Experience and Opinions

I have this married couple pair of doctors as my physicians. I have nothing but good things to say about them. All my experiences have been positive. They have always seen me on time, faxed prescriptions to the pharmacy who deliver them to me on an immediate basis. Call me at home to give me health updates as needed. Work with me on my drug requirements, respect my refusal to take certain drugs (statins) and are super encouraging, down to giving me night splints for my arthritis to avoid morning pain.

We've chatted on personal terms too - particularly on emigrant experiences which we share.

So I was at this dinner party a couple of nights ago and words were tossed around about this couple. All negative - by at least six others. How "arrogant" how "defensive" how "shoddy" were their personas as physicians. And the waiting times were appalling and how dare they only see ten patients a day and then, by gum, they were never there on time in the morning and always left early.

I had to double check we were talking the same doctors. And yes, we were. Now I can be Super Critic when asked, especially when it comes to medical people or customer service, etc. You can imagine the startled looks I got when I extolled the virtues of these doctors. I must have seen them maybe 10 times in the past couple months. And now I'm on weekly appointments to discuss my diabetes treatment and readings and also my blood pressure and readings and methodologies for coping with stress, regaining my physical competence and so on.

Mouths around the table fell open. No one else had a positive experience to report even at Health Committee meetings which these doctors attended. They were "abrupt" and "patronizing".

I saw one of the doctors today on my regular weekly appointment (no wait-time) and she was charming and helpful and so very kind and attentive.

I find it extraordinary that I'm just a solitary voice of approval amidst so much antagonism and disappointment. Usually it's the other way round.

Appearances do not Match Opinions

"Oh," sez I to my guests, "You'll have to excuse the weeds all over the lawn, Leo did a really patchy job on mowing."

"Gee," sez I on the morning of the following day, "Leo is going from bad to worse here, I've never seen such a shabby job as on this lawn".

"Good gawd," sez I apologetically that afternoon coming back from a trip, surveying all the wood stacked by the barn,"You'd think Leo would get cracking on all those weeds rather than cutting wood we won't need in the summer."

Today, Leo walks in. My guests are all gone now. I had come home last night to a ready-to-be-lit fire. (It's freezing here.) Thought at the time: Oh here he goes sucking up to me for the sloppy lawn job.

"I didn't like to come in when you had all those people in and out," sez Leo. "You need gas and mix for the mower and the whipper snipper, but I managed to borrow a mower to get some of it done. And by the way I got that old concrete basket ball base out of the dirt on the driveway which you kept hitting with your tires. Took me most of the day while you were away in town but it's gone now. I borrowed a special crowbar for that and kept hammering away. Can we go and get gas and mix tomorrow?"

*Skulk* *Blush*

Rumination

I was thinking. I do a lot of that. I'm over-analytical by nature. Not necessarily a good thing. Well a good thing when it comes to work and earning capacity I suppose. But a poor thing indeed when it comes to relationships.

I get argumentative, I get self righteous. I clamber on to the podium and while not going to the extent of pounding a finger into your chest I mouth off. A bit too much. I could excuse it and tell you I came from an autocratic household of origin where opinions outside of those of the patriarch were not tolerated and often were punished.

But that is a very fragile little hook on which to hang my request for your tolerance. Surely, you'd mutter, with the years of therapy you've had you'd be a little more tolerant of the opinions of others?

I find that as I age I hit a form of crabbiness I used to condemn in others who were older. A thin layer of disrespect for the beliefs and opinions of those who would dare to have the unmitigated gall to disagree with me.

I found this undesirable trait in myself last night while in a conversation with others about the Catholic Church and its disposal of properties for the settlement of lawsuits brought by the victims of paedophilia.

Yeah, we're all sick and tired of that particular issue. But I couldn't leave it alone, I climbed up on the box and proceeded to vent my opinion on the pope preaching poverty and servility while he swans about in custom made red leather shoes and glittery dresses and lives in a palace.

To a bunch of practising Catholics.

Who politely listened while exchanging tiny glances with each other.

Who were tolerant enough of me not to rebut.

And I had the horrifying thought, later, that now I've reached the age where I'm becoming that batty old eccentric with a purple streak of crazy running down her middle.

Just ignore her.

She's loopy but lovable.

Ouch.