Hey, Doc, I Still Have A Lot of Living to Do

摘要

I am in consultation with the orthopedist. "The steroid injections into your knee haven't helped," he tells me, "so we have to talk about going in surgically and mending the tear in the meniscus." "OK, then," I reply. "How soon can we do it? Let's not lose any time. I want to get on with my life." He looks up from his writing pad, stares at me, seems surprised. Then he replies gently, like a kind daddy speaking to a little girl. "Of course you do. Were you thinking of a trip? Maybe a cruise?" He is in his late 40s. I am old enough to be his mother. I am offended, but I say nothing. After all, he will be the man with the knife, the scalpel, the laser, the whatever, when I'm on the table. I do not want a hostile relationship with my surgeon. But it's obvious he's pigeonholed me into the last of the four patient categories that doctors use when writing a case history: young, middle-aged, senior, elderly. Did he glance at the birth date on my chart and think, "Well, I can fix her knee, but there's not much she can do anymore anyway"?