New Doc, Same Tune

Made the aquaintence of a new family practioner this day. Seems like a nice enough young fellow even though he went through the usual litany of "at your age."

This means that no matter how healthy I might be and feel, there MUST be something wrong with me because of my age, so ON WITH THE TESTS.

Not that they're a hassle, not really. I like shooting the breeze with smart people and talking to someone with a decent education is hard to find at the range or a Wal-Mart parking lot, so I take their tests and what the hell. Reinforces the fact that I'll live to be 90'ish and I do a bi-annual checkup every year just to be sure there's nothing festering, etc. Had to find a new sawbones here in Florida and Lisa cheked things out and took us to one of the the strangest little towns I've seen. The roads were all of 20 feet wide, snaking through commercial and residential properties and reminded me of a modern and far cleaner version of an old town in Pennsy that we used to cut through on our way camping. Narrowsburg. I shit you not.

So I go through all of the cough, inhale, stand on your heels your toes, recite the French Foreign Legion Pledge (what, your doc doesn't do this?), and swear to us you're not contemplating suicide because your mental health is really really important too. I fill out the forms and the medical history and am embarassed that there's not all that much to see because I know how much the medical profession likes reading about disease. I'm careful not to hurt his hand when we shake, chat up alla the nurses and Lisa gets a kick out of it all.

He wants to see me back in a month or so and talk about colon cancer. Old people get colon cancer a lot. And there was a lump in my neck...most people call it a muscle and every doc I've ever been to since the age of 16 points it out and says muscles aren't supposed to be that way...and he also wants to check my testosterone level so that should be fun. Last year it was like 800 nanograms per deciliter and if it's still that high he like all the rest will want to know if I'm taking suppliments.

I'll say no sir, I'm Italian. And that will make him unhappy because he won't be able to prescribe man-power-pills, but hey, someday I'll probably need them.

In my 90's probably.