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Recently, I celebrated my birthday. I understand most of you don’t celebrate birthdays, because they’re childish. Actually, I agree with you. However, any day which causes friends and family to fight over who’s buying my meals, and especially drinks, is okay with me. Add to the fact that, some folks feel it necessary to send me gift-cards and cash, and birthdays become great. Frankly, if any of you feel strongly about it, I’ll still accept large cash gifts. I’m doing this for you, not me. See how generous Mr. Ohh! is.

The thing about this particular year as opposed to the others, is I have reached a milestone. Suddenly, all the doctors who where all older than I, are suddenly younger. Those old guys who I’ve seen since I was in my twenties are all gone. Only to be replaced by twenty-somethings. This was unexpected.

And More Confused

I was under the impression that doctors, both men and women were people. This does not seem to be the case. If it were, they would age at the same rate as I do. I age a year at a time, much to my chagrin. On the other hand, doctors are released in waves. Thus, making them not people. Then again, maybe it’s me who’s not a regular person. Perhaps none of you age slowly either. If that’s the case, don’t tell me. Just send over the birthday cash, and we’ll leave it at that.

Either way, I’m not sure how this all happened. Because of my asthma, I’ve always seen a few doctors. When I was younger, they all seemed to be ancient. Some even appeared to be mummified. Over the past few months I’ve been receiving letters that those folks have moved on. I’m not sure why. I mean, where do you go after mumification?

I want my mummy

I agree that after a thousand years or so you go to a museum to be gawked at. But for this to happen, there’s that whole tomb, burial, and being dug up thing. I’m reasonably sure, you can’t be serving patients from inside a stone sarcophagus, buried under tons of rock. And don’t talk to me about Zoom Meetings. Wi-Fi underground is terrible.

Anyway, whether decaying or not, all my previous doctors have abandoned me. Their replacements are young punks barely out of diapers. Oh My! Did you all hear that? I even sound like an old codger. If you ever hear me say, “Get off my lawn!” Please kill me. I’ve gone beyond rational thought. But all this is beside the point.

Get to the point

My point, and I’m finally getting to it, is that doctors somehow seem to be released in waves. Not every year either. I figure a wave hits every fifteen years or so. When I was a kid, they seemed to be recently released. As an adult, they were all about ten years after release. They all disappeared after a while saying they were changing their specialty. I don’t believe any of that. They went back to the mothership to be electronically speed aged.

My next group were from a couple years after the aging. These were definitely seniors and all were seeking retirement. Yet they never did. This sentiment was only there to lull my slightly older self into a sense of false security. And they’re very good at this. They take years becoming my friend, even remembering I have three kids and a cat. Why is it always the cat? I’m drinking heavily to try to forget that freaking animal, and my doctors keep reminding me. All that wasted alcohol!

This brings us up to now. I’m getting ready to celebrate my milestone birthday, and all my doctor friends leave me. The new ones are all fresh out of their first wave. This wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t suddenly change everything. Well, not everything. They still ask about my cat every time I show up. Sheesh!

I never called it that

The first thing they changed was all the names. I used to have a doctor that pretty much took care of my needs. Dr. Boss handled everything from head colds to sore feet. If my problem took too much time away from his hobbies, he sent me to a specialist. But that hardly ever happened.

The letter I got replacing him said he was moving on to become a rheumatologist. I guess he takes care of rooms now. I always thought that was a decorator. But what do I know? Either way, if any of you have an issue with your rooms, call Dr. Boss. He’s very good. At least he was with people. I’ve no idea how he is with rooms.

When Dr. Boss left, I was forced to find a new head-to-foot doctor. These don’t exist in the new wave. Doctors don’t take care of people anymore. They take care of specialties.

To replace him I had to pick an Internal Medicine specialist. These folks are great if you hurt your foot or get a cold in your nose. But after you get a bit beneath the skin, you have to go to a different specialist. Why? I’m not really sure.

Well isn’t that special?

 I knew a little bit about specialists because of my asthma. When Dr. boss couldn’t help, I went to my lung doctor, Dr. Shultz. Of course he disappeared as well. I thought it was no big deal. I had an internal specialist. He would take care of my internals. Lungs are internal, right? True, but internal medicine doesn’t take care of things inside your chest, Silly me! All this time I thought I knew was what internal meant. Well, it might mean that, just not with the new wave of doctors.

Now, I have Dr. Redman. She’s a pulmonologist, and doesn’t want to be called a lung doctor. Pulmonology covers the heart, lungs, and all the crap in between. I thought, “Cool!” Now I don’t need a heart doctor any more. Nope!

It seems the pulmonology part of the heart isn’t the same as the cardiac part. I need two doctors for one heart? Well, that’s not true either. The cardiologist handles the whole heart.

So, what part does the pulmonologist deal with? The part of the heart that breathes. Well, which part is that? I learned in anatomy; the lungs did the breathing. Not anymore. Now my heart does it too. I’m so confused.

Now I’m feeling nauseous

This whole thing gave me a belly-ache. Sadly, in the new wave, those don’t exist. It sure existed to me, but what do I know? In the language of new; The whole thing gave me reflux. Who knew? Either way, reflux sure feels a lot like a belly-ache. But those aren’t internal either.

When speaking internally; once you get past the heart and lungs everything else is Gastro. Now, there’s a whole bunch of stuff in there, but nothing important enough to earn individual specialists. They lump it all together under one specialty. The thing is, all he really cares about is my colon.

My special birthday also earned me something else. All of a sudden everyone wants to give me a colonoscopy. If you don’t know what that is, consider yourself very lucky.