Dr. J.
Stopping the Clock
Let me introduce you to Dr. J., my dermatologist of 25 years.
Dr. J. does not waste a moment. I mean, literally, and without exaggeration.
Her office is a study in beige cinderblock. Its gatekeeper, a sullen receptionist who asks for your insurance information while glowering at you suspiciously. In the examining room, there are no soothing travel posters or brochures about the latest anti-aging skin care line, just cheap hand sanitizer and Dr. J herself, a woman in her 60s dressed in scrubs and armed with a liquid nitrogen spray gun. When you enter, concerned about that spot on your forehead, she eyeballs it, blasts it, and has your co-pay (cash or check, no credit cards) in her pocket in under a minute.
I respect her. She isn’t going to upsell you with biopsies. She just wants to see you again in a month if that problem area doesn’t resolve.
Her chit-chat is similarly spare. She doesn’t ask how are you doing, but where is the problem? Point to it. You do, and she says that’s a harmless keratosis, I’ll zap it.
Yesterday I went to see her for a brown spot on my cheek. “That’s a harmless keratosis, I’ll zap it,” she said, and proceeded to do just that. She had been with me for twenty-three seconds and had turned to leave when I was struck by an impulse and did the unthinkable.
“Wait,” I said.
Producing my phone, I opened it to a recent photo of my grandson. “Here’s Henry. He’s almost four months old.”
I have pulled this same stunt on good friends and family members, and am familiar with the momentary glance and the grunted “cute.” That, at the very most, was what I was going for. Dr. J spent several seconds looking at Henry. “Awwww. Adorable. Mazel tov,” she said, and then, hugged me. As I stood there, absorbing the enormity of the moment, she was already out the door, calling over her shoulder that the bill would be at the front desk.
After a quarter of a century, you think you’d know a person, but they can astonish you. It’s been twenty-four hours and the brown spot is gone, replaced by what looks like a third-degree burn, but I am happy to report that the mazel tov moment- in sharp contrast to Dr. J- lingers.