LOVE/HEALTH

Sometimes, It’s the Best Prescription for What Ails You

A hot doctor can cure most anything

I’m currently crushing on my doctor. Big-time.

Like, major! Like, OMG, He’s. So. Hot! Like, He’s sooooooo Extra — Like, if Extra was a good thing! The BEST thing!!

Follow me back a couple of years. Major health scare — it’s hell getting old, ain’t it? — necessitating a brief hospital stay and new meds.

I needed a specialist — and I turned to a young woman of substantial pedigree. Duke School of Medicine substantial. Big, big deal. After my first visit, I knew I was in the best of hands.

Dr. C. set up a “care plan”, and set about curing me of my ailment. We visited regularly in her office, and she sent me to the lab every so often. She was thoughtful and serious; professional to the Nth degree and didn’t smile much. But I progressed under her watchful eye.

Even though I’ve never met a bad pun I didn’t willingly embrace — I’m always the one going for the laugh in the most serious of situations — I didn’t mind Dr. C.’s professional poise at all. She was focused on my health, and — bottom line — that was all that mattered.

Then, COVID came calling. Hospitals, which were ramping up their ERs to deal with the pandemic, closed their doors to those of us who were not in imminent danger of dying.

Which made me feel good, in a sort of sickly strange way. Dr. C. started scheduling Zoom visits. And she told me I was going to be OK.

Guess it’s safe to assume from this lengthy intro that I was crushing on Dr. C. Nope. I loved her to pieces for her knowledge and attention to the finer details of my well-being. But there was no love connection, as they say.

That happened soon enough when doctors’ offices started opening up recently. Through no fault of her own, I had to move on from my relationship with Dr. C. Literally. Because I had recently moved 400 miles Down South and Dr. C. convinced me that Zoom Medicine probably isn’t the best way to treat a patient, long term.

So, being one of those Big Boomer Babies, who says she’s open to anything but actually is afraid of everything, I knew I had to get another doctor. But I’m often pretty slow on the uptake. I dillied; I dallied. I called Dr. C.’s office — more than once — and convinced her nurse to renew my prescription.

Dr. C., however, being the excellent doctor that she is, finally put an end to it all. She didn’t mince words. We had to stop seeing one another.

“You really need a physician near you,” she said. Cut me to the quick, that one.

“OK,” I said. My tummy did a few backwards somersaults when I realized Dr. C. was moving on. From me.

I know, I’m slower than molasses at telling a tale, but here comes the good part. Really, in fact, the best part, which sets my tummy tingling and lights my cheeks all aglow.

I scouted around. Checked references. I found Dr. M., who seemed to fit the bill. I went for it and made an appointment. I could do this. It wasn’t as if I were committing to online date or anything. The patient questionnaire that I filled out asked nothing about my preference in Pinot Noir nor my favorite variety of daffodil. For the record, I prefer the yellow ones.

I was a tad tense, but willing. Yeah, I dressed up a smidge for our first meet-up. Nothing wrong with making a good first impression.

But it really wasn’t Yours Truly who took the checkered flag on what I regarded as a “test drive”. In fact, I barely made it around the metaphorical block before I was smitten — like a kitten.

As my Nana would say, I near about dropped my teeth when Dr. M. entered the exam room. I loved everything about him.

He was funny; he was confident; he’d done his residency in D.C. and we swapped snowstorm anecdotes. He instantly put me at ease.

And did I mention he’s hot? Hotter than July, to put it mildly. Oh, Honey — you know that’s hot!

I haven’t had a serious crush in more than 40 years. And it’s pretty ridiculous that I’m swooning now over the man who’s responsible for keeping my little ol’ heart going pitter-patter.

But also a little fun, in an imaginary kind of way.

At this point in my life, crushing on Dr. M. — the guy who has my life in his gorgeous hands — is a good thing. Call me sexist, but love means never having to say you’re sorry. And I’m not. At all.