He had had three primary care physicians over the course of his life.

Three relationships: One doctor was much older, one was his age and one was younger. Now in his mid seventies he was probably on his last and youngest.

As a young boy, his mother had taken him to a Doctor Tobin. She seemed to take him there often, he recalled, as much for her own anxiety as any thing he was suffering from. The waiting room was small and dark with a well worn black plastic couch that made noise when you sat down on it. There always seemed to be other children waiting, sitting next to their mothers or in their laps; father’s never present.

The nurse would come out in a stiff starched white uniform (it was the 1950s) and take him into a small examination room. He would hop up on the exam table and the doctor would come in.

The doctor and his mother did all of the talking, he sometimes felt that he was only a delivery boy, delivering a small body to be poked, measured and examined. The doctor would write a prescription and send my mother out of the exam room reassured that her boy would live to see another day.

There would be a some twenty year gap before he would enter a doctor’s office again for a regular check-up. He would stay with this doctor for the next thirty years…,through the early years of his marriage the arrival of children and ultimately his retirement from work.

He always called him Paul, rather than Doctor. Paul was a man of small statute and quiet demeanor, much like the patient himself.

He always liked Paul, he was not one of those doctors that made you feel like thank god you came to him because now he can save your life , make you well. He was modest, always assumed you were always teetering on the edge of excellent heath. He was always pleasant always conversational and most of all had a great sense of humor.

Over the years that he was with Paul It became apparent that he was a candidate for diabetes since his mother had been a diabetic. When Paul diagnosed him with type two diabetes he prescribed as series of medication which he still takes to this day. Paul would encourage him to have more exercise and less sugar in his diet. Generally he try to comply but as he got older it was harder and harder to do .

During the years with Paul he would come in for quarterly check ups and they would spend much of the time in those checkups…. Laughing and talking about women ,wives ,children, politics. Any anxiety he might’ve had walking into those doctor visits with, were all gone when he left. The laughter , shared with Paul was the best medicine he could get.

He used to say to Paul you know someday “if I stay with you long enough you gonna have to give me bad news. I want you to know I plan on quitting the week before that meeting.”

Well what happened was Paul beat him out the door before he could really give him any bad news. He retired leaving him with a need to find a new doctor. It felt like the death of a soul mate.

The third doctor he had was just a couple of years older than his son. He had the choice of two doctors who inherited Paul’s patients, one was just graduating from medical school and one was John who had more years of experience. He chose John.

He never felt comfortable with meeting new people until they had had their first shared laugh. He soon discovered that even though there was a 40 year age gap between him and John they shared a common ground of humor and concerns. He liked the kid, he liked his energy his willingness to share what was going in this young doctor’s life. He had heard similar concerns from his own son and felt like John was a son too. 

He kept track of the progression of his diabetes , made wise suggestions for changes and modifications in therapies and through it all found many shared things to laugh together.

Given his experience with these three doctors over the span of his life his counseled his own children to find doctors who they could laugh with and who they could call by their first name.

He did know though that unlike with Paul, he would be unable to quit this doctor before he got bad news!