A Medical Mystery

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The world is replete with physicians, and it wouldn't be difficult finding someone else to look up this and down that and thump my back and chest a few dozen times. I would miss the friendship, for he had followed my career from radio to local television and on to the network as carefully as he had followed my liver functions. (Perhaps, looking back, there was a true correlation between one and the other.) And I would miss the small talk. But, on the bright side, a checkup might last a half hour now instead of half the day.

What really bothers me is the loss of my life. That file, surely gathering dust in some unknown cabinet, tells my story as completely as any biography might.

"So…" the new doctor says, "have you ever had this sensation before?"

"um….I dunno."

"Do you recall when your blood pressure began to rise?"

"er…not really." Perhaps it is just as well. I am now what I am, not what I have been. It's as simple as that. Treat what I have, not what I used to have.

I just miss the old me sometimes. And as time passes, the only true tangible connection is lost.