need to go to the doctor again.

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