Doctor Appointments

Once when a friend of mine and I were trying to schedule a date for our next luncheon, I glanced at her pocket calendar.  It was packed full of penciled-in engagements.  When I expressed envy over her busy social calendar, she shook her head and laughed.  "They're all doctor appointments," she said. "If I didn't have these appointments, I'd have no social life at all."

Now that's just sad.  But true for so many of us retirees.

I am in the process of follow-up doctor appointments concerning my most recent visit to the gynecologist.  And I hate it.  I don't necessarily dread the results of these appointments and tests.  I dread the time spent in that medical environment.  That special smell encountered when you enter a medical facility. The out-of-date magazines you're almost afraid to touch because someone with symptoms far worse than yours may have sneezed on them.  The looks on the faces of others in the waiting room.

I took my friend Nancy to some of her chemotherapy appointments.  The waiting room overflowed with people in various stages of the disease.  Some had hair.  Some wore cute hats and scarves.  The "society type" ladies often wore heavy makeup and slightly crooked wigs. Some were chatty, but most were eerily quiet.  The look in their eyes was universal, dull.  No light. No joy.  The look of acceptance, fear, exhaustion, and worry.  Being sick hurts, both physically and mentally.

I don't know what is in store for me.  My gynecologist left me feeling  hopeful.  I'm one of the lucky ones with good health insurance.  So, I will have all these tests.  I will pencil-in my appointments.  I will be poked and prodded.  I will take care of whatever ailment is plaguing my old body.

And no matter what the diagnosis/ prognosis, I will take that Thanksgiving cruise with my family this coming November.

Getting old is not for the weak.