I saw this “Speed Bump” comic, by Dave Coverly, the other day and it reminded me of a doctor I had.

About 10 years ago, maybe more, I had this thing removed and the doctor thought it could be melanoma – it wasn’t, but he had me go to the oncologist. And the oncologist had me get a CT scan often. She kept me going and said, “Keep going until the insurance runs out.” And that explained our U.S. medical system in a nutshell. “Keep putting yourself under that harmful radiation, until we don’t get paid anymore.”

I bring this up because yesterday I had to go to get an MRI. I have a hernia and the doc sent me to get an MRI to be sure that’s what it is before they operate or do whatever it is they do.

I worried about it all weekend because it’s so claustrophobic and sort of willed it to be where I go feet in first. I kept thing, “maybe I can go in feet first.” And know what? That’s what happened – I went in feet first! So my head was sticking out and I was totally fine with it. And good thing too, because it literally took a half hour or more in the machine! The tech said she wanted to do a “slice” or something like that, so it took long. I can’t image being confined in that tube head first for a half hour.

Anyway, I had another other doctor one time that wanted me to give myself shots for an allergy, which is gone now, because I don’t think it was an allergy at all. Anyway, he insisted and insisted, I kept telling him I didn’t need the shots. When I told him the deductible was very high, after he was trying to force me to take the shots for so long a time, he stopped on a dime and said, “Forget it, you don’t need this.” It’s all about money.

Back to the oncologist. She was fabulous and what I mean by that was she was loud and big and out there, sort of like Maude, she in fact, looked like Maude, and she was all in white, as doctor’s are, but she wore red high heels. And she would float through the complex with a big smile on her face and waved and seemed to know everyone. She was a star. I haven’t seen her for years, but I remember she liked my comics and would always ask about them and how it was going, etc.

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