(Sung to the Tune of Bye Bye Miss American Pie)

Bye Bye Little Miss Menopause’s Guy

Took an Uber Car to Urgent Care, the receptionist did cry,

Them good ole nurses were eating Apple-a-Day pie,

Singing ‘he had a fatal heart attack, but we don’t know why?’

The day the doctor died.

And that’s when his entire office staff asked me to attend his funeral. Not only that, they said I was the patient who visited the most frequently and therefore Dr. Danzig would have wanted me to give his eulogy.

Sure he would! The man who called in sick whenever he saw my name on his appointment log?

We always had a real love/hate patient/doctor relationship going on, but right now I was in shock. Here was a guy I had faith in and went to each and every time I found a lump of cancer, suffered a stroke, had a heart attack, diagnosed myself with Early Onset Alzheimers or had numbness in my hands.  Each and every time he’d calmly tell me I was overreacting, and that symptoms of death didn’t manifest as a reflexive cough, a scratchy throat, itchy skin, flaky scalp, or a stomach that hurt when I laughed too hard.

I can own it. Yes, I was the proverbial hypochondriac. But I finally had begun to relax. Believing that he was right, and that by always following his sage advice, I would remain amongst the living.

And now he departs this earth without any warning?

You know what that means, don’t you?  Everything he told me to do — how to eat, how to drink, how to exercise, how to breathe, how to sleep, how to blow my nose, was entirely wrong. It had backfired on him and it was only a matter of time I would suffer the same fate.

This is different than your hairdresser showing up with gray hair, your teller at First American Financial declaring bankruptcy, or your mechanic’s own car brakes failing, — this is your doctor, the professional health expert that you trust to know what he’s talking about suddenly DYING!!

OMG! Before I meet my maker, maybe I should give serious consideration to writing my doctor’s eulogy. Here’s what I’ll say….

Dr. Danzig — it’s me, Little Miss Menopause. The one who’d sit in your waiting room, wringing her (numb!) hands, planning her own funeral. And now I’m attending yours, and reminiscing over all the visits and phone calls we shared…

I’ll always fondly recall the following little games we played:

1. You’d leave the room after commanding me to undress. I’d panic, frantically trying to get that rattling, flimsy paper gown over my body in thirty seconds flat. And then, (I kid you not!) you’d strategically time your loud knocking on the door to the split second when my jeans/panties were off, but my thick woolen sweater was stuck over my head — so my voice muffled as I’d try to shout, “Give me one more minute!” You’d barge in and say, “What’s the difference if I see you naked standing vertical? I’m just going to gawk at you naked when you’re horizontal on my examination table?” You had a point, but still.
2. Speaking of your table. Remember how you once admitted your nurse is forgetful and might not always remember to change the tissue paper between exams and how your last patient had syphilis. You little prankster, you!
3. That time when I came in complaining that whenever I inhaled, I felt sharp pain in my lungs and you said, “The remedy for that is simple. Stop breathing.” What a card you were!
4. Our cute phone tag shenanigans! I’d be desperate to find out my blood work results, (certain I had leukemia) and you’d (I have zero proof of this, but I wouldn’t put it past you!) have your leisurely breakfast at your desk, peruse my normal hemoglobin count which you’d record in my chart, then tell your receptionist, “Hold all my calls. I have an important meeting.” Next you’d chuckle as you’d overhear your front office phone ringing incessantly. Oh what fun!
5. I’d bring freshly baked chocolate chip cookies to the lab, thereby bribing a technician to give me my blood results directly, breathe a sigh of relief they were fine and then proceed to hatch my plan. In your own sweet time, (bless your heart!) you’d finally return my phone calls, but hear the following outgoing message. “I’m sorry I missed you. If this is Dr. Danzig phoning, I have something urgent to tell you about glimpsing your wife in the restaurant where I was having lunch today. Leave me a message and I’ll get right back to you.” Then I’d go to a double feature at the movies and out for dinner. Wheeeee, good times!

Wait a minute, this really wasn’t a nice eulogy. It was more of a “cruelogy,” I thought as I imagined his bereaved family sobbing by his casket, none appreciating the humor in what I wrote. Serves him right though for always downplaying my symptoms, telling me they were nothing, that I was the boy who cried wolf who happened to wear dresses, and that everything was gonna turn out just fine.

A tear ran down my cheek as I imagined him experiencing his own chest pains, shortness of breath, left arm numbness, while optimistically telling himself it was probably just something he ate. Poor man believing his own propaganda. Doctor, heal thyself!

My phone rang and I answered immediately upon seeing the caller ID announcing Dr. Danzig. Really?

“Gotcha good this time!” he heartily laughed. “Now you know how I feel when you always insist you’re dying. And also — that’ll teach you to imply my wife is cheating on me!”

I seethed on the other end of the line. “You just wait, Dr. Danzig. I’m going to come in next time with bizarre mysterious symptoms and tell your entire waiting room that I was bit by a yellow-bellied sap sucker in your parking lot and it’s highly contagious.”

He chuckled, “Yes, but I saw you naked!”

Ugh, he had me there. But I was relieved he wasn’t a Dead Duck…. just perhaps a living Quack!

Readers — Do you have a healthy relationship with your physician? Do you wanna strangle him or do you love him “to death?”