It Can’t Last

He wore brown corduroy pants tucked into tall, tan snow boots with fur trim. His jacket was brown too and he wore an argyle wool scarf knotted around his neck. He brushed past me to leave the waiting room for the parking lot, then bustled back in, a large textbook under his arm. Cold air from outside gusted around those of us waiting. The office was too hot.

I had arrived on time for my 12:30 appointment with the new doctor. Dismayed to find three people already in the waiting room, I asked the woman next to me how long she had been waiting.

She shrugged. “Half hour?” she said, her English accented. “We always have to wait here,” she added, gesturing to the other people in the room, “Dr. Awesome*, he takes his time.”

Great, I thought, balancing Trombone on my lap as I shrugged off my coat and held the clipboard and pen in my teeth. Damn health care. Damn bottom-of-the-barrel doctors.The woman next to me held her hands out. “I can hold him,” she said.

I obliged and she and her husband, who sat across the room with his friend entertained Trombone with smiles, endearments whispered in their native language and those clicks of the tongue that men like to use to communicate with babies.

After visiting Dr. Dude for the first and only time, I was reluctant to go back. I called a few doctors recommended to me by friends but none of them was willing to accept new patients. I checked our city’s list of physicians every few days and the same short list greeted me every time.

I had disqualified the four physicians on the list based on 1. location 2. specialty 3. location and 4. age. I guess that makes me ageist? But this doctor, he graduated from medical school in 1960! (the list of physicians tells you this) That made him at least 70 years old and I couldn’t see the point in going to a doctor who was probably at retirement’s door, knocking feebly with a quivering fist.

One day, as I checked the list, I thought: well, even if he DOES retire next week, at least he’s only 2 blocks away from our house. And he couldn’t be any WORSE than Dr. Dude. And even if he was just as bad as Dr. Dude, I wouldn’t have to take transit to get there. And he was ALWAYS listed as accepting new patients. So I called and made an appointment for Trombone’s 4 month checkup.

“Hellooooooo adorable baby!” One of the nurses came down the very narrow hallway into the waiting room. She squatted in front of us, Trombone by now back on my lap as the woman who had been holding him had gone in for her appointment. Trombone grinned.

“I looooooove baby toes,” she said, grabbing his foot and pretending to put it in her mouth. She had amazing false eyelashes and frosted long, curly hair. Trombone giggled.

“You’re here for your first appointment!” she said to him, then to me, with an apologetic tone,”one thing about Dr. Awesome? He takes his time.”

“Mmm,” I answered with as much restraint as I could muster having already spent 45 minutes in the waiting room with a baby whose attention span was being seriously compromised.

“He’s old-fashioned,” she explained, still wiggling Trombone’s foot, “he’s made house calls on Christmas day.”

“Wow,” I said.

“He does a real thorough appointment,” she said, “he likes to talk to you and find out what’s going on.”

My hard, tense heart began to warm to the good doctor.

“In fact,” she said, “he was MY doctor when I was pregnant with my son, who’s now 25. He’s got his own daughter now, my son, but I don’t see her very much. Had a disagreement with his wife. But I had some tests done when I was pregnant and I came in to get the results. And I waited out here and then I waited in the exam room but no one came in. Then the nurse came in and handed me the telephone. And it was Dr. Awesome, calling from his vacation in Hawaii! He didn’t want me to get the test results from his stand-in doctor!”

I felt a tear welling.

“That’s great,” I said.

“Yep,” she said, “but not as great as your adorable, smoochable, cutesy-footsy little boy!” Trombone grinned.

Two more patients came in from the cold, nodded at the receptionist and sat down. (it turned out they were both named George, information which delighted me.)

The man in the brown pants, jacket and boots was the doctor, I realized. The woman who had held Trombone came out of the exam room with her husband. They pinched Trombone’s cheeks and left.

The doctor came out of his office and took two files from the top shelf. “Come in,” he said, without looking up. The receptionist nodded at me.

His office was freezing. All the heat in the office was being used in the waiting area, I realized, and that was probably why he was dressed for the Arctic. He sat on a stool facing a wall of bookshelves that reached to the ceiling. I sat on the orange chair against the other wall. There was barely room for all three of us; the room was a closet lined with filing cabinets and shelving units.

The doctor had almost a full head of greying red hair and a beard. He wore glasses low on his nose. He didn’t especially look like he was in his ’70s.

“So,” he said. He had a faint British accent. “Little Trombone.”

He spun to face us and smiled the kindest smile I have ever seen. Trombone by now had given up grinning. He was tired, hungry and tired and also fed up and also? tired.

“Grumble,” said Trombone.

“What a strapping lad,” said the doctor. He clapped his hands in front of Trombone’s face. Trombone started. “Good,” said the doctor and wrote it down.

It was just a normal doctor’s visit. But that was it exactly: it was just a normal doctor’s visit. I felt comfortable. I felt heard. I felt like I haven’t felt at a doctor’s office in a long time.

He asked me if I had any problems. I mentioned my bunion which is not a bunion. He pulled off my boot and sock and looked at my foot.

“No, not a bunion,” he said, “let’s see…” He reached up to his bookshelf, plucked a book out of thin air and opened directly to the page on feet. “Here,” he pointed, “this is the tendon that’s giving you trouble.”

I mean, people. This is seriously the doctor I have been looking for my whole life.

(He said if my foot doesn’t feel better in a month to come back and he’ll order an x-ray.)

Then he asked how I had come to his office. I told him he was very close to our home.

He smiled. “I opened this practice in 1974,” he said. “Before that I worked in Winnipeg, before that as a surgeon in India, before that I lived in Britain. I’ve always wanted to work in a setting like this one. I’ve seen 3 generations of families in this office.”

“1974 is the year I was born,” was all I could think of to say.

“Indeed,” he answered.

His hand was cool and soft when he shook mine and said he was pleased to have met us.

We left half an hour after we’d entered his office and 90 minutes after our scheduled appointment but I was relaxed. Even Trombone had calmed down. Because Dr. Awesome takes his time.

* Not his real name.