The Doctor’s Office

John complained in the waiting room about the $500 fee that first-time patients must pay.
“Don’t worry about it, John,” said the wife.
John fidgeted in his chair. One of his crutches fell. The brother picked it up. I pretended to read a fashion magazine.
“Five hundred dollars…” John lamented.
“I’ve got it, John,” the wife said gently.
After a few minutes of silence, John announced that his stomach was really hurting.
The wife pulled an envelope from her purse and removed two pills from it. She handed them to him, along with a bottle of water.
“Which one’s the morphine?” He asked. She pointed to one of the pills.
Fuck, I thought. Morphine. That’s SERIOUS. I returned to the photos of winter accessories.
The doctor walked out of his office, past the waiting room, handed something to the receptionist, then returned to his office. John, his wife, and his brother followed him with their eyes.
“I can’t do this anymore,” John said. The wife and the brother said nothing. Maybe they’ve heard his despair too many times already.
Then John turned to me. “Is this your first visit?”
“No,” I said. “I’ve been seeing Dr. Rona for 5 or 6 years now.”
“And the price went down the more you saw him?” asked John.
“Yeah, it’s $500 at first, but then it’s $90 per visit…and you get some back from OHIP.”
“And did he help you?”
“Yes. I used to have high cholesterol. It’s because of him I lost 40 lbs.”
John rolled his eyes, like dropping a few pounds was NOTHING compared to his trauma, which is probably true. But when you’re 20, chubby, and your sense of self-worth is EXPECTED to be based on your abilitity to attract and reproduce with men, and a doctor helps you turn your life around by telling you which vitamins to take, damn straight Dr. Rona has me as a life-long devotee.
Despite feeling slightly insulted, I figured John needed any hope he could get right now. “My whole family comes to him. My 90 year-old grandfather swears by him,” I said.
That seemed to appease John. That, or the morphine was kicking in.