Mother gets a little helper

With the ominous words of Jagger and company’s late 1960s song lurking, I pay an early afternoon visit to the rural clinic where “I am not a doctor, just call me Bob” takes care of me, to see if he can offer anything to help me calm down and sleep at night. I feel so guilty that God is not enough to get me through, but I am so wound up emotionally and I looked so awful from lack of sleep in the last pictures we took at the nursing home on Christmas that I decided...  

Steps Needed to be Taken

This man is not like Dr Kutz, the neurosurgeon who removed our son’s brain tumor and who arranged for $90,000 of radiation treatment that our son was never charged for.

Not a doctor Bob is not tall, and he does not, as our son noted so accurately about Dr Kutz, “light up the room” when he comes in.

He is not so handsome, like Dr Cavagnol, the surgeon who removed the axillary mass but could not complete the operation on Dec. 13, that I must look at his shoes in order to hear what he saying.

No indeed. One can look full into Not a Doctor Bob’s homely face, which is round and fat and looks a little like a toads, and be reminded of a comfortable couch or chair that you can nestle down in and relax with. He took my hand when he sat down and held it. He hugged me with both arms, when we stood up to leave. He gave me a 6-week sample of one drug and prescribed two others, as needed, to get me through the day and night. And he did not charge me for the visit.

I am aghast at the idea of taking these drugs – I feel guilty that I even need these drugs (after all, I have God, why do I need pharmaceuticals?), but even so, I definitely need something to help me sleep. Just take it as you need, he reassures me. It will get you over the hump.

Okey dokey, Just Call Me Bob, I’ll trust you…. As long as these keep me calm and together and I don’t start hallucinating and run into Alice...

I’ll be OK.