My Lyme Doc

Coherence may not be happening here. Work with me.

So that their names won't show up here when they're Google searched, the man you know as my Lyme doctor is "Doc 1." We also have "Doc 2."

We went to Doc 1's yesterday. I signed in and sat down with D. The receptionist then asked me to fill out a few papers on a clip board. I took it and sat down, only to see that it was paperwork for a new doc, Doc 2, who had started working with my Lyme doc. So I took it back and pointed out that I was here for Doc 1 instead. No big deal, right?

"Oh. Doc 1 passed away. I'm sorry. Is this the first you heard?"
*mouth-open stare*
"He had a heart attack about 7 weeks ago. We sent the info to everyone, but some of the papers came back to us."
"Uhhh. So I'm seeing [hold up clipboard]?"
"Yeah. I'm sorry you didn't know..."
*head nod* "Thank you."

Suddenly needing to be ready to meet and work with a new doctor, I held off the crying part until we drove away 5 hours later. But I skipped a lot of the paperwork I was supposed to be filling out, given that I couldn't even fill out the part about when my birthday is.

So now we have Doc 2. He's extremely nice, also a Lyme specialist. He'd gone over my charts the previous day and was totally ready. We got the Lyme part taken care of, much like we normally would with Doc 1. But he also had a few suggestions as to what might play into my having a baby - so we added a lot of blood tests. And we'll go back sooner than usual - 5 weeks this time - so we can go over all those results.

I had a bit of trouble with the IV. Typically, I get one stick. Blood gets drawn from there, then the IV goes into it. But with all we drew yesterday, my blood clotted before we had it all. So we went with the other arm, which once again clotted. My hand had nothing plump, so we went back to the original arm, in a different vein. Got it done though. Got a Vitamin C IV yesterday.

Vit C pulls down your blood sugar, so D went to Wendy's and helped me eat one-handed during this. In fact, it was in the 50's when we left and I felt bad until I was asleep.

As usual, I had good conversations with the other Lymies - all of us sitting in recliners, getting our various IV's. One, in fact, lives in the next burb over, where D's office is. We exchanged contact info.

(Sidenote, but with all of us lasso'd to our recliners, D runs around opening drink bottles, passing out chocolate-covered nuts, and taking Wendy's orders. He's well-liked.)

So all that, and a $500 bag of pills, and we're driving home. And finally can cry. We'd had a relationship with Doc 1 for well over a year. Nice man. Always laughing about my 2-mile list of questions. Jovial. Last time we were there, he sat in one of the empty recliners talking to us for a while.

We were surprised, months ago, when an appointment was cancelled at the last moment. Doc 1 had needed surgery to work on a heart problem - a birth defect of some sort. But we were relieved at the re-scheduled appointment to hear him say he was feeling a lot better. Apparently it was just a few days after we saw him last that he had a heart attack. He was somewhere near his late 50's.

Being a doctor is a good thing to begin with, but to specialize in Lyme is to be a pioneer. Professionally, it comes with a lot of risk - political things. And you can't just go off the teachings of others. With Lyme, the doctors are still in the middle of figuring it out. Similar to treating cancer I guess. How ironic to spend your career saving lives, only to die young.

There's a lot of us that'll miss him.